Reggaeton superstar Daddy Yankee will be recognized with the Leyenda award at the upcoming Hispanic Heritage Awards ceremony in Washington.
The Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF) announced Thursday that Yankee will be honored at its 35th annual awards show “for pioneering a form of music that has impacted the world.”
“Simply put, Daddy Yankee is a game changer,” José Antonio Tijerino, HHF president and CEO, said in a statement. “We are also honoring his service to our community through his work with the founding of him Daddy’s House and working with organizations that support those in need in Puerto Rico and beyond,” he added.
The Hispanic Heritage Awards will air Friday, September 30 on PBS stations and via streaming on pbs.org and the PBS Video app. Also recognized during the gala will be Los Lobos, Victoria Alonso of Marvel Studios and other artists and visionaries that will be announced soon.
Yankee, whose real name is Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez, announced in March his imminent retirement from music more than three decades after starting a career that put reggaeton on the world map and made him one of the greatest idols of the genre, with hits like “Gasolina”, “Somos de calle”, “Calmly” and “Despacito”. Shortly after he released his latest album “Legendaddy”, and he is currently in the middle of his farewell tour “The Last Lap”.
Among other awards, he has five Latin Grammys, two Billboard Awards, 14 Billboard Latin Music Awards, two Latin American Music Awards (including the Icon Award) and others. He has managed to position four songs in Spanish in the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 list, and has been named songwriter of the year three times at the ASCAP Latin Music Awards.
The Hispanic Heritage Awards were created by the White House in 1988 to commemorate the establishment of Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States, which is celebrated from September 15 to October 15.
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