A lot has happened to Hamilton alum Anthony Ramos since he released his debut album The Good & the Bad in 2019, from appearing in several movies to getting engaged. Now, the In the Heights star is making his return to music. With his second release, Ramos shifts the tone from soulful R&B to uptempo pop hits laced with reggaetón and Afrobeats. “The first one was very personal,” he tells Apple Music. “I was telling stories about specific nights and specific events that happened to me. With the second album, it’s really more about cool shit that I wanted to talk about.” Out of the 12 tracks, Ramos only wrote two songs before the pandemic. While in quarantine, Ramos decided to lay the groundwork for what would be his return to music. “What’s the dopest story we can tell?” he says. “I just wanted to embrace how people might be feeling now. I wanted to connect, wanted to vibe out, be with each other, connect and party.” Here, he tells us how each story came to be on Love and Lies. “Blessings” “‘Blessings’ came to be because one of my boys was like, ‘What if a girl came into the spot and they were completely out of your league, but you saw them looking at you, and you saw them catching a vibe?’ She doesn’t need me, but she’s looking at me like she wants me, so it’s blessings for me. I’m about to get blessed.” “Lose My Mind” “This song is about being with someone who is completely the worst/best thing for you. Every time you’re with this person you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re terrible. I hate you and I love you at the same time.’” “Échale” “It’s a saying a lot of Latinos say: ‘Are you going to take that shot? Échale, go ahead.’ It’s a little like ‘Blessings,’ but more like you see somebody looking at you on the dance floor, you’re feeling them, but you know you’re going to let it all out. I’m just going to let it all out and I’m going to wild out. Who you wanna be? Échale. You’re saying that to yourself and the people around you. We’re going to celebrate and be whoever we want to be and do whatever you want to do.” “Love and Lies” “What if we wrote a song about a person who can’t let go of their lifestyle, even though they found someone they feel they can settle down with? They only know how to live that way. How many people do we know like that? How many people can relate to a person not able to stop working too much or this person going out too much? How can I choose you when I can’t let go of the shit that I’ve always done my whole life? I think that started to become a through line throughout this album.” “In the Night” “It’s about a person you’re going out with and they’re all shy in regular life and all of a sudden, you’ll go out and you didn’t know they wild out like that. It’s still in the vein of that animalistic [nature]. This person turns into an animal after 10 o’clock.” “Say Less” “The song is about someone you know you have a connection with, but you’re not in the same city. It’s never going to work, but I know what happens every time we see each other. We don’t have to talk or rekindle anything. This is what happens when we see each other. Everyone at one point in time has had that person.” “Right Now” “I wanted this Afro-Cuban beat. I went to Cuba and heard this Cubatón beat playing in this taxi and I went and bought up like 10 CDs in hopes of finding that music on one of them, and I did. I came back and I wrote the song. This is what we call the ‘crying in the club’ song. It’s that song when you’re with somebody and you’re like, ‘Fuck that, I wish you would tell me you can’t love me right now. I wish you would just say that. That would make everything so much easier, as opposed to you acting like nothing is happening or you’re trying for the sake of trying. Just tell me you can’t love me right now. Yeah, it will hurt in the moment, but it will save us a lot of pain in the long run.’” “Control” “I wrote this with my boys, and we wanted to write a song about being submissive—completely submissive. I like having this song where we embraced when that woman takes control of you. She tells you what she wants and how she wants it. She completely runs the show and you’re completely submissive to her. With no pride in the way, what do you need from me? Your wish is my command.” “Masterpiece” “This is a song about a person that looks like a literal masterpiece. She’s so unique and so beautiful, like something out of the biggest museums in the world where some of the most unique and rare artifacts are. Like something out of the Louvre.” “Nobody Else” “It’s about someone you just can’t get your mind off of. When you’re feeling somebody so hard, and you want to know if both of you are on the same page. ‘Are we there or am I bugging because all I think of is you.’ You lay it all out on the table. ‘I can show you where my heart is at. Just say it, because you’re the one that makes me want to stop it all and be with you.’” “Satisfy You” “This song is literally the continuation of ‘Control.’ It’s just about me knowing my role. I know that I am that person she calls for satisfaction. That’s it. I don’t need nothing else, nothing more, nothing less. I know my place, my role, and I’m fine with it. I know that I’m the person that come provide the medicine and then I’m out.” “I Can’t Get By” “This song is about when you’re in a relationship and you see you’re kind of at a standstill. You feel like you’re changing, you’re not the same person, and you want to grow but feel like your relationship is not. You don’t want to be complacent anymore. You can take on the hard stuff, but not if you’re going to stay in the same place. Are we going to continue to do that and grow? If not, I can’t get by on the things we used to do just because we’re used to just getting by.”