Daddy Yankee Breaks Record, Becomes First Latin Artist On Spotify #1 Spot Worldwide

Daddy Yankee is the new worldwide leader in Spotify, the leading global music streaming service. The Reggaeton artist, whose hits include "Gasolina," "Shaky Shaky," and most-recently "Despacito – Remix," has surpassed 44,735,586 monthly listeners, beating Ed Sheeran out of the #1 spot. The Puerto Rico native is the first Latin artist to ever hold the #1 top spot globally.

This has been a long time coming for Yankee, whose success in 2004 for his mainstream breakthrough album "Barrio Fino," credited him with transcending cultural boundaries. His success continued to soar into positioning him as an international brand name by the time his 2007 follow-up album, "El Cartel: The Big Boss," was released.

“My job as an artist is to unify the whole world through my music, and we’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” said Yankee during a recent video he made for Spotify, speaking about his recent ascend. This is only the beginning for the international Reggaeton sensation, as he takes on the remaining leg of his European concert series, the “Tamo En Vivo” tour.

“Spotify has been supporting Latin music for many years, and this is the moment that shows our passion and love for the genre are equally supported by our audience. We are grateful for all of our artists, and specifically for Daddy Yankee’s influence in bringing global appreciation to Latin music ,” said Rocio Guerrero, Spotify’s Head of Latin Culture, Shows & Editorial.

The platform users can find Daddy Yankee on Spotify’s This is: Daddy Yankee playlist, as well as his complete catalog and enjoy free access to over 30 million tracks, from their mobile device, computer or tablet.

To celebrate Daddy Yankee's success, let's take a look into his sexiest photos:

Daddy Yankee was born as Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez in Río Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico. The "King of Reggaeton" aspired to be a professional baseball player, but he was hit by a stray round from an AK-47 rifle. 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 18 million albums, and is the top-selling Latin music artist for decades.