Biography: Daddy Yankee

Daddy Yankee did more than anyone to establish reggaeton as a marketable music style. His success was so phenomenal in the wake of his 2004 mainstream breakthrough, Barrio Fino -- and in particular the international hit "Gasolina" -- he transcended cultural boundaries and genre trappings. He became more than just a reggaetonero; he transformed himself into an international name brand. By the time of his 2007 follow-up album, El Cartel: The Big Boss, for instance, his name, image, and music were used to sell soft drinks for Pepsi and footwear for Reebok, as well as a syndicated show for ABC Radio Networks (Daddy Yankee on Fuego) and a feature film for Paramount Pictures (Talento de Barrio). Daddy Yankee indeed had become a business empire, of which the primary asset, his music, remained independent from major-label control: he keenly operated his own independent label, El Cartel Records, and chose to partner with labels such as Interscope only for purposes of marketing and distribution, rather than sign himself and his publishing to them outright. The business side of Daddy Yankee was so remarkable, in fact, that it often overshadowed his music, which, granted, is often most noteworthy for its commercial viability. The music is noteworthy on its own terms nonetheless, with Barrio Fino in particular standing tall as the definitive reggaeton album of its time. Boasting a pair of fantastic hits, "Gasolina" and "Lo Que Pasó, Pasó," the album was a standard-bearer, influencing a legion of followers and establishing the production duo Luny Tunes as reggaeton's hottest hitmakers. Barrio Fino was also the first reggaeton album to reach number one on the Top Latin Album chart, a position it held for roughly a year's time while selling over a million copies in the United States alone.

Born Ramón Ayala (aka Raymond) on February 3, 1977, in Río Piedras, the largest district of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Daddy Yankee grew up in a musical family. His father was a bongosero (i.e., a salsa percussionist), his mother's family included numerous musicians, and he himself sang from an early age, with a knack for improvisation. As Daddy Yankee grew older, he took an interest in Spanish-language hip-hop, especially the socially aware raps of Vico C, and he became increasingly drawn into the street life of his neighborhood, the Villa Kennedy housing project in San Juan. The "Yankee" moniker arose from the Puerto Rican slang for "someone tall, who is big in what he does" (according to a 2005 interview with Billboard magazine); "Big Daddy" is thus the rough English translation of Daddy Yankee. He got into reggaeton just as it was taking shape in the early '90s, when San Juan DJs would spin hip-hop alongside dancehall reggae while vocalists would freestyle over the beats. This convergence of hip-hop, dancehall, and freestyling proved popular in San Juan, most notably at the Noise, a long-running club night that spawned a collective of DJs and rappers. Besides the Noise, the other key proprietor of proto-reggaeton was Playero, a mixtape DJ/producer with whom Daddy Yankee got his start, debuting as a featured guest on Playero 37 (1992). A few years later, at age 18, Daddy Yankee made his full-length album debut, No Mercy (1995), again working with Playero. Little came of No Mercy, however, and he continued to work the reggaeton underground for the remainder of the '90s. Toward the end the decade, he began performing alongside Nicky Jam as a duo and had one of his songs, "Posición," a collaboration with Alberto Stylee, featured on the 1998 One Tough Cop soundtrack.

Beginning in 2000, Daddy Yankee furthered his career significantly with independently released albums. El Cartel (2000) and El Cartel, Vol. 2 (2001) came first, each laden with featured guests in mixtape fashion; however, El Cangri.com (2002) was the one that really gave his career the boost it needed to break outside Puerto Rico. Driven by "Latigazo," a single that found airplay in Miami and New York, El Cangri.com climbed all the way to number 43 on Billboard's Top Latin Albums chart despite no major-label backing whatsoever (released instead by VI Music, a Puerto Rican indie). In the wake of this success, Daddy Yankee assembled Los Homerun-es (2003), a Top Ten album comprised of odds and ends, including a newly recorded hit single, "Segurosqui," as well as some old Playero tracks from a decade prior. Reggaeton was on the cusp of breaking big-time at this point; touchstone albums such as Don Omar's The Last Don (2003), Tego Calderón's El Abayarde (2003), and Luny Tunes' Mas Flow (2003) were making significant impacts in Miami and New York, in addition to Puerto Rico, and a wave of lesser albums were being released also. The stage was well set for Daddy Yankee's mainstream breakthrough, Barrio Fino (2004), which was released in July 2004 (by VI Music in conjunction with Universal Music Group Distribution) and debuted at number one on the Top Latin Albums chart. The first reggaeton album to reach the number one spot, Barrio Fino would dominate the top of the Latin albums chart for roughly a year's time, lodged there well into 2005. It sold over a million copies in the U.S. alone during this chart reign.

The long shelf life of Barrio Fino was partly on account of "Gasolina," a party-oriented single whose appeal was so phenomenal that the song itself became synonymous with reggaeton in the minds of many (and perhaps remains so), especially English-speakers who were unacquainted with the music style. The appeal of "Gasolina" was such that it's been compared to "Macarena," another Latin party song that broke through cultural boundaries to become a dance club staple internationally. It took "Gasolina" awhile to become a craze, several months after the release of Barrio Fino, in fact, yet by November 2004 it had broken into the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually made it all the way to number 32 a couple months later (a genuine Top 40 hit, albeit a novel one). On the Latin charts, though, "Gasolina" didn't even break the Top Ten, only reaching number 17. Rather, "Lo Que Pasó, Pasó" was the album's big hit on the Latin scene, charting at number two. Barrio Fino spawned a few other singles as well: "Sabor a Melao" (featuring salsa superstar Andy Montañez), "No Me Dejes Solo" (featuring Wisin & Yandel), and "Like You" (an English-language song). The success of the album was such that it catapulted Luny Tunes -- an industrious duo who'd produced half the album, and all the key hits -- to stardom of their own, as they became widely recognized as reggaeton undisputed go-to hitmakers. The success of the album also drew significant major-label attention. Machete Music, a Universal company specializing in Latin urban, signed a deal with Daddy Yankee to re-release Los Homerun-es in March 2005 (and later Barrio Fino in December 2006). Meanwhile, VI Music cashed in with Ahora le Toca al Cangri (2005), a live CD/DVD recorded in Puerto Rico in 2003.

In 2005, while the major labels were courting Daddy Yankee, the president of Interscope, Jimmy Iovine, whose roster includes Eminem, 50 Cent, and Dr. Dre, actually flew down to Puerto Rico to discuss business in person. A joint venture deal resulted between Interscope and Daddy Yankee's own label, El Cartel Records. The first release under this partnership was Barrio Fino en Directo (2005), a CD/DVD comprised of live in-concert and newly recorded material. "Rompe," one of the newly recorded songs, was issued as the lead single and charted even better than "Gasolina" had, reaching number 24 on the Hot 100. Moreover, it spent 15 weeks atop the Hot Latin Tracks chart. The Interscope deal was only one of many struck by Daddy Yankee at this point. He began lending his name, image, and music to everything from footwear (Reebok) and soft drinks (Pepsi), to automobiles (Citroën) and radio (ABC); he founded his own charity, Corazón Guerrero, to help ex-convicts; and he teamed with CMN (Cardenas Marketing Network, an event marketing and sponsorship agency) to mount an international tour throughout North, Central, and South America. All the while, he worked intermittently on his next album, El Cartel: The Big Boss (2007), a big-budget affair bringing together an ensemble cast of marquee-name collaborators, including pop-rap hitmakers Will.I.Am, Akon, and Scott Storch. The buildup to the album was well-planned and pervasive, with "Impacto" (and its bilingual remix featuring Fergie) released as the lead single well in advance of the eagerly anticipated June release date. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide