Daddy Yankee is the multi-Latin-Grammy-winning Puerto Rican icon widely crowned the "King of Reggaeton" — the artist who not only coined the genre's name in the mid-1990s but transformed it into a global phenomenon. Born Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez on February 3, 1977, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he grew up in the Villa Kennedy housing project and turned to music after a stray bullet ended his promising baseball career as a teenager.

After years of independent releases throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, Daddy Yankee released the landmark album Barrio Fino (2004), whose lead single "Gasolina" became the first reggaeton track to achieve mainstream global success. The song turned him into an international superstar and helped Barrio Fino sell millions of copies worldwide, opening the door for the genre's global takeover.