For an artist who’s spent the last few years accelerating toward success, Anella is finally taking a moment to breathe.
The North Carolina-born singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist has built his reputation on a genre-blending sound that bends country storytelling into hip-hop rhythm and pop immediacy. But on his newly released mixtape Ask Me How I’ve Been, the 24-year-old artist pauses the forward motion long enough to ask a question many people avoid answering honestly: How am I actually doing?
Released via Def Jam Recordings, the 10-track project is Anella’s most introspective work to date — a coming-of-age moment captured through confessional lyrics, late-night reflections, and songs that sit somewhere between heartbreak and healing. For Anella, the title itself isn’t just clever. It’s intentional.
“So recently life has been really weird,” he tells Celeb Secrets. “I feel like I’m in the end of the first quarter of my life about to turn 25. Everything that’s happened the past couple years, I never really sat down and took time to be like, ‘Wow, I accomplished this’ or ‘I could’ve done that better.’”
That realization didn’t just inspire a few songs — it reshaped the entire project.
“With that materialistic look on it, I realized that emotionally I also didn’t take time to acknowledge what I was going through,” he explains. “So this project was a way to remind myself — and other people — to ask how your friends have been, ask how you’ve been. Look in the mirror and ask yourself how you’ve been.”
Long before the streaming numbers, the viral performances, and the genre-bending buzz, Anella was simply a kid in Trinity, North Carolina sitting behind a drum kit in church while his father led worship.
Music wasn’t just something he liked. It was the place where he felt understood.
“I grew up making music in church,” he recalls. “It’s always felt a bit more spiritual to me. Music’s the only thing I’m fluent with. I stutter even speaking English sometimes, so music is the space where I’m most comfortable — the most myself.”
That comfort allowed him to explore sound without boundaries. While many artists search for a lane early on, Anella grew up in a house where musical rules barely existed. His father had once played in a Christian screamo band, which meant experimentation wasn’t unusual — it was encouraged.
“I just listened to music for the way it made me feel,” he says. “Different genres would make me feel the same way depending on the message. That made me realize I didn’t need to stick to a certain sound or look. It’s about what I want to say and how it sounds best said.”
So the music he creates today mirrors that upbringing: guitars and pianos layered over booming basslines, country storytelling floating above trap drums and late-night melodies.
“I built my subs in my first Jeep,” he laughs. “I love bass. I love heavy drums. So being able to combine those trap drums and 808s with the guitars and pianos I grew up playing just made sense.”
While Ask Me How I’ve Been feels like a snapshot of the present, the truth is that it’s been forming in the background for years. Some of the songs on the mixtape were written more than two years ago, long before the project even had a name.
“Some of these records I’ve had for over two years,” Anella reveals. “It’s not like I wrote this project in two or three months. This is really my entire twenties so far — from 20 to 24.”
At first, those songs didn’t feel like they belonged anywhere. They lingered in hard drives and demo folders, waiting for the moment they would make sense.
That moment eventually arrived in a quiet realization.
“One day you wake up and you just think different,” he says thoughtfully. “Some songs started speaking to me again in a way they didn’t before. I realized I might’ve written them for my future self.”
Suddenly, pieces of different eras in his life started aligning.
Older songs that once felt distant now mirrored emotions he understood better. Newer records filled in the gaps. And slowly, a story started forming — one that captured the messy, nonlinear evolution of growing up.
“The older songs and the newer songs just kind of held hands and worked together,” he explains.
That emotional journey is especially clear on the project’s singles, including “Gone Girl” and “Can’t Have Both,” two tracks that explore love, distance, and complicated relationships. But like much of Anella’s music, the emotional weight is balanced by production that still feels alive and energetic.
“‘Gone Girl’ has really upbeat energy, but the message is still deep,” he explains. “That’s my favorite part about pop country — you can write a sad song over a heavy beat. If you listen to the lyrics you’re like, ‘That’s messed up,’ but if you listen to the beat you’re like, ‘This is fun.’”
That contrast — heartbreak delivered through melodies you want to drive with the windows down to — has become a defining element of his sound. It’s also part of what makes the mixtape feel honest rather than heavy. Life, after all, rarely fits neatly into one emotion.
Behind the music, however, the biggest shift wasn’t sonic — it was personal. While assembling the project, Anella found himself confronting something simple but uncomfortable: time moves forward whether you’re ready for it or not.
“I think one of the hardest truths I had to confront is that time is real,” he says. “And it doesn’t move backwards.”
The realization crept in through everyday moments from coming home after time on the road, noticing subtle changes in the people who raised him, understanding how quickly life moves while you’re busy chasing goals.
“Whether it’s family members getting older or coming home and seeing more wrinkles in my parents’ hands than when I left,” he reflects. “Those moments really hit me.”
Instead of running from that feeling, he wrote through it.
The result is a mixtape that feels less like a statement and more like a conversation — the kind you have late at night when you’re finally honest with yourself.
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Ask Me How I’ve Been also marks a turning point in how Anella approaches his career creatively. For the first time, he took the lead in shaping the project’s final form.
“This is the first project I’ve really composed myself,” he says. “In the past my team and I would pick songs together, but this time I came to them like, ‘These are the songs I want to put out.’”
It was a risk — but one his team believed in.
“I think this is the most cohesive project I’ve put out yet.”
The mixtape also features collaborations with a close circle of creatives and friends, including Big Mo, who appears on the track “Thinkin Bout Us.” But despite the collaborations, the emotional core of the project remains deeply personal.
“If listeners take one thing away from this project,” Anella says, “I hope they see that even though I’m stubborn, I truly give everything my best and my 100 percent. I’m willing to learn from my mistakes.”
Now that the project is finally out in the world, Anella is already thinking about the next step — bringing these songs to life in front of the fans who helped build his career.
“I think live performances are where I shine best,” he says.
Having already shared stages with artists like Lil Wayne and Quavo, he’s seen firsthand how powerful music can feel when it moves beyond streaming numbers and into a room full of people.
“That connection is different,” he says. “You can really feel it in real life. The energy that comes out of the speakers is real.”
And for an artist whose music is built around emotion, storytelling, and reflection, that energy might be the most important part of the journey. Because if Ask Me How I’ve Been proves anything, it’s that Anella isn’t just making songs. He’s documenting growth one moment, one realization, and one brutally honest question at a time.
Listne to Ask Me How I’ve Been below and don’t forget to let us know if you’re loving Anella’s new mixtape by either leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sliding into our DMs on Instagram at @celebsecretscountry.
