Migel "Migos"
Portrait with Matt Hoyle
Description: A young man sings and plays ukulele sitting on a rooftop. He is in a black and white watercolor cityscape. He looks up towards a blue sky.
Portrait with Zachary Maxwell Stertz
“My name is Migel, but everybody calls me Migos. I'm a photographer, dancer, poet. I actually run two businesses that I made. One is called Migos Enterprises and Blue You Project.
I describe myself as a young troubadour who puts people on paper. I feel like I am music in a way. I’m a walking radio. I put the right words in the right places. I walk with a ukulele just strumming and strumming and things just come together and they flow.
Music is one of the things that really helps me from breaking down and crying. It helps me stay, me. I’m always in this upbeat mood smiling and happy and that's really natural. But, I could be smiling but on the inside I could be feeling a whole different way. Music helps me not show it.
A friend came to me with an idea of starting a singing telegram, so when that came I was on it. With them giving me that one idea, I created an entire business. My first client, she wanted me to write a song to tell her boyfriend she loves him because she didn't say it yet. It was beautiful, I performed it for them. It was really awesome.
I want to be me, times ten. I want to take my entrepreneurship to the level ten times above where I’m at now.
In the future, I want to be able to see the sunset from my room. I’d have a room full of instruments. Ones I play and ones I don't play.
I want to be known for what I'm known for now. People know me for always smiling, always having a positive life, contagious laughter, outstanding friend; someone who you could just talk to, a person that gives great advice, loyal, trustworthy, well dressed. I want to be known for my talents too.
I'm proud that I'm 17, I know the amount of stuff I go through, and for me to be able to battle through all this stuff for all four years of highschool and to be at the point now where I run two businesses, I have two jobs, I’m a full time student, and I barely get sleep. I’m just proud, proud that I overcame so many things.”
New York, 2017