Career
In 2011, getting help from his father and the latter’s friend and rapper Tempo, Anuel released his first song titled ‘Demonia’ with Ñengo Flow. Thereafter he collaborated with several other artists such as Ozuna, Arcángel, De La Ghetto and reggaeton duo Jory Boy.
The remix version of Bryant Myers' first hit ‘Esclava’ that featured Anuel along with Anonimus and Almighty rose Anuel to fame. The track released on September 2, 2015 and gained more than a million views on YouTube within three months of its posting. As of October 12, 2018, the single has accumulated more than 109 million views.
The music theme of Anuel is associated with issues like sex, violence, murder, street life and drugs and his songs are way too vulgar to be played on the radio. Anuel utilised the social media well and the early singles and remixes uploaded by him online with support from artists like Arcángel, Ozuna and Ñengo Flow eventually became extremely popular gaining him millions of views and a considerable fan base. He drew attention of Rick Ross that led him to sign to Ross’ Latin division of Maybach Music Group.
In February 2016, he released Real Hasta La Muerte: The Mixtape that was well received.
On April 3, 2016, he was arrested with three others after three pistols including a stolen one; nine clips and 152 bullets were found in the trunk of a car he was riding. All of them were held in the Metropolitan Detention Center, Guaynabo. After his arrest, his fans started the #FreeAnuel movement for his release that soon became viral.
He faced gun possession charges; however his cooperation with the authorities led his sentencing to get reduced to 30 months in federal prison from five-year sentence. While he was going through his trial under presiding judge Aida Delgado-Colon, he mentioned that his real character is not represented by the lyrics of his music.
He had an incident with another inmate while he was serving his prison term. This led him to spend 90 days in solitary confinement.
While being incarcerated, he continued to collaborate with artists like J Balvin, Bad Bunny, Cosculluela and Nicky Jam and advanced with his musical pursuits releasing tracks from prison. This became possible as he was allowed to record his voice over phone.
The single ‘Sola’ marked the first hit single of the Latin trap artist. Its remix version that was released by Maybach Music Group on December 5, 2016 featuring Farruko, Wisin, Daddy Yankee and Zion & Lennox reached his fame to new heights. Till present it has amassed a whopping count of over 23 million views.
He collaborated with Ozuna in the latter’s debut studio album ‘Odisea’ and featured in one of its tracks titled ‘Bebé’ that released on June 23, 2017. Moving on, he featured in three tracks of the August 24, 2018 released second album of Ozuna titled ‘Aura’. These include ‘Supuestamente’, ‘Pasado y Presente’ and ‘Única’ (Remix).
Meanwhile Anuel was shifted to a state prison in Miami from the federal prison in March 2018 and during such time he mentioned to Billboard that while in prison he garnered motivation for song writing by getting hooked up to the radio and keeping a tab of the things happening in the streets.
The track ‘Thinkin’ by Spiff TV released by Sony Music Latin on April 6, 2018 featured Anuel as well as Bad Bunny and Future. The three also contributed to the lyrics of the track along with Spiff TV.
On July 17, 2018, the day he got released from prison, Anuel came up with his debut full-length album titled ‘Real Hasta La Muerte’. The title of the album meaning ‘Real Until Death’ is counted among the most popular catchphrases he uses in his songs. The album consisting 12 tracks climbed atop the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart within 24 hours of its release. It also debuted at #51 on Billboard 200.
He again got entangled in a controversy when he came up with a diss track on September 15, 2018 that was directed towards Puerto Rican singer and songwriter Cosculluela. He was highly censured for the offensive language he used and the disgracing remarks he made on HIV patients and homosexuality. Such public censuring led his production staff cancel his concert that was scheduled to be held on October 20, 2018 at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico venue.
Anuel started gaining fame through social media and eventually emerged as some sort of a social media star. His self-titled YouTube channel that he created on September 8, 2016, has perhaps emerged as one of the popular destinations of Latin music palpable from the incredible count of over 990 million views and a decent count of more than 4.5 million subscribers.
He has also gained huge popularity on his Instagram account ‘anuel_2blea’ where he has already amassed over 7.7 million followers. His Twitter account ‘Anuel_2bleA’ that he created in February 2016 has also thrived in garnering around 654 K followers.
