He is Puerto Rican and he sings, writes songs, acts, makes records, and raps. He is one of the best-known and most successful Latin hip-hop artists right now. His real name is Ramón Luis Ayala Rodrguez, but El Cangri and Daddy Yankee are more well-known names.
The rapper sold more than 20 million records and became known as the “King of Reggaetón.” His song “Despacito” was a hit all over the world. Daddy Yankee has won more than 50 awards, including five Latin Grammys, two Billboards, and fourteen Latin Billboards.
He won a lot of awards and became one of the best-known musicians. Yankee is also pretty popular on social media. He has more than 40 million followers on Instagram and more than 35 million subscribers on YouTube. So, today we’ll talk about Daddy Yankee’s total net worth, his salary, how much he makes each year, his career, biography, love life, and a lot more.
Early Life
Daddy Yankee was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on February 3, 1977. His father, Ramón Ayala Class, was a percussionist and his mother, Rosa Mara Rodrguez, was a manicurist. He has two younger brothers who also sing, Nomar and Melvin Ayala. Yankee had a hard childhood. On the one hand, he was very interested in sports like boxing, baseball, and basketball, which brought him a lot of good things.
But he also had to deal with his dad, who was an alcoholic and drug addict. Yankee wanted to play baseball professionally when he was young, but before he could, he got interested in music. Even though his dad was an addict, he was in a Salsa orchestra and was a good drummer. His father encouraged him to play music.
At age 13, Daddy Yankee met DJ Playero and started to record some songs and rhymes he had written before. He started listening to reggaetón right away and looked up to DJ Nelson and DJ Draco. His dream was to play baseball professionally, and when he was 17, Yankee got a chance to join the US team Seattle Mariners.
Before he could sign the agreement, he got shot in the leg during a gunfight. This made all of his plans fall apart. After getting better from the gunshot, he was ready to put all of his time and energy into his talent for music.
Personal Life
Daddy Yankee is pretty private about his personal life, but he did talk about his family in an interview. In 1994, he met and married a Puerto Rican girl named Mirredys Gonzalez Ayala.
Yankee and Mirredys had their first child, a daughter named Yamilette when he was 17 years old. Today, they have three kids named Yamilette, Jessaelyss, and Jeremy, and the whole family lives in luxury.
Career
By the beginning of the 1990s, DJ Playero gave him the chance to be on his mixtape, “Player 37,” which came out in 1992. In 1995, Daddy Yankee put out his first mixtape by himself. It was called “No Mercy,” and DJ Playero helped him make it. Slowly but surely, his music started to be played not only in Puerto Rico but also in the US.
In 1997, he worked with the rapper Nas on the song “The Prophecy.” The same year, he put out two compilation albums called El Cartel and El Cartel II. These were some of the first records to only have reggaetón music on them. Yankee had a unique style of music, but the rest of the world wasn’t ready for it, so he didn’t do very well outside of Puerto Rico. At about the same time, he decided to use his home name, “Daddy Yankee.”
In 2002, when he put out the album El Cangri.com, which became a worldwide hit, he had a big year in his career. Radio stations in the US, especially in New York and Miami, began playing his album often. Guayando, which had Nicky Jam on it, was one of the most well-known songs. His song “Latigazo” went viral and reached #43 on the Top Latin Albums chart on Billboard.
Soon after that, Yankee started El Cartel Records and put out an album in 2004 called “Barrio Fino.” It quickly became the first line album to sell 1 million copies in the US, and it has the most platinum records of any album in the last 10 years. At the same time, Daddy Yankee was becoming known all over the world.
His album Barrio Fino got to the top of several lists and countries in Latin America, and it also started getting noticed in some parts of Europe.
Yankee won a Grammy Latino and several Billboard awards, and one of the most popular singles from the album, “Gasolina,” was named one of the “50 Greatest Latin Songs of All Time.” In 2005, he signed a huge deal with Interscope Records for $20 million, and in 2007 he put out the album El Cartel: The Big Boss.
Yankee released more albums like Mundial and Prestige in 2010. In 2013, he released another album called “King Daddy,” which was followed by his “King Daddy Tour” in several cities in Europe and the United States. In 2017, Yankee put out the hit song “Despacito,” which featured Luis Fonsi.
The song quickly went to the top of the “Billboard Hot 100” and became known all over the world. Over 7.7 billion people have watched the song’s official music video on YouTube. Yankee was an extra in the 2004 movie Vampiros before he started his career as a rapper. In an episode of the show the next year, he made his first TV appearance.
Career in Music
Ayala started singing and rapping when he was 13, but he wasn’t able to focus on his music career until he was recovering from his bullet wounds. He was influenced by the styles of Vico C, DJ Playero, DJ Nelson, and DJ Draco. He combined their styles with his own to become one of the first artists to play Reggaeton, a style of Spanish-language dancehall reggae. One of his first songs was on DJ Playero’s “Playero 34” mixtape from 1991.
It was called “So’ Persigueme, No Te Detengas.” “No Mercy” came out in 1995 on White Lion Records and BM Records in Puerto Rico. It was his first official solo studio project. In the 1990s, he kept showing up on DJ Playero’s mixtapes, many of which were banned by the Puerto Rican government because of their explicit lyrics.
He is thought to be one of the first people to make Reggaeton music. Some people even say that he and DJ Playero came up with the word “Reggaeton” in 1994. On their 1994 album “Player 36,” the two used this word to describe their music.
Nas and Ayala worked together on the song “The Prophecy” in 1997. Then, in 1997 and 1999, he put out two compilation albums called “El Cartel” and “El Cartel II” (2001). They did very well in Puerto Rico, but they couldn’t get anywhere else in Latin America.
In 2002, when he put out the album “El Cangri.com,” he had his first real international hit. During this early part of his career, he also worked on a project with Nicky Jam called Los Canaris, a compilation album called “Los Homerun-es,” and the albums “Mas Flow” (2003) and “Mas Flow 2” (2005), which were made with the well-known reggaetón producers Luny Tunes.
“Barrio Fino,” Ayala’s third solo studio album, came out in 2004. It was put out by El Cartel Records and VI Music. It was the first record that Ayala’s record company, El Cartel Records, which he owns with Andres Hernandez, put out. The album was a hit in many places. In the United States alone, it sold more than 500,000 copies.
After releasing the album, he went on a world tour, stopping in places like the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Honduras, Spain, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, and the US. One of the singles from the album, “Gasolina,” was a huge hit all over the world.
As a guest artist on N.O.R.E.’s 2004 single “Oye Mi Canto,” which reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, he kept his success going. In 2005, he won several international awards, which helped him become even more well-known as a top Latin music artist. “Barrio Fino” won Album of the Year at the Lo Nuestro Awards and Reggaeton Album of the Year at the Latin Billboard Awards. “Gasolina” got eight nominations and seven awards at the second edition of the Premios Juventud, and it also got nominations at the Latin Grammy and MTV Video Music Awards.
The success of “Gasolina” led to the creation of “Latin Rhythm Airplay,” a new radio format in the US, and a new Billboard chart. Time magazine named Daddy Yankee one of the 100 most influential people in 2006, citing the fact that “Barrio Fino” had sold more than 2 million copies and that he had a $20 million contract with Interscope records and was a Pepsi endorser.
Since then, Ayala has put out several more albums, such as “El Cartel: The Big Boss” (2007), “Mundial” (2010), and “Prestige” (2012). He has also been a guest on the reggaetón compilation albums “Caribbean Connection” (2008), “Echo Presenta: Invasión” (2007), and “Mas Flow: Los Benjamins” (2006). Also, his 2017 single “Despacito,” which he made with Latin pop singer Luis Fonsi, was one of his most important songs since “Gasolina.”
It was the first Spanish-language song to top the Billboard Hot 100 since “Macarena” in 1996. Also, on April 20, 2017, the music video for “Despacito” got its billionth view, making it the video with the most views in YouTube history at the time. Because “Despacito” was so popular, Ayala became the most-listened-to artist on Spotify around the world in 2017. He was the first Latin artist to do this. As of 2017, Ayala had won 82 of the 270 awards for which she was nominated.
Daddy Yankee’s Income
About $40 million is how much Daddy Yankee is worth as of 2022. He is one of the best-paid Puerto Rican rappers and songwriters in the music business. He has also put out several hit singles and albums.
A report in Time Magazine says that Yankee is one of the most powerful people in the world. He is also the most popular Latin artist on Spotify, with more than 50 million people listening to him every month.
Yankee is also paid between $100,000 and $150,000 per show. Most of his money comes from the music business, such as album sales, live concerts, streams, and his YouTube channel, which has over a billion views. Daddy has also made a lot of money from the clothes, perfumes, and watches that he sells.
Daddy Yankee makes more than $7 million a year from his music. Even with all of this, the rapper makes a lot of money from endorsing brands. In 2005, he made a deal with Reebok, which started a unique clothing line called “DY.” In 2007, he also signed a deal to be a part of Pepsi’s Puerta advertising campaign.
How Much Does Daddy Yankee Make?
Daddy Yankee makes more than $7 million a year from his music.