Daddy Yankee retires as the ‘boss’ of reggaeton

He was a pioneer and still had “gasoline” left, but decided to retire. Daddy Yankee is saying goodbye this weekend with a series of concerts in Puerto Rico, where he forged his more than 30-year career as the “King of Reggaeton” and influenced many artists.

Yandel, MC Ceja, Maldy and Elena Rose were some of those artists who expressed themselves to EFE his respect and admiration for Daddy Yankeewho was a “musical inspiration” in their careers.

Self-proclaimed “Big Boss”, who announced his retirement from music in March 2022 to give himself “a chance at life”, planned to hold three final concerts in Puerto Rico in January 2023.

However, they were postponed until now, when Puerto Rico Coliseum for five presentations, entitled ‘The Goal’, from today to Sunday.

Daddy Yankee was already famous before Yandel even started

Yandel, of the duo Wisin y Yandel, explained that his friendship with Daddy Yankee is so strong that he is the artist he has collaborated with the most, on hits such as ‘No me dejes solo’, ‘Paleta’, ‘Everything begins’ at the disco’ or ‘If you only knew’.

“Daddy Yankee It has been an inspiration for me since the beginning. He was one of the pioneers. When he was already famous, I was in the neighborhood trying to survive. So my respect for Daddy Yankee is very high,” Yandel said.

Raymond Ayala, first name Daddy YankeeThe 46-year-old started his musical career in the early nineties on the album ‘Playero 34’, by music producer DJ Player, on which the performer first mentioned the word reggaeton or reggaeton.

Because of the talent that DJ Playero He saw promise in the young man, decided to place him in his next production, which catapulted him to Puerto Rico, although he gained international fame in 2004 with the song ‘Gasolina’.

That was also the inspiration for the competition

MC Ceja, one of the most veteran and current reggaetonists in music, musiche recalled competing with Daddy Yankee in the mid-’90s, being part of DJ Eric’s La Industria group, and DJ Player’s “Big Boss” Dream Team.

“When I started in the era of La Industria, Daddy Yankee It had a lot of influence (sic) on me, in what reggaeton is. I’ve always been a rap artist, and Yankee’s style and delivery was something unique when I listened to him at the time,” recalled Alberto Mendoza, MC Ceja.

The veteran rapper also confided that Daddy Yankee, a multi-award winning actor, had a big influence on the composition and production of his song ‘Confusion’, which opened his first album ‘Luz Solar’.

At the end of a successful career, Daddy Yankee He released his latest album, ‘Legendaddy’, in March 2022, which surpassed 600 million views in less than a month and featured collaborations with artists such as Bad Bunny, Rauw Alejandro, Pitbull, Natti Natasha and Becky G.

Maldy believes that Daddy Yankee you have gas left

Another member of the so-called ‘old school reggaeton’ who expressed his admiration Daddy Yankee was Maldy, who, while accepting the retirement of his veteran colleague, believes he still has fuel left in the tank to continue making music.

“I think it’s time for him to retire, but I would say the opposite, that he’s not leaving this music and industry because he has time for more. He’s the ‘Big Boss’, there’s nothing more to say,” he said. He said. .

During the time when Daddy Yankee started his career, there were no music platforms, tools that new urban artists used to download their songs and manage to “monetize” them or get money from them.

One of these new artists is Elena Rosewho contributed her compositional talent to the song ‘De Vuelta Pa’ La Vuelta’, which Daddy Yankee made in collaboration with Marc Anthony.

I feel a lot of respect and admiration for the person who opened so many doors for us and paved the way for us to be able to do what we do today, Rose pointed out.