DON’T FORGET THE
SIDE HUSTLE
Moose travels with his own
recording gear to create
original music in his hotel
room during downtime. That
equipment recently came
in handy: While on tour,
he got a surprise request
to record on five upcoming
songs for Gwen Stefani.
SAVE YOUR ENERGY
When work means two hours
of rehearsal followed by a
two-and-a-half-hour show
each night, conserving
energy is crucial. “I sleep
in as much as possible,”
says Camerieri. “We start
our workdays at 8 p.m.;
you can’t be winding down
by then.” —REBECCA MILZOFFA
nuel AA walked out of a Miami
prison on July 17 with a plan:
“Make history,” he says. The
Latin trap rapper born Emmanuel
Gazmey Santiago spent 30 months
incarcerated after pleading guilty to charges
of unlawful possession of a firearm and use
of a controlled substance, stemming from
an April 2016 incident in his native San Juan,
Puerto Rico. “They arrested me for my songs,”
says the 25-year-old in his first interview after
his release, referring to his sexually explicit,
sometimes violent lyrics. Prior to and during
his incarceration, he made five appearances
on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart, and
has earned 293.9 million total on-demand
U.S. streams, according to Nielsen Music.
Anuel AA is not wasting any time capitalizing
on his momentum: The day he was released,
he dropped his debut album, Real Hasta la
Muerte (Real to the Death), which hit No. 1
on the Top Latin Albums chart, and has a
Jennifer Lopez collaboration on deck.While you were in prison, Latin trap —
specifically the music of your associates
Ozuna and Bad Bunny — took off. Was it
frustrating to watch from behind bars?
Sometimes I got impatient, but God always
has a plan. When I had my bail denied, I
thought my career was over. Ozuna and
I have been friends since before we were
famous. I didn’t want him to visit me in
prison. We’ve stayed brothers through the
good and the bad, and I wanted to just keep
my mind in prison and finish my sentence.You were sent to a halfway house in May
and recorded many of the songs for the
album there. How about the others?
I recorded some over the phone. But I heard
it with a delay, and they heard it with a delay.
So it was like a race. We had to record takes
and takes. I spent seven, eight months where
I didn’t write anything. I knew I wasn’t going
anywhere, so I didn’t want to torture myself
thinking about the street. I wouldn’t even
make calls. But when other prisoners started
coming in and telling me my music was
playing outside, I started to have faith.You’ve spoken on social media about
finding God, yet you don’t talk about that
in your songs.
Before I went in, I felt lost. I never prayed.
In jail, I learned to pray to God and always
find something positive in the negative.
I’m a very spiritual person, but that’s very
personal. My relationship with God is
between me and God. I don’t like to talk
about that in my music.While you were in jail, there were several
high-profile mass shootings. What are
your thoughts on gun control?
My opinion is not going to change anything.
But one firearm, in this world we live in,
is necessary for many people who need
protection, as long as they know what
they’re doing. The problem is not guns but
the people who have them and what they
use them for. But that’s not in my hands.
—LEILA COBORISE, INTERRUPTED
Latin trap star Anuel AA was on the cusp of stardom when he began a 30-month
prison sentence. In his first post-release interview, he describes how he held onAnuel AA was
released from
prison on
July 17.YMUSIC: GRAHAM TOLBERT. SIMON: DANIEL DESLOVER/IMAGESPACE/SIPA/NEWSCOM. MOOSE: FILMMAGIC.STEFANI: JAMIEMCCARTHY/GETTY IMAGES. CAMERIERI: DAFYDD OWEN/UPPA/ZUMA PRESS. ANUEL AA: CARLOS PEREZ/ELASTIC PEOPLE.