It’s 1994 and Luis Felipe Lopez sits above the rim, proudly waving the Dominican flag as pandemonium hits Fordham gym in New York City. His teammates, fans and family stand below their king, celebrating in Spanish and English as the charismatic senior from Harlem’s Rice High School celebrates the CHSAA championship. For Rice (now defunct since 2011) it was a historic title and a joyous sporting victory but to Dominicans everywhere, notably those in Washington Heights and the Bronx, the moment transcended basketball because it was a day where one of their own—having only arrived in the U.S five years prior from Santiago de los Caballeros—had made a giant mark on the sport and helped shine a positive light in the eyes of white America when Dominicans and other Latino and Hispanic communities fought for equality in turbulent times.

The Dominican-Puerto Rican singer, who leads the list of 2019 Billboard Latin Music Award finalists, with 23 nods, has broken record after record. His debut, Odisea, spent 46 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart, the second-longest run ever, behind Gloria Estefan’s Mi Tierra in 1993. His next song, Aura, debuted at No. 1, knocking Odisea out of the top spot and making him the first male artist to replace himself at No. 1. In 2018, he grossed an average of $882,437 per night on tour, outpaced only by Latin industry vets like Enrique Iglesias, Shakira and Marc Anthony. At the end of 2018, he ranked as YouTube’s most-viewed artist globally in any genre. His collaborations on tracks with women like Karol G and Natti Natasha were rare from other men in the industry, and helped the tracks became top singles. In 2016, “Hello” was Karol G’s first platinum single, and the following year’s “Criminal,” with Natti Natasha, became the first song to knock “Despacito” from its No. 1 spot among YouTube’s most-viewed videos.