Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez, better known as Daddy Yankee, is a Puerto Rican singer, actor, record producer, radio host, and businessman born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on February 3, 1977.
Regarded as one of the pioneers of reggaeton in the 1990s and its most prominent figure, Daddy is today the most popular reggaeton artist as well as one of the most influential and respected in the genre worldwide. Thanks to his established and successful artistic career and his numerous collaborations that have helped promote other Latin artists in the genre, reggaeton has solidified its status as a musical style that is recognized and listened to all around the world.
The term reguetón (derived from the word reggae and the suffix tón) is attributed to Dady Yankee himself in Puerto Rico in 1992, where it was mentioned for the first time in the mixtape "Playero 36" (together with DJ Playero). “I want you to keep jumping and I want you to jump again because it's the phenomenal man who sings reguetón,” can be heard from Daddy Yankee in the mixtape.
Among his most famous songs is "La gasolina," which is part of his third and best-selling album, released in 2004, titled "Barrio Fino."
He has 5 Grammy Awards, 1 Premio Lo Nuestro, and other top honors recognizing Latino artists. In 2009, he was named one of the most important and influential Hispanics in the world by the news network CNN.
In recent years, his collaborations with other rising musicians in the urban music scene have become a sure bet, turning the tracks he collaborates on into guaranteed hits that dominate charts worldwide. For example, in 2017, his song with Luis Fonsi, "Despacito," reached number 1 in over 80 countries and became the most viewed song on YouTube. Additionally, he won four Latin Grammy Awards in 2017 for Best Song, Best Record, Best Urban Fusion/Performance, and Best Short Form Music Video.
His later English version with Justin Bieber reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. That same year, Daddy Yankee became the most listened-to artist in the world on Spotify.
Among his collaborations are tracks with artists such as Anuel AA, Kendo Kaponi, Rosalía, J Balvin, Farruko, Sech, Zion, Lennox, Steve Aoki, Play-N-Skillz, Elvis Crespo, among others. With the last three, he recorded "Azukita," which has nearly 200 million views on YouTube.
On January 24, 2019, he reached the top spot again with his single "Con calma," a reinvention of the 90s hit by rapper Snow, "Informer."
In July 2020, he announced that he was suffering from prediabetes after feeling unwell during a tour in Colombia and being hospitalized urgently.
Recently, an old interview from 2020 has resurfaced, which took place during his visit to the television program Estudio Billboard hosted by Colombian journalist Leila Cobo in 2007. In this interview, Daddy was asked about the possibility of ever singing in Cuba. His response was that he would actually love to go to the Island, but he held a great respect for the people of Miami and did not want to create political chaos, so he preferred to leave things as they were and to go when the right moment came.
In July 2018, Issac Delgado, who was then serving as the president of the organizing committee for the Varadero Festival, mentioned that he had already spoken with the reggaeton artist and that the performance was taking shape.
In 2017, he created a remix of Bad Bunny's song 'Tú no metes cabra,' in which he compares the dictatorships of Fidel Castro and Nicolás Maduro to those of the Italian fascist Mussolini and the Soviet leader Stalin.
The Puerto Rican has shared twice on his Instagram the talent of Cuban violinist Zamir Muñoz Hernández, who has impressed the singer with two versions of his songs played on his electric violin: Que tire pa' lante and Llamado de emergencia.
