<\/p>\n
\n\tA little over two decades ago, Ram\u00f3n Luis Ayala Rodr\u00edguez sat in the tiny apartment he shared with his wife and three children in Villa Kennedy, a housing project in San Juan, Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201c\u00a1C\u00f3mo le encanta la gasolina!<\/em> (She really likes gasoline!),\u201d shouted the voices beneath his window, taunting the pretty girls who accepted rides from guys with flashy cars.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201c\u2019A ella le gusta la gasolina, dame m\u00e1s gasolin<\/em>a.\u2019 I had the phrase, I had the chorus,\u201d Ayala, better known as Daddy Yankee, would tell me a decade later. \u201cI sat in my studio there in Villa Kennedy and started to harmonize the flow.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBack then, in 2004, Ayala was already Daddy Yankee<\/a> inside Puerto Rico, the leader of a new musical movement born in the barrios and connecting with hundreds of thousands of fans who identified with a message created in their streets. But outside of Puerto Rico, Yankee and reggaet\u00f3n were little known. Until \u201cGasolina\u201d and Barrio Fino<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cGasolina\u201d would become the first single off\u00a0Barrio Fino<\/em>, which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard<\/em>\u2018s Top Latin Albums<\/a> charts on July 31, 2004, becoming the first reggaet\u00f3n album to hit No. 1. The set would become the top-selling Latin album of 2005 and of that decade, making Daddy Yankee the Messiah of reggaet\u00f3n \u2014 a genre that would revive sales of Latin music, usher in a new radio format in the U.S. (Latin Rhythm Airplay<\/a>) and for the next decade would evolve to provide the urban base that dominates much of Latin music to this day.<\/p>\n \n\tAnd while \u201cGasolina\u201d was the big motor behind Barrio Fino<\/em>, the entire album was chock full of groundbreaking hits.\u00a0With features by the likes of Wisin & Yandel<\/a>, Zion & Lennox<\/a> and salsa star Andy Monta\u00f1ez,\u00a0Barrio Fino <\/em>\u2014 in its blend of styles and personalities within urban music \u2014 was a harbinger of things to come. It not only opened the door to collaborations from within and outside the realm of urban music, the album intuitively commercialized a genre that had lived largely locally and underground.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI had a really different vision,\u201d Yankee said in 2004. \u201cI could feel the impact reggaet\u00f3n was having in the streets, in South America, in the streets of the United States. I knew we were close to exploding. So I said, \u2018OK, I\u2019m going to be the one to do it.\u2019 All the money I had, I invested in Barrio Fino<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTwo decades years after its release,\u00a0Barrio Fino<\/em>\u00a0continues to be a definitive album that still sounds and feels radical, and is acknowledged as one of the great inspirations behind the rise of reggaet\u00f3n.\u00a0Barrio Fino\u00a0<\/em>ushered\u00a0in not just a musical movement but a lifestyle, built on a beat with irresistible global appeal that would eventually be the basis for other movements, from Medell\u00edn\u2019s romantic reggaet\u00f3n to Argentine trap.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tCelebrating its impact and enduring appeal, we at Billboard<\/em> have ranked its 18 tracks (excluding the intro and outro) with a rare caveat: Every track in this set deserves more than one listen. \u2014 Leila Cobo<\/em><\/p>\n