Featured In
ALBUMDonante de Sangre - SingleDaddy Yankee
Albums by Daddy Yankee
ALBUMLEGENDADDY (Deluxe Video Album)Daddy Yankee
ALBUMKing DaddyDaddy Yankee
ALBUMPrestigeDaddy Yankee
ALBUMMundial (Deluxe Version)Daddy Yankee
ALBUMTalento de BarrioDaddy Yankee
ALBUMEl Cartel: The Big BossDaddy Yankee
ALBUMBarrio Fino (Bonus Track Version)Daddy Yankee
ALBUMEl Cangri.comDaddy Yankee
Daddy Yankee's Popular Music Videos
China (feat. J Balvin & Ozuna)
Daddy Yankee, KAROL G & Anuel AA
Adictiva
Daddy Yankee & Anuel AA
Con Calma (feat. Snow)
Daddy Yankee
Despacito (feat. Daddy Yankee)
Luis Fonsi
Bella y Sensual
Romeo Santos, Daddy Yankee & Nicky Jam
Soltera (Remix)
Lunay, Daddy Yankee & Bad Bunny
La Formula (feat. Chris Jeday)
De La Ghetto, Daddy Yankee & Ozuna
Runaway (feat. Jonas Brothers)
Sebastián Yatra, Daddy Yankee & NATTI NATASHA
REMIX
Daddy Yankee
Somos de Calle (Remix)
Daddy Yankee & EL CARTEL
Artist Playlists
Daddy Yankee Essentials
This reggaetón street star put the genre on the map with ribald bars and tight beats.
Daddy Yankee Video Essentials
High-octane dance moves fuel his reggaetón.
Artist Biography
Every underground genre has its ambassador, the artist who translates a local movement into something the masses can understand. For reggaetón, that artist is Daddy Yankee. Born Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez in 1977 in the Río Piedras barrio of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Daddy Yankee grew up in a musical family: His dad played bongos in a salsa band, and his mother’s family was full of musicians. Yankee mastered the skill of verbal improvisation early, rhyming with friends and appearing on some of DJ Playero’s underground rap mixtapes in the early ’90s. Baseball was his first passion, however, and he was seemingly heading toward a career in the majors until he caught a stray bullet in his leg at age 17 while outside a recording studio. The long recovery scuttled his sports dreams, and he turned to music instead, embracing (and, by some accounts, naming) the nascent genre of reggaetón, a rap hybrid evolving out of dancehall’s dembow riddim. Yankee began releasing albums steadily, and 2004’s Barrio Fino, with its irresistible engine-revving “Gasolina,” broke through internationally, introducing global dance floors to the reggaetón riddim and Daddy Yankee’s driving, verbally acrobatic rhymes about violence, women, easy money, and marginalization. Yankee quickly became an industry unto himself, a sought-after impresario, producer, and collaborator. In 2017, “Despacito,” his collaboration with Luis Fonsi, became another global smash hit thanks to Justin Bieber’s remix. But for all his success, Yankee remains, at heart, a rapper; the “rey de la improvisación” has been a repeat winner of the Street Jam Reggae Awards.
Hometown
Puerto Rico
Genre
Urbano latino