Among Spanish-speaking performers, Daddy Yankee is the most prominent representative of reggaeton - a musical mix of several styles at once - reggae, dancehall and hip-hop.
Thanks to his talent and amazing performance, the singer was able to achieve excellent results by building his own business empire.
The beginning of the creative path
The future star was born in 1977 in the city of San Juan (Puerto Rico). At birth, he was named Ramon Luis Ayala Rodriguez.
His parents were creative personalities (his father was fond of playing the guitar), but the boy did not think about a musical career as a child.
His passion was baseball and Major League Baseball, where Ramon planned to realize himself as an athlete.
But the planned plans were not destined to come true - the guy injured his leg during the studio recording of the track with his close friend Dj Playero.
I had to say goodbye to professional sports forever and turn my eyes to music for real.
The first mixes of DJ and Ramon were successful and gradually began to take root in the musical culture of the island. The guys actively mixed Latin rhythms with rap, laying the foundations for the future style - reggaeton.
Musical career
The first album No Mercy, jointly recorded with Dj Playero, was released in 95, when the aspiring singer was only 18 years old.
After 7 years, the second disc is released - "El Cangri.com", which has become extremely popular on the Puerto Rican music scene.
The album was literally swept away from the shelves of stores, and they started talking about Ramona as a star of a large scale.
Less than a year later, Los Homerunes comes out. After this record, even the most stubborn skeptics admitted that a young and very bright star lit up in Puerto Rico.
In 2004, Daddy Yankee recorded the disc Barrio Fino, the hits of which brought the album to the top of the best-selling Latin American albums of the XNUMXst century.
Ramon immodestly declared his status in the music world in the song "King Daddy". The artist's video clips were also particularly colorful, in which beautiful women and luxury cars were always present against the backdrop of the landscapes of Puerto Rico.
After that, the young Puerto Rican was noticed by one of the most influential producers in the hip-hop industry, Puff Daddy.
Ramon was offered to take part in an advertising campaign, after which a similar offer was received from Pepsi.
In 2006, the tabloid Time published the top 100 greatest figures in the world of music, which included Daddy Yankee.
He was then approached by Interscope Records with a $20 million deal. By the way, at that time the performer already had his own recording studio El Cartel Records.
El Cartel: The Big Boss, an album released in 2007, marked the singer's return to rap roots. A concert tour was organized in both American continents, and in each country Daddy Yankee certainly collected full stadiums.
Sites in Bolivia and Ecuador were especially visited, where at that time all unthinkable records were broken.
The hit “Grito Mundial” even claimed the title of the 2010 Mundial anthem, but the singer refused to give away his copyright to the FIFA composition.
In 2012, another masterpiece of Ramon was released - the album Prestige, which took the highest lines in the Latin American charts.
Naturally, the record was also noticed in the USA, where it entered the top 5 best rap albums of that year.
The artist did not change his traditions and continued to shoot bright video clips. One of them - for the song "Noche De Los Dos", was remembered for the participation in it of the incomparable Natalia Jimenez.
A year later, he releases a record called King Daddy, then the artist takes a musical break of 7 years.
And only in 2020 will the long-awaited album called El Disco Duro be released.
Personal life
Family life Daddy Yankee began very early. At the age of 17, he married Mirredis Gonzalez, who gave her dear husband a son, Jeremy, and a daughter, Jezeris.
The artist also has an illegitimate daughter, Yamilet.
Little is known about Ramon's personal life. He always tried not to make public the events taking place within the family.
It is only known that in addition to three children, the star also has a pet - a dog named Caleb.
Daddy Yankee wears clothes befitting his status as a rap artist - loose and sporty with loads of heavy jewelry.
His body is decorated with numerous tattoos, and fashion magazines often invite him to participate in photo shoots.
In addition to the music business, Ramon launched his own fragrance and created a whole line of sportswear under the Reebok brand.
The artist also has his own radio show called Daddy Jankee on Fuego.
Charity is not alien to the artist.
In 2017, he donated $100000 to help those affected by Hurricane Maria.
Numerous records
In 2017, Daddy Yankee set a new record by topping the Billboard list with "Despacito". Prior to this, among the Spanish-language compositions, only the famous "Macarena" was awarded such an honor.
A video was also filmed for the track, which gained 1 billion views in less than 100 days. A little later, Ramon invited Justin Bieber to join, recording a remix of the track "Despacito", thereby gaining even more popularity.
He broke another record on the streaming service Spotify, where he became the most streamed Latin artist.
In 2018, Daddy Yankee decided to try his hand at a new genre by recording the track "Ice" in the trap music genre.
The video for the composition was filmed in Canada at a frost of -20 degrees Celsius. The video was watched by more than 58 million viewers.
At the moment, the artist continues to tour the American continents. He still performs at stadiums and collects full houses.
It is still not easy to get to the singer's concerts, tickets are sold out long before the appointed date.
In 2019, a video for the song "Runaway" was released, which has already been watched by 208 million YouTube video hosting users.
In the same year, the video "Si Supieras" was released, which gained more than 3 million views in 129 months.
