(CelebrityAccess) – Renowned reggaetón artist Daddy Yankee has announced his retirement at the age of 45. The Puerto Rican-born rapper made the announcement on a video posted to his social media accounts and official website.
He said, “This race, which has been a marathon, finally sees the finish line. Now, I am going to enjoy what all of you have given me,” the singer said in a video statement posted on YouTube and translated by CNN. “People say that I made this genre worldwide, but it was you who gave me the key to open the doors to make it the biggest in the world.”
He will say goodbye to his fans with one last tour and album titled, Legendaddy, which drops on March 24. “I’ll give you all the styles that have defined me on one album. Legendaddy – it’s fight, it’s party, it’s war, it’s romance,” the rapper said.
Daddy Yankee has sold more than 30 million records during his extensive and elaborate career. In 2017, Yankee collaborated with fellow Puerto Rican Luis Fonsi and megastar Justin Bieber in “Despacito,” a record-breaking single that sat atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 16 weeks. It is YouTube’s second most-streamed video of all time. “Gasolina,” one of Yankee’s best-known songs, which is currently trending on TikTok due to the current price of gasoline, came out in 2004 and has been credited for introducing reggaetón to an international fanbase.
His La Última Vuelta world tour (which translates to “the last turn”) will kick off August 10 in Portland and run through December, finishing up with an encore in Mexico.
Daddy Yankee was a pioneer in reggaetón music and is credited for coining the word in 1994 for the then-emerging genre, which synthesizes American hip-hop, Latin Caribbean music, and Jamaican reggae rhythms with Spanish rapping and singing.
His first studio album, No Mercy, was released in 1995. Since that time, he has won 110 awards and over 300 nominations. He has been named one of the “Most Influential Hispanics” by Time Magazine and CNN. He was recently awarded Songwriter Of The Year for the third time at the 2021 ASCAP Latin Music Awards. He was bestowed with the Billboard Hall of Fame Award, becoming the first urban Latino artist to capture that title.
Daddy Yankee 2022 Tour Dates:
Venues TBA
08/10 Portland, OR
08/12 San Jose, CA
08/13 Los Angeles, CA
08/14 Rosarito, Mexico
08/18 Sacramento, CA
08/19 Ontario, CA
08/20 Las Vegas, NV
08/21 Rosarito, Mexico
08/23 Atlanta, GA
08/26 Orlando, FL
08/27 Miami, FL
08/28 Fort Myers, FL
09/01 Boston, Ma
09/02 Uncasville, CT
09/04 Chicago, IL
09/07 Washington, DC
09/10 Montreal, QC
09/11 Toronto, ON
09/15 Houston, TX
09/16 Hidalgo, TX
09/18 Dallas, TX
09/20 New York, NY
09/29 Santiago, Chile
10/01 Buenos Ares, Argentina
10/04 Guayaquil, Ecuador
10/05 Quito, Ecuador
10/07 Cali, Colombia
10/08 Bogotá, Colombia
10/14 Barranquilla, Colombia
10/14 Medellin, Colombia
10/18 Lima, Peru
10/22 San Jose, Costa Rica
11/03 Guatemala City, Guatemala
11/08 San Pedro Sula, Honduras
11/09 Tegucigalpa, Honduras
11/12 Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
11/19 Panama City, Panama
11/24 Monterrey, Mexico
11/26 Guadalajara, Mexico
12/02 Mexico City, Mexico
Al fin veo la meta pic.twitter.com/D2Q99BhZYm
— Daddy Yankee (@daddy_yankee) March 20, 2022
