Los Angeles Times

How Ivy Queen and a Spotify podcast got the history of reggaeton right

LOS ANGELES — When Daddy Yankee showed up at a Montebello gas station to hype his infectious hit "Gasolina," the Puerto Rican recording star drew so many fans he couldn't get out of the limo. That was the moment it hit local music publicist Ximena Acosta: Reggaeton was here to stay.

"I'm never going to forget. I had a chunk of my hair pulled out it was so bad," Acosta recalls in the buzzworthy Spotify podcast "LOUD: The History of Reggaeton." "We tried taking him out of the limo a few times, and we just — we couldn't. And I had that feeling in my gut of, 'Oh, my god, this is gigantic.'"

It was the mid-2000s, and Daddy Yankee, who had never been to Los Angeles, was pushing his 2004 breakout album "Barrio Fino." "He plays for the Yankees?" Acosta remembers a local TV news station asking in response to her pitch.

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