In 2021, Anitta's Spanish single "Envolver" topped Spotify's Daily Top 50 Global chart, making her the first Brazilian artist to land this achievement. Aside from her success on the charts, Anitta's presence in the industry could be helping favela funk get some of the recognition the singer feels the genre deserves. "It already changed so much in Brazil," she told InStyle about favela funk. "It's not considered a crime anymore, it plays on the radio, it plays in the clubs, things that didn't happen in the beginning."
Anitta released "Funk Generation: A Favela Love Story" in 2023, a three-song album she made as a homage to her life growing up in a favela. The third track, titled "Used To Be," is a fun and uplifting groove with breezy lyrics, but the singer revealed its meaning actually came from something rather serious. In late 2022, Anitta was hospitalized.
"I had problems in my lungs, I had a cancer [scare]," she revealed to InStyle. "I spent months in the hospital. Nobody could figure out what I had." After working with a spiritual shaman, she "came back completely changed." Doctors performed more tests, trying to figure out what was wrong with her, but it appeared as if Anitta was completely healed. The song "Used To Be" — a lyrical representation of the mental healing that came with her physical healing — was then born as a form of new beginnings from the emotional roller coaster her hospitalization caused.
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