Anuel AA Reveals How Eminem Helped Shape His Music During Prison

Anuel AA says Eminem influenced some of the most personal records of his career, including a Spanish adaptation of “Stan” that connected with fans while the Puerto Rican rapper was behind bars.

Speaking with D-Stroy on SiriusXM’s Shade 45, Anuel recalled recording his version of Eminem’s 2000 hit in prison, when listeners had heard little from him since his incarceration.

“Eminem was a legend, bro. I did the ‘Stan’ hook in Spanish when I was in prison, and that’s a big-ass song in my career,” Anuel told D-Stroy. “Like, people related a lot to it.”

He explained that the recording marked an important moment because he believed it was among the first music fans heard from him after he was locked up. The track, “Me Contagié,” featuring Kendo Kaponi, drew on “Stan,” the Eminem song built around a sample of Dido’s “Thank You.”

“It was the first song I dropped, the first song, or the first, even, I think that was the first thing I said or did since I went to prison,” Anuel said. “People never heard from me again until that song came out, you feel me?”

The influence extended beyond that recording’s success. Anuel also recalled making a deeply personal song for his mother over the instrumental from Eminem’s “Mockingbird.”

He described it as a record about the hardships he faced before his career took off, including fears that eventually became real.

“I did a song for my mom with the ‘Mockingbird’ beat,” Anuel said. “It’s a song talking about my life, about the struggles before the success, you feel me?”

He said some of the events he hoped his mother would never have to witness eventually happened, including his incarceration. That made listening back to the song especially difficult.

“A lot of the bad things I said in the song that I didn’t want to happen, I didn’t want my mom to see me going through that, they happened,” he said. “And I ended up in prison.”

Anuel’s prison-era breakthrough is a significant chapter of his career. He was incarcerated following a 2016 federal firearms case and continued attracting an audience while serving his sentence.

He later released his debut album, Real Hasta la Muerte, in 2018, the year he was released.

The rapper has discussed the recording before.

During a 2024 appearance on the Spanish television program El Hormiguero, he described making his adaptation of “Stan” by telephone while incarcerated and said the song took off when he feared his music career was finished.

On Shade 45, however, he went further by describing the creative lesson he took from Eminem. Rather than limiting himself to street records, romantic tracks or diss songs, he realized he could bring family relationships into his lyrics.

“With Eminem, I learned like you don’t just do music for girls, commercials, street songs, or diss songs,” Anuel explained, “but you could do music, too, for your mom, for your daughter.”

“Eminem is a big inspiration for me in my whole career,” he added. “Really, really big, for real.”