Despacito, a catchy Latin pop song, by Puerto Rican singer, Luis Fonsi featuring his fellow Peurto Rican rapper, Daddy Yankee, has just made YouTube history by becoming the first video in the streaming platform history to hit a whopping six billion views.
The song, which was first released in January 2017 and the music video uploaded on YouTube in the same month, has a rather interesting controversial history in Malaysia. In July 2017, Reuters reported that the Malaysian government had banned the song from being played on government-owned RTM radio and television broadcasts.
The ban was announced by former Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak.
The decision to ban the song was made due to complaints by members of the public about the song’s sexy lyrics. Despacito means “slowly” in Spanish and the English translation of the lyrics tells the story of an attempt to form a romantic relationship.
The song became YouTube’s most-watched video with more than three billion views in August 2017. According to the streaming platform, the original video reached the billionaire digit on February 24 after earning 1.9 billion more views than any other video. In addition, the company shared that at its peak, the video received 25.7 million views in a single day, and is still averaging 2.8 million views a day so far this year.
Now with six billion views achieved this month, it has surpassed other popular videos like Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape Of You’ and Wiz Khalifa’s ‘See You Again’. Both videos currently have more than four billion views.
Korean pop star Psy’s Gangnam Style, which was the first video to hit the one billion-views milestone on YouTube back in 2012, is now stuck at 3.3 billion views.
According to Forbes, Despacito recorded an average 2.8 million views daily prior to hitting the six billion mark. The highest on a single day comes at 25.7 million views
