Born Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez, popular by his professional name Daddy Yankee, is a Puerto Rican singer, rapper, songwriter, and actor. His fans call him “King of Reggaetón.” He is one of the most successful musical artists in the industry.
Daddy Yankee confirmed in March 2022 that he would retire from the music industry following an upcoming album and tour. Throughout his musical career, he has sold nearly 30 million records.
In 2017, his collaboration song “Despacito” peaked at number 1 on Billboard for 4 months and as of yet, it stands as the second-most-watched video in YouTube history with almost 8 billion views on it.
In this article, we will cover Daddy Yankee’s net worth, early and personal life, career highlights, and many others.
Daddy Yankee’s Net Worth
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Daddy Yankee has an estimated net worth of $40 million.
Early Life
Daddy Yankee was born on the 3rd of February 1977 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His mother belonged to a family of musicians and his father was also a musician; a salsa percussionist. He also has a sibling, a brother, Nomar.
When he was in his teenage years, he wanted to become a professional Baseball player and he even attempted for the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball but prior to being signed officially, he was injured in the crossfire and an AK-47 rifle hit his leg due to which he had to spent almost one and a half year to recover from his injury. The accident led him to pay full attention to his career in music.
Personal Life
Daddy Yankee has remained tight-lipped about his personal life and talked about it very rarely during interviews. He confirmed that he prevents doing it as these are extremely treasured things for him that don’t need to be public.
In a 2006 interview with María Celeste Arrarás in Al Rojo Vivo, he opened up about his relationship with his wife Mireddys González and kids saying that his marriage is strong as the couple is “friends above anything”, and he has attempted to neglect other attractions as “weakness is the reason for the downfall of several artists”.
The duo met when they were too young and at the age of 17, they took the decision of tying the knot.
The couple welcomed their first child, a daughter, Yamilette Ayala González, and at that time, Yankee was just 17 he revealed he was confused initially and added that bringing up a daughter at such a young age was really difficult. In 1996, they welcomed another daughter, Jesaaelys and after two years, in 1998, their son, Jeremy was born.
Career
When he was 13, Daddy Yankee began rapping and singing and after the gunfire incident, he took his music career seriously. His inspirations are Vico C, DJ Playero, DJ Nelson, and DJ Drako, and mixed their styles altogether with his own and were one of the first artists who performed Reggaeton which is actually a style of Spanish-language dancehall reggae.
In 1991, he made one of his first music appearances on a DJ Playero mixtape titled “Playero 34”, with the track called “So’ Persigueme, No Te Detengas”. In 1995, he released his first official solo studio project called “No Mercy”, which kicked off under White Lion Records and BM Records in Puerto Rico.
In the 1990s, Daddy Yankee then went on to appear on a number of DJ Playero’s mixtapes and the Puerto Rican government even banned a number of them for explicit lyrics.
Ayala is recognized as one of the pioneers of the Reggaeton genre and is indeed given the credit by many as being the one who drafted the phrase “Reggaeton” back in 1994 with DJ Playero. Both of them used the phrase in order to explain their music on their album entitled “Playero 36” (1994).
Yankee partnered with the rapper Nas for the 1997 track titled “The Prophecy”. Later, he dropped 2 compilation albums, 1997’s “El Cartel” and 2001’s “El Cartel II”. Both of these were a hit in Puerto Rico, though couldn’t get any recognition in the remainder of Latin America.
In 2002, he tasted his first real international success after his album “El Cangri.com” was released. During the early period of his career, he collaborated with Nicky Jam, popular as Los Cangris, and released the 2003’s albums “Los Homerun-es” and “Mas Flow” and 2005’s “Mas Flow 2”, which he worked on with Luny Tunes, popular reggaetón producers.
In 2004, his third solo studio album entitled “Barrio Fino” was released under El Cartel Records and VI Music. Actually, it was the first release by El Cartel Records, Yankee’s record company that he co-owns with Andres Hernandez.
The album became successful. He followed it up with an international tour. The single “Gasolina” became a massive international hit particularly.
He then featured on N.O.R.E. ‘s 2004 single titled “Oye Mi Canto”, which peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The next year, he received many international awards, establishing his name as a top Latin music artist.
He won awards for Album of the Year for Reggaeton Album of the Year at the Latin Billboard Awards; “Barrio Fino” at Lo Nuestro Awards; 8 nominations and 7 awards for “Gasolina” as the second version of Premios Juventud; and was nominated for “Gasolina” at the Latin Grammy and MTV Video Music Awards“.
“Gasolina” success resulted in the development of a new radio format in the US, and also a new Billboard chart, “Latin Rhythm Airplay”. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in 2006.
Since then, he never looked back and gave us many more albums along including 2007’s “El Cartel: The Big Boss”, 2010’s “Mundial”, and 2012’s “Prestige”. In addition, Daddy Yankee also appeared as a guest on the reggaetón compilation albums like 2008’s “Caribbean Connection”, 2007’s “Echo Presenta: Invasión”, and 2006’s “Mas Flow: Los Benjamins”.
Furthermore, his 2017 song titled “Despacito”, for which he collaborated with Latin pop singer Luis Fonsi. Despacito was the first Spanish-language song that debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 after 1996’s “Macarena”.
In 2017, Despacito’s success made him the most listened-to artist across the world on the streaming service Spotify making him the first Latin artist to gain this. He won 82 awards from 270 nominations as of 2017.
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