Daddy Yankee: LEGENDADDY

I feel like I need to hear you sing. Why don't we start today's episode with a few lyrics?

Okay, Uh, she could be rich, but I'm rich. She could be thick, but I'm thick of no.

No no no no no no no no no no no. I meant Daddy Yankee.

Oh yeah, yeah, of course of course that. Oh and I'm keto to that.

Oh you know how hard I can't?

You know what? I really can't sing like that. So we're going to leave it to him.

So hard to sing a Daddy Yankee song because you just don't have that flow. And that's okay. It doesn't mean that that song doesn't get stuck in your head. And for me, that song has been in my head since the last episode, but I had another song in mine. Pass fucks.

Oh so analog.

Yeah, because we're not fucking around with the bluetooth in my car. All right, imagine this, Okay, we are rolling Toonse Okay or San Juan, wherever you're from, blasting Daddy Yankee's twenty fourteen single Palavras consinfido or words with meaning.

We can get that barrio singy mohem.

Okay, So here's how the words go, I will not sing because clearly Joseph has proven how hard it is to sing a Reeton song.

Yeah no, seriously, here are the words.

Riquerdom yere getan solo esta musica, ta criminal the arestaban violando tu derichos translation.

Joseph, he's telling it like it used to be. He says, I remember like it was yesterday that just for listening to this music, they treat you like a criminal. They'd even arrest you.

In the here and now of twenty twenty four, bragaton is the stuff of big ticket festivals Hello Coachella, and major ad campaigns. So Daddy Yankee might remember it like it's yesterday, but for.

Us, noo machinad. But we learned a couple of episodes ago the police raided music stores and threw shade on Rereguetondo's on the nightly news.

That shift from state censorship to corporate sponsorship did not happen overnight, and just a decade ago. Ten years ago, Dottie Yankee was still fighting for Reggaeton's reputation.

But he's not just calling out the cops in Puerto Rico. He's saying the politicians, the media, the preacher man. All of them blamed Regaton for their own.

Feelings exactly, and he fires back that Perreo actually lifted him out of poverty and not only gave him a job, but created jobs for other people. That video has school kids and young Gregatondo's singing the chorus and telling all these authorities before you talk about me, look at yourself.

You could be helping the island. You could be helping the barrio. To be honest, it's a little what have you done for me lately? Crossed with I'm not even gonna try the greatest level all.

I really appreciate your restraint there.

I wasn't I couldn't. I couldn't do it, and.

I promise well bless Whitney and Janet on the streets of San Juan or punts it as well. But first we need to get to the B side of this track.

Is this a new Baby Jesus song?

No, it's his old baby Cheese's song. Now, if you could summarize or pray for me in one sentence, I think it would be something like It's lonely at the top.

Of course, heavy is the head that wears the reggaeton crown. Even with his wife and kids and all of Puerto Rico rooting for him.

But see that's the thing on this one. He says that sometimes it's easier to deal with an outright enemy than to navigate friends and brothers who need something from you.

You think maybe Nikki jam wasn't the only one.

Well, like we did say in the last episode, when you're walking the path to stardom, you're likely to be losing friends all along the way. As hard as you might try to put the community first and avoid making enemies, money and fame make things Hella complicated, But.

The top wouldn't be lonely for long. As Dandy Yinki continued building an empire and growing the Regeton Sin, he would also find himself mending bridges.

That's today on becoming an Icon.

Okay, now give me the ox back so I can play you in a new ice Spice Bitch.

I'm your host, Liliana oscaz and I'm Joseph Carrio and this is Becoming an Icon, a weekly podcast where we give you the rundown on how today's most famous LATINX stars have shaped pop culture.

And given the world some extra level.

Sit back and get comfortable.

Because we are going in the only way we know how, with whenas us whenas some cheese, and a lot of opinions, as we relive their greatest achievements on our journey to find out what makes them still ic on it.

By the end of the two thousands, it was clear Daddy Yankee was out from the underground.

Barriofino topped the charts not just in the US, but in Mexico, Chile, the Jamaican Republic, Honduras, Argentina, and Colombia, home to the next generation of reggaeton eros.

It was the first reggaeton album to ever debut at number one on Billboard's Top Latin Albums.

Charts, and that wasn't the only first. The year after Barriofino dropped, Yankee became the first Latin artist to sign a deal with reeboch For the kids listening, it's like a collabo exactly.

He was the og influencer before we had a name for influencers. His accessory line dy included sporting goods, shoes, and so much more.

Okay, let's see the kicks they're.

Giving a confused air Force one.

You know, it's so weird that you say that because for me, they're giving like knockoff Tolo Cortes. But if they try to add a flare, that's it. I said, I said it like that, I said, how it is.

I did like the soul though, because I feel like if you were walking in this, like if you were walking at the beach in Puerto Rico, you would be stamping the sand with Daddy Yankee signature and I'm here for that.

And you know what, And there was a little bit of a design to the bottom. It wasn't like straight. It was kind of like it's like squiggly, you know, it has like a design at the bottom of the soul.

He had a little bit of everything. He had some camo when you were feeling like, you know, like a guerrero, like you wanted to like be out there fighting for the community. He had your like and white, yeah, the black and white when you wanted to dress up to go to the club and Perrie like. He had a little bit of everything. He had a wardrobe. It was a shoe wardrobe. Thank you, Daddy.

Ye.

I don't know if they would be you know what, I bet if I went on stock X right now, these bitches are probably selling for a thousand dollars a pair.

Oh my god, because he's retired.

Retired limited edition.

Oh I didn't think of that. But like, also, I could just never ever ever see anybody that I know on planet Earth wearing them.

Joseph, don't be a hater because you don't have a shoe collapse.

Don't be a hater. It's coming now.

The deals for him didn't stop there. In two thousand and seven, Yankee started in a campaign for Pepsi titled With Us. The ad showed Yankee revisiting the scene of his youth by walking through a series of doors.

He looks around the body he grew up in. He visits his first recording studio. Then we see him getting his first music award and playing a stadium show. So it's basically the spark notes for this podcast.

It's the mythologizing of a gangri And it didn't stop with Pepsi. Although Pepsi is like the pinnacle. I mean, like, if you get a Pepsi ad, like you're you're golden, right. But did you know, Joseph that Daddy Yankee got the eight mile treatment. Wait, Mom's a spaghetti more like Mammy's Mofongo. In two thousand and eight, Daddy Yankee started the film

There were a lot of these little rap biopics back in the day. No like Kuslim Flow was one I Think and Get Rich or Die trying.

It was definitely a genre that was popping at that moment, and while Valento de Barrio might not rank among the best of them, it was a hit with audiences in New York and across Latin America, yet more proof that people identified with Daddy Yankee's story. They were rooting for.

Him, and Yankee rooted for them too. In two thousand and eight, he founded the Fundacion Guerrero, a charitable organization in Puerto Rico helping people in prison.

That same year, Harvard College's Presidencia Latina student organization named him Latino of the Year, and at the Latin Billboard Music Awards, he won the Spirit of Hope Award for his work with La comonidac Our Guys.

Getting his props from every corner of society. The brands the award shows all the way down to at Pueblo.

Daddy Yankee was also inspiring a new generation of reggaeton nero's, and not just creatively mm hm.

The Carteil Records model became the strategy for reggaetonetto's throughout the whole scene.

Up and comers used independent labels with major label distribution deals to retain ownership of their music and their profits, just like Daddy Yankee did. He was showing the kids how to do it right.

Honey, honey. He was in the driver's seat for his career. What do you think he played on the OX.

Oh easy, Pussycat Dolls?

Mm? Wait what Yeah?

Yankee closed out the two thousands with a follow up to Barrio Fino and with the soundtrack to his eight mile Style Kindness sort of not really.

Bio, and one of those albums had.

Nick Bull Scherzinger of Pussycat Doll's fame, along with Acon Will I Am and Fergie.

Uh. Clearly I'm two thousand and late to Daddy Yankee because I was not aware. What about the soundtrack album?

That one was almost all Yankee except for a couple of features by fellow Briareos Aganhel and Randy Ortiz So. At the same time, Yankee was topping the Billboard charts and trol thinks the part to Fergie.

We owe hurt so much.

He continued to uplift up and coming artists in the Regaeton, Sin and beyond, and we owe him so much. Exactly years later, as Daddy Yankee was approaching retirement Icon in the making, Carol G. Would tell Billboard, you never perceived the guy as old because he collaborates with the hottest acts but also with the hottest new acts. It's something new artists are grateful for.

Prince Royce, Oh sooner, Carol G. Becky G, Nahi Natasha. These are just a few of the artists Daddy Yankee mentored, featured, and collaborated within the twenty tens. He wasn't just passing the torch, he was fanning the flames.

Speaking of torches, Joseph, I've got a little more trivia for you, but you're.

Doing this in the middle of the episode. Now, listen.

We got to keep these listeners on their toes. Okay, I am changing shit up all right. Here's an easy one. At the twenty seventeen Winter Olympics, which I know you watched to no less than three separate figure skating contestants performed routines to one Daddy Yankee song, Joseph, can you name that song?

Okay, hold on, I have to think it's twenty seventeen. Yes, the world says a load of roomy in sir Hi, Oh my god, the Kendall Jenner pepsi at it makes everyone spill their koffifi and Sosha Blore wins the crown. Oh dang was Game of Thrones? Still on? I'm really trying to figure out what the song could be.

Okay, you're taking this so far off topic in twenty seventeen, and while I do appreciate sate the pop culture rewind, quit playing with the listeners.

It's just fun to look back sometimes, you know. Anyways, it can only be de spasito ding ding.

By twenty seventeen, Yankee had been beating the drum about reggaeton's coming dominance for years.

Despite his success, skeptics of the genre in the media and in the label offices didn't think the genre had staying power.

And Yankee per Rolling Stone told them, with all due respect, you guys, don't know. You guys, don't go out. You're not going to the clubs. What people listen to on the streets and out everywhere is reggaeton. That's a direct quote.

Again, it's so hard to imagine anyone would be as wrong about reggaeton as these execs. It almost feels like he wrote the esposito just to prove them wrong.

Well, actually, Luis Fonsi had been working on this pasito with songwriter Erica Ender for a few months before calling in Daddy Yankee.

So they had the melody, they had a beat, they had the guitar line, and they brought in Yankee to supply the reggaeton.

Dorisma, and as we all know, Daddy Yankee proved his point. Let's get into some charts, shall.

We, Before you know who jumped in the remix. This posito debuted at number two on the US Hot Latin Songs chart on February fourth. After two weeks, they climbed to number one.

On the US Hot one hundred. The original version debuted at eighty eight climbed to forty four. But of course that's not where things ended.

Enter the beaps, believe it or not, justin Bieber getting in the mix was completely organic. Three months after this, Posito dropped Bieber Baby heard that track at a nightclub in Colombia and couldn't get enough.

The track was an international chart topper, and as we'll discuss in just a minute, Colombia was becoming the epicenter of Regathon's new wave.

Okay, so here's the tea. So Beabs called up is able to get on the track, but he was in Ba so they had to fly in his vocal producer for help. Because Baby Beebes had to sing in Espanol for the very first time.

Over just two hours, Biaber learned his verse fanatically and overcame the biggest hurdle for any gringo learning how to pronounce the letter R in Spanish. Actually, let's try it now, Joseph, do your best r.

Erre carrio.

Erre. Why is that so hard for people?

You know you can't really shake your tongue fast.

Well, clearly, Justin Bieber has skills.

Dude, say what you want about Bebes. That is truly an accomplishment. And they say that after a lifetime of gringo's mutilating my last name.

Carillo, Joseph Carillo, I'm sorry you had it so rough, and FYI it is gotfrio.

Mm hmm, it's good. I'm good, I mean whatever. Anyways, the remix super charged Esposito's chart performance, topping the Billboard Hot one hundred for sixteen consecutive weeks. It also spent a total of fifty six weeks in the US Hot Latin Songs chart.

All in all, this Spasibo would become the best performing track of all time on Hot Latin Songs and the thirty third best performing on the Hot one hundred. It ruled the charts of forty seven different countries and at the time was the most streamed song of all time, and Daddy Yankee became the most streamed artist in Spotify's history, and it.

Would be the most watched video on YouTube if it wasn't for Baby Shark.

Do Do Do Do Do Doo.

I'm kidding.

I have tried to get that song out of my house for years. Luckily, luckily my son does have goodtists in music, so we only lived in that phase for like a month. Anyway, this facito is proof of what Carol g had said about Reggaeton's reigning king. He kept his collapse for fresh and as a result, his dominance and evolution and reggaetons by extension was secured.

Case in point, at the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame induction, this Posito was hailed as transformative. Songwriters Desmond Child and Rudy Bettez said, not since Ricky Martin's Live in La Vida Loca has there been a song in any genre that has had the global impact of Desposito changing the course of pop music forever. And it did.

This Pasito set off a global surge in Latin music Listenership music critics would even call this the this Fasito effect. By the way, thank you. That is so much better than the Latin explosion.

Oh my god, Wait when you said the Desposito effect, I literally thought you were talking about the Ashton Kutcher movie.

How did I know you would say that? And also never the year this Pasito dropped, six out of the ten most viewed YouTube videos were songs performed in Spanish by Latino artists, and here in twenty twenty four, I think it's safe to say that this Pasito effect has only continued to ripple through the charts and across streaming services.

We said, we're living in the world Daddy Yankee built. This Fasito was basically the last piece.

And the world Daddy Yankee built had grown far beyond Puerto Rico and New York. You need only look at the other reggaeton hit that smashed the charts in twenty seventeen to see where else it had grown.

The summer of twenty seventeen was also the summer of Mihente j Balvin and Willie Williams Beyonce boosted Mumbaton Bank.

Mihenthe was the sound of the next generation of reggaeton, and that generation was being cultivated in Colombia and in the.

Same place where Reggaeton's the next generation was revving up. Daddy Yankee's adoptive brother was mounting a company.

It's twenty fifteen and Daddy Yankee is boarding a flight. It's before this bus Egal, but Yankee has already been perfecting the viral hit formula with songs like Limbo and with Shaky Shaky soon to follow.

What he doesn't know is that he's boarding the same plane as the man he once called his Edmano Niki chan Nicki looks a.

Lot different from when he and Yankee parted ways about a decade prior. For starters, he's inked out all the way up to his neck, but more importantly, he's older, wiser, and clear eyed.

A few years before, in twenty eleven, Nicki had come face to face with death and he was still in the spiral of addiction.

Had issued him stern warnings about his drug use, but that night he overdosed. The following morning, he woke up partially paralyzed.

As the doctor's assessed brain scans, Nicki took in a view from the bottom. His career was at a standstill. All of his money had gone to maintaining his drug habit.

He had gone from making music to working odd jobs, first since En Juan and then in Medellin, Colombia in two thousand and seven. He would flirt with recovery but struggle to commit. Four years later, in the hospital, thinking about all that he had left to lose, Nicki jam with the help of his manager, decided to kick the habit once and for all.

It would take years of recovery before Niki decided to step back in the booth, and that recovery took place amid the Reggaetncin and Medeyin Home to j Balvin, Carol Gi and Maluma. The scene was on the cusp of blowing up, and there Niki found redemption and reinvention.

In twenty fourteen, Nikki Jammerly's two singles Bienceas and Me and Roya de Vel. The two tracks highlighted Nicki Jam's singing, a quality that now had a chance to really shine thanks to reggaeton's more melodic turn in the twenty tens. Niki was shining in a way he hadn't before, and the listeners were loving it.

So the Niki Jam who stepped on the plane that day was a new man, or maybe he was the man he always could have been without drugs.

By chance, Nicki and Yankee caught each other's eyes. The two reggaetono gs made their way to each other from across the aisle, and immediately both of them apologized for everything that had happened, and.

It wouldn't be long before those Gungais were back in action.

That same year, Yankee joined Nikki Jam on stage during Nicki's concert at the Coliseo Puerto Rico, his first live performance since moving to Colombia.

Niki Jam's comeback album, Phoenix, released in twenty seventeen to worldwide acclaim and success. The cover of the album features a mire of Nikki painted and medine by local artists. Literally everyone was rooting for his comeback.

Here was the now global reggaeton community recognizing one of its all time greats, not just for his storied past, but the bright future ahead of him.

The album's lead single, at Betazon or Forgiveness, would spend thirty weeks at the number one spot on the Billboard Latin Song Chart, and it would win him his first ever Latin Grammy.

In some ways, it shouldn't be so much of a shock that Daddy Yankee is so public about his faith. These days, He and his closest at mnols have experienced life changing moments where all seems lost, only to find redemption.

Question, do you think Daddy Yankee goes fool Papito and sends his kids long text with Bible.

Versus one hundred percent? And we're about to get why? The year after he patched things up with Nicki Jam, Daddy Yankee would experience a true blue born again moment in twenty six sixteen, just before taking the stage at a concert in Colombia, he collapsed. He narrowly avoided a heart attack from a combination of hypoglocemia, dehydration, and high blood pressure.

The doctors diagnosed him with pre diabetes and told him that he had one foot in this world and the other one in the afterlife.

So once again, Daddy Yanki was lying in a hospital bed, faced with the possibility of losing everything, and this time he says he thought of God and swore that he made it out alive. He would serve him.

Which brings us finally to Daddy Yanki's retirement. He would release one last album, Legend Daddy, in twenty twenty two, featuring several of the torch bearers of Reggedton's next generation from all across Reregaton's original stomping grounds.

Fellow Bourriqua's Bad Bunny and Mike Towers, Dominican Reggaetono El Alpha, and Panama City's own set. Born and raised in Rio Abajo, the neighborhood where it all started with regge En Espanol.

And for good measure, we've got pitple on there too, because let us never forget that Gossol Lena came out the same year as Gulo.

Oh my god, those club days. Thank god there were no smartphones. Okay, thank you for saving us, because those videos would never have died. No, the whole reggaeton community rallied to say goodbye to its goat. Dona mand even settled his beef with Yankee in a heartfelt Instagram post, thanking him for everything he had done for the genre.

After more than thirty years in that reggaeton game, Daddy Yankee went on his farewell tour La Umi West, done eighty four performances in fourteen countries, ending with four sold out back to back shows at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico.

With music in the rear view, Daddy Yankee had his site set on the future, starting with executive producing me on a Netflix series following aspiring reggaeton netos in Miami.

Except music isn't totally in the rear view, because this year he released a song just in time for Easter Sunday, Donantere or Blood Joiner and let me tell you It trips like holy Water.

Okay, Joseph, you win this round. On Donante de Sanre, Yankee impresses on his listeners that there are more important things in life than fame, money and ego. So rather than retiring from music, Yankees, retiring from old ways and.

Yankee be preaching. He pinned the following to the comment section and the YouTube video from the song.

As I said in my last concert, the music, social networks, preaching, concerts or other types of events on my platforms will be used for the service of the Kingdom. Peter, upon meeting Jesus, continued with the same job as a fisherman, but with another purpose. He became a fisher of men like me. I continue in music, but with a new purpose to bring light and the gospel of the Lord to all the souls of the world.

Damn, which gets me wondering, like, is this Daddy Yankees Carlos Santana meets the Angel Metatron moment. So how do you feel about by the Yankee.

I'm here for it because I support anybody's artistic and musical decisions around like their art right, Like he can do whatever he wants with it. I think it'd be interesting to bring reggaeton sounds to I'm gonna call it like gospel Christian music because I don't know what other genre to call it, but listen, we have Christian rock, we have Christian rap. Why could we also have Christian or more spiritual regaton the Christian PreO Christian? Okay, Jesus,

I would because it is what it is. Just because you're serving the Lord doesn't mean you can't throw it back. I'm just I'm not being It's just a dance move. It doesn't have to be you know what I mean?

But what are you throwing it back into the air?

Joseph?

You know what, if there is an audience for like niche music, this is the niche to like maybe invest in For Daddy Yankee, I say, more power to And by the way, he's not wrong. There is more to life than fame, money and ego.

It's true.

So we agree.

I do want to say I am here for it. I am here for Daddy Yankee finding his spirituality and spreading the light. Because you know, when you are on a mental health journey, or you can call it a spiritual journey and energy journey, things do change, and you know, ultimately he doesn't have to do anything from the past anymore. He could start brand new. Who's to say.

And it's the sound of reggaeton that really brings you into the music. So if the world is just listening, they're like, oh, I want to hear Daddy Yankee. If you were to do this kind of gospel and these kinds of lyrics that support this new found faith in his life. But put it to a reggat b and put that dem bow on it, maybe it would make it to the top of the Spotify playlist charts. Who knows, But I say you do you, Daddy Yankee?

I say halle luke.

Time will have to tell what gospel badri Yankee will come to preach whatever the future holds. Time and time again, He's spread the light of reggaeton far and wide, and generations of Latin artists stand in that light.

Oh that church stuff ain't going on my houte you Daddy playlist?

Though completely fair. On the next Becoming an Icon, we're taking a look at today's icons in the making Carol Gen, Becky Gen, and Fmilicaba. Becoming an Icon is presented by Sonoo and Iheart's Michael kudda podcast network. Listen to becoming an icon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your to

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