Gasolina

Album: Barrie Fino (2005)
Charted: 5 32
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Songfacts®:

  • "Gasolina" was the first ever worldwide reggaetón hit. The genre is a Latino-inspired fusion of dancehall, salsa and hip-hop and had been popular amongst the Puerto Rican community in America since the 1990s.
  • The song is set to an infectious dance beat with lyrics almost entirely in Spanish describing a woman who likes to go out and have a good time. Daddy Yankee commented to Billboard magazine: "I think part of the success of the track was people looking for some hidden meaning: Was I talking about alcohol, about drugs? That track is completely literal. It's the most innocent song I've ever written."
  • The chorus, "A mi me gusta la gasoline, dame más gasoline," is a very popular Puerto Rican saying. It translates as, "I like gasoline, give me more gasoline."
  • The line "dame más gasolina" was sung by reggaetón singer Glory (born Glorimar Montalvo Castro), also known as "La Gata Gangster."
  • This was used in a TV advertising campaign for the 2006 Citroën C2 Deejay, which ran through the spring and summer of 2005.
  • The Barrie Fino album was the first-ever reggaetón long player to sell over one million copies in the United States and be certified platinum by the RIAA. It was the best-selling Latin album and tropical album of the 2000s.
  • This also helped bring reggaeton's dembow rhythm to the mainstream. Dembow, named for the 1990 dancehall classic "Dem Bow" by Shabba Ranks, features a driving, steady kick under a syncopated backbeat: boom-ch-boom-chik. Daddy Yankee also guests on a remix of Luis Fonsi's 2019 chart-topper "Despacito," which prominently features the rhythm.
  • "Gasolina" trended during the summer of 2023 thanks to its use in a car chase scene in the Spanish romance movie Culpa Mía (My Fault). The song has been used in a number of TikTok videos since the film's release.
  • "Gasolina" became the first reggaeton song listed on the United States National Recording Registry when it was entered in 2023. To explain the song's cultural significance, the Library of Congress wrote in the entry: "'Gasolina's' aural dominance was so great that it ushered in a full reggaeton explosion and even saw various radio stations switching their formats - some even switching from English language to Spanish - to be part of the reggaeton revolution."

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