Reggaeton hit "Gasolina" by Puerto Rican rapper Daddy Yankee, aka Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez, made history as the first song of its genre to be inducted into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress. Dubbed the King of Reggaeton, Rodríguez retired at 45 in 2022.
NPR:
A cacophony of revving engines and flirtatious catcalls floated up from the streets into his tiny apartment in the projects. The way he told it to Billboard in 2014, someone shouted, "Cómo le gusta la gasolina!" at the girls who rode in men's flashy cars.
The phrase bore into Daddy Yankee's head, and he began adding on to it. "Dame más gasolina!"
Eventually it became the chorus of "Gasolina," the mega-single that catapulted the rapper to global fame and took reggaeton from an emerging genre born in the Black working-class neighborhoods of Panama, New York and Puerto Rico, to one of the most profitable in the music industry.
