Daddy Yankee

Daddy Yankee is the stage name of Ramón Ayala, who grew up in San Juan and came up through the Puerto Rican underground of the 1990s, rapping on DJ Playero's mixtapes when the music that became reggaeton still circulated mostly on cassette. He built his career independently through his own label, El Cartel Records.

'Gasolina', from the album Barrio Fino, carried the dembow beat onto radio far outside Latin America, and later singles such as 'Rompe', 'Limbo', 'Dura' and 'Con Calma' kept him on dancefloors across the following decades. He also appears alongside Luis Fonsi on 'Despacito'. Live, the set is built around call-and-response choruses that the crowd largely carries itself.