When Young Miko set out to create her second studio album, Do Not Disturb, she was going through a difficult time personally and professionally. She had just come off a tour that, for the first time, kept her away from her home in Puerto Rico for months, experiencing the loneliness of hotel rooms, the exhaustion of travel, the stress of figuring out what she would do next.
“I was missing my family a lot, and I don’t know, I was also coming from a moment of a lot of movement and speed,” recalls the Puerto Rican star in an interview with Billboard Español. “I didn’t allow myself to be present and enjoy all the fruits of the work I had been doing for so long. And all this chaos affected everything in my life: it affected my personal relationships, my work, my family relationships. I felt a bit dull and disconnected from myself, and I felt like I was losing my color, my aura, and my essence.”
But Miko found solace — and herself — in the blank page, opening up to tell personal stories like never before, prioritizing peace, intimacy, and self-expression, and offering fans a window into her artistic evolution.
“It was a process where I felt closer to myself than ever before. It was a space I wanted to give to myself to embrace myself, to listen, and heal. To perhaps understand why I was feeling the way I was feeling, and within all that uncertainty, within all this emotional chaos and uncharted territory I hadn’t encountered before, this whole album was born.”
Released on Friday (Nov. 7) under The Wave Music Group, Do Not Disturb is a 16-track introspective journey that invites listeners to disconnect from the noise and reconnect with their inner peace — but also to dance. Throughout the record, Young Miko showcases her versatility, exploring genres like drum and bass, R&B, and afrobeats, while continuing to shine with the trap and reggaeton beats that made her popular.
With more intimate lyrics, loaded with honesty and sensuality, the album — which follows her 2022 EP Trap Kitty and her Grammy-nominated debut album att. (2024) — includes the previously released singles “WASSUP,” “Meiomi,” and “Likey Likey,” as well as titles like “What’s Your Vibe,” “En el Ritz,” “Sexo de Moteles,” “Esa Nena,” and “Algo Casual.” It features only one collaboration, “Traviesa” with Eladio Carrión, with whom she had previously recorded “AMG.”
Below, Young Miko breaks down five essential tracks from her new album, Do Not Disturb. To listen to the full set, click herea.
Young Miko, “Do Not Disturb”
The Wave Music Group
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“Ojalá”
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}It’s a song where I wished the best for someone who meant a lot to me. And maybe at other times, I don’t know, maybe I didn’t love talking about these things. Many times I feel that being a public figure means my life isn’t just mine, and there are things I love to keep to myself so I can feel like I still have something that’s truly mine. But at the same time, if I don’t talk about it or if I don’t express it in my art, I feel like I’m going to explode, I mean, I’m going crazy. By giving myself that space, songs like these come out, which are very special, and then I realize that it’s okay to talk things out and that it’s okay to accept, embrace, and understand. It’s part of moving forward and it’s part of taking care of yourself.
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“Algo Casual”
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}Is another song that also touches on the kind of breakup we all go through — I think everyone has experienced such a painful heartbreak, where you wish you could turn back time to avoid it and not put your heart through all that. But at the same time, you don’t, because you don’t regret it, because it was beautiful and very special, and it nurtures your emotional growth and emotional intelligence. It teaches you to understand that perhaps you know better than before what you want from a relationship and what you don’t. These are moments of deep introspection that perhaps would have been much harder for me to share before, but at the same time, I always try to find that balance of choosing the right words for what I want to share, while also managing to keep certain things just for myself.
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“Traviesa” ft. Eladio Carrión
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}“Traviesa” is a lot of fun. I had the chance to be in the studio with Eladio, and we have this moment where he and I are back-and-forth exchanging lines, and we wrote it together right there, in the moment. Eladio is really fast with his pen, he’s very witty, and his wordplay and his ability to pull off double, triple, and quadruple entendres is a really incredible talent. He kind of challenged my pen, you know? He really challenged me in the studio, and I loved being able to go head-to-head with him. We were making each other laugh.
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“Sin Pausa”
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}One song I also love on the album is “Sin Pausa.” It’s like R&B, or half trap & B, and it has this transition where it comes in as a sexy drill. [My producer] Mauro is a die-hard R&B fan, and we’ve been wanting to do R&B for a while now. We had R&B on att., but we wanted to have this slightly more sexy-dark approach. And even though the song deals with a very sensual theme and graphic elements and all, within the production, within the choice of words and melodies, it conveys a message that whoever it’s talking about clearly means or meant a lot to me. Despite being sensual, it feels very connected; you can dedicate it to someone. And it’s definitely a very sexy song, it was super fun to make. It’s also a really beautiful production. And it has a very nice transition within the album — all the songs were made in an intentional order, as if to take you from beginning to end on a roller coaster, and “Sin Pausa” is like a point in the middle where things slow down for a moment, like the album’s breather.
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“En el Ritz”
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}Is the third song on the album and it has a lot of energy. We’ve had this track for a while; it only existed as the concept and the chorus, [but] we always knew that at some point we wanted to release it. When we were talking about the project, both Mauro and I, as well as [my manager] Mariana [López] and the whole team, said at the same time, “En el Ritz” — “I think now is the perfect time to revisit this song.” [The original idea] came about when I was in Spain, around Europe, still with Trap Kitty, and I don’t even remember well how we came up with the theme of “En el Ritz” (At the Ritz) but the concept stayed in my head and we played around with it, and it only started as the chorus.
And I think it’s so cool! It almost feels like Young Miko is collaborating with Baby Miko, you know? It’s like listening to these takes and these vocals, where even my voice sounds different, and then taking my mindset from back then and merging it with the one I have now to create a mix, make a recipe, and craft this track that feels totally new. It’s as if my past self left it there to marinate so my present self could take it and elevate it to a place where, perhaps, I couldn’t take it at that time. It’s also a song that’s a vibe and one of the most energetic ones on the album.
This story originally appeared on Billboard
