DJ Nelson

One of the early champions of reggaeton, Nelson Díaz Martínez (born on April 7, 1972), who goes by the stage name of DJ Nelson, is a Puerto Rican producer and entrepreneur that greatly contributed to popularizing and helping shape the sound of the genre. Díaz Martínez’s music career started as head producer for The Noise, a collective of DJs, MCs, and club managers that organized events around the capital of San Juan in the early 90s. He went solo in 1997 with the release of Nel-Zone: The Real Thing and The Flow, which were followed by The Flow: Sweet Dreams in 2000. Besides his solo material, he served as a producer for some of reggaeton’s most seminal albums, including Ivy Queen’s The Original Rude Girl (1998) and Wisin & Yandel’s Los Reyes del Nuevo Milenio (2000), and signed producing powerhouse team Luny Tunes to the roster of his Flow Music Label. In 2004, Díaz Martínez resumed his music career with Flow La Discoteka, prompting the creation of a nightclub with the same name in which he acted as resident DJ, and Flow La Discoteka Vol. 2 (2007), which featured the hit “Chica Virtual.” The following years found the studio legend working with up-and-coming talents such as Jay Wheeler, with whom he produced the albums Platónico (2019) and Platónicos (2020). The latter consolidated Díaz Martínez’s status as a seasoned reggaeton architect and spawned the smash hit “La curiosidad,” which went straight to the top of the streaming charts in Latin America and reached Number 22 on Billboard’s Latin Airplay Chart.