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Monday, July 22, 2013

Daddy Yankee - Viña del Mar 2009 - Entrada de Daddy Yankee - Jefe



Tonight in Zumba class, I asked Pepper for the title of one song that struck me as quirky: sort-of the perfect "Breaking Bad" song. We had a slight miscommunication, instead he gave me the name of this song, which had always intrigued me, and in some ways is even more suited for "Breaking Bad" (with its English chorus of 'The King Is Back') at the start of Season 5b.

This concert - the most important in Daddy Yankee's career - takes place in Viña del Mar, Chile, which makes sense, given Chile's huge rap and hip hop audience. I love the show-biz meld of Spanish and English and hip-hop. (There seems to be a wave of formidable Latin hip-hop musicians born in 1977: witness Ana Tijoux's "1977"). The audience for trans-national hip-hop is just gigantic. Daddy Yankee seems to have won the popularity lottery. Wikipedia explains:
Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez (born February 3, 1977), known by his stage name Daddy Yankee, is a Puerto Rican reggaeton songwriter and recording artist. Ayala was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and was raised in the Villa Kennedy Housing Projects.

While still dabbling in music, Ayala aspired to be a professional baseball player and tried out for the Seattle Mariners Major League baseball team. Before he could be officially signed, he was hit by a stray round from an AK-47 rifle while taking a break from a studio recording session with reggaeton mixtape icon DJ Playero. Ayala spent roughly one and a half years recovering from the wound; the bullet was never removed from his hip, and he credits the shooting incident with allowing him to focus entirely on a music career. Since then, he has sold over 10 million albums.

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