translated from Spanish: Daddy Yankee celebrates 17 years of “Gasoline”

Seventeen years ago, Daddy Yankee became the first reggaeton exponent to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s Best Latin Albums chart with “Barrio Fino,” released in July 2004. The album, which began with a prose by ex-convict and poet Gavilán, became almost unknowingly the best-selling Latin album of the entire decade. But it was their first single, “La gasolina”, that started the worldwide phenomenon of what reggaeton is today. The song, which two years ago Daddy Yankee himself called one of his “most innocent” songs, became the most famous song in the history of the Latin urban movement.” I want to read them, what were they doing on a day like today 17 years ago?” the Puerto Rican singer posted on Instagram next to the image on the album cover. “I was changing the world with a new culture called Reggaeton. Viral without Social Media,” he added. Barrio Fino” promoted a movement led by big names of the genre such as Don Omar, Wisin & Yandel, or Zion & Lennox.The same year of its release, the album won a series of awards such as the Latin Grammy in the category Best Urban Album; also at those Grammys, “La gasolina” was the first reggaeton song to be nominated for Record of the Year. In addition, it won the Billboard Award in the Latin Album of the Year category and the Lo Nuestro Award in the Urban Album of the Year category.The album is composed of 23 songs in total, where they are “Las gasolina”, “Lo que pasó pasó” or “Tu príncipe”. Others such as “Dale caliente”, “Calentrme” or “El empuje” also stand out. The so-called king of reggaeton remembers every year the anniversary of his third studio album. Last year, the singer said that “Barrio Fino” was his biggest risk, which had only one purpose: “To create a culture called reggaeton”, despite the fact that the genre had been born years before and was an exclusive genre of La Isla.In 2019 he deepened his ties with the album, breaking down each song, also remembering the anecdotes they brought with them. On the success of “La Gasolina”, the musician recalled the international arrival and specifically, his chorus: “She likes gasoline, give me more gasoline”. “It’s a very popular saying in Puerto Rico,” he said then. “The word gasoline, everyone in the world knows what it means. And I think part of the success of the track is that people were looking for some hidden meaning: were they talking about alcohol, drugs? The song is completely literal. It’s the most innocent song I’ve ever written,” he explained. After these 17 years, the album has not stopped being a reference in history, at the level that last year Billboard magazine recognized “Barrio Fino” as one of the best albums of all time, where they recognized it as “a colossal advance, not only for the rapper, but for the entire genre known as reggaeton”.

Original source in Spanish