Miguel loves Philly, and really loves L.A.

Whether sitting still or running through an airport, new-school soul singer, composer, and producer Miguel - aka Miguel Jontel Pimentel - is in constant motion. During our two interviews, the Angelino sounds ready to run to the next thing and be at the next place, especially if it happens to be Philly, where he played at the Roots' Welcome America July 4 showcase and will be at Theatre of Living Arts on Friday, followed by Atlantic City's Borgata on Aug. 8.

Miguel also famously did a last-minute gig at Northern Liberties' intimate Ortlieb's in October 2013 when his gig with Drake at Wells Fargo Center was canceled due to a major technical glitch.

"Ortlieeeeeeeeeb's!" he exclaims. "I love that spot. . . . I love your town - what's not to love? - and not just because of the music scene and the guys in the Roots and Diplo. You have a great food scene and an artist scene. I have experienced hanging out in Philly after-hours spots until 6 in the morning, the same way I might in Los Angeles. I'm not sure where we went, but they didn't play all the trap-crap I hear everywhere else. I wish I could experience every city the way I have Philly."

Philly might be a home away from home for this San Pedro native, but dirty Los Angeles is the subject of Wildheart, the new album that's the centerpiece of his Philly and A.C. shows. Not a slick, soulful city of angels - Miguel's fantastic L.A. is filled with rugged R&B; new-wave rock-outs (courtesy of cats such as Lenny Kravitz, who plays guitar on several cuts); and sex moments, personal and public, like "The Valley," which touches down hard on porn industry dealings.

"It's my love letter to Los Angeles," says Miguel, running through the airport in Austin, Texas, on his way to a gig. "As a Pedro guy, yeah, man, I'm thinking about twilight in Los Angeles - it's the beauty, the hope, and the desperation, the chaos personified. . . . That gorgeous twilight is a contrast to all that goes on there, bad and good."

He stops himself. As a song-scribe who has written delicately elegant songs for his own albums, like "Adore," the towering smash single from 2012's Kaleidoscope Dreams, Miguel is nothing if not focused about putting emotions to words and the right words in the right place.

"I say 'contrast' because 'juxtaposition' doesn't quite say it all. That's too passive aggressive. I think a topic such as this - the interpersonal workings of a city - is a challenge to me and my listeners."

Some of his topics on Wildheart just happen to be brusquer, harder, and naughtier than those on Kaleidoscope Dreams and even more than what's on 2010's All I Want Is You, his innocent debut. He concurs.

"That's especially true considering that my first album was written four years before it was even released, as I was building a stable of songs," to say nothing of building his songwriting career with tracks for future fellow soul singers Usher and Jaheim. "I think that there is stuff on Wildheart that sounds like an amusing, nice segue from Kaleidoscope Dreams, and that's great. Then there is stuff that is more radical in its turns. We're leaving Earth. It's departure time."

Miguel says that he started Wildheart with an intention, and that he made himself available to that intention. "I move from the corners and the edges and work inward with a bigger, better sense of color and tone."

One tone he touched on, something he say he's never really embraced before, is being the child of a Mexican American father and an African American mother. On "What's Normal Anyway," he sings, "Too proper for the black kids, too black for the Mexicans. . . . Too broke for the rich kids, I don't know what normal is."

With that one line, whether he's political or not, Miguel touched on the topicality of American race relations and immigration questions. "I can only say that with this album, I wanted [my lyrics] to be more subconscious. If I wanted to be introspective and say damn, these were some of my insecurities, like being too nice for the black kids, or being too black for the Mexicans, and so on and so forth, I wasn't going to stop myself from doing that."

With his level of success - Kaleidoscope Dreams had Grammy nods; Wildheart entered Billboard's Top 10 upon release - and his new album's lust for life (and plain old lust), it's surprising that one of its key moments is "Destinado a Morir" which, loosely translated, means "destined to die." Why so glum, chum?

"If you are doing what you are supposed to do and are happy doing it - as I am - in effect you are ready to die," Miguel says cheerfully. "You're honoring yourself and your purpose by preparing yourself. We don't control the future - that is just the truth - but we do control the decisions that we make at every juncture.

"You should be overjoyed if you're ready to die."

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Miguel

8 p.m. Friday at the TLA, 334 South St. Tickets: Sold out. Information: http://venue.tlaphilly.com

9 p.m. Aug. 8 at the Borgata Hotel Casino, Atlantic City. Tickets: $49-$59. Information: www.theborgata.com EndText