Mr. Worldwide and the 305’s dancefloor ambassador to clubs from South Beach to the burbs has managed to line up quite the list of notable features and high energy tunes for his latest solo effort, Planet Pit. With no lack of “dalé!” exclamations and not-so-subtle references to things you don’t want to talk about with your mother – involving women you probably don’t want her to meet, either – Pitbull has continued to solidify his position in the realm of “Hip Pop.”
Some Hip Hop heads may choose to look the other way when it comes to Pitbull’s style, but the fact of the matter is that Pitbull succeeds at fulfilling expectations, as long as your expectations are within reason. At this point, after years of getting familiar with his music, nobody should expect Premo beats and features from people like Pharoahe Monch. It’s just not that kind of rap. But despite the house and dance beats and Marc Anthony features, Pitbull is still a rapper, and a decent one at that. He has definite personality on the mic, a trained and well-executed flow and delivery, and an ear for a good club banger.
The features on Planet Pit read something like the playlist to a Top 10 countdown on a pop radio station, and surely will attract consumers to the album. Ne-Yo steals the show on “Give Me Everything,” the second single and ode to one night stands (“I can’t promise tomorrow, but I promise tonight…dale!”) to the album that peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 list. T-Pain and Sean Paul kick it tropical style on “Shake Señora,”
the somewhat sonically confusing track that begins with a Caribbean-sounding sample and then knocks listeners onto their asses with a house beat driven by a heavy bass line that backs some sort of indecipherable musing from Sean Paul. In fact, he probably only says about ten bars of actual words the entire song. But with an elevated blood alcohol content (which is likely if someone is listening to Pitbull tracks), it’s pretty entertaining. Also among the people enlisted to back up Pitbull’s lyrical dedications to the pursuit of loose women are Enrique Iglesias, Chris Brown, Kelly Rowland, and more.
In fact, the only slow-paced moment on Planet Pit comes in the form of the Kelly Rowland-assisted “Castle Made of Sound” (also featuring Jamie Drastik) in which Pitbull gets a little introspective over a less danceable track. It’s not that the song is bad, rather it’s poorly sequenced in the lineup of the LP. If Planet Pit was a party, listeners should be drunk by track four, and by track nine (which is where “Castle Made of Sound” ended up), nobody is trying to get introspective – they’re trying to solidify their flings for the night. Luckily the track is forgotten about quickly enough because it’s followed by the standout “Took My Love,” which thrives off a Crystal Waters “Gypsy Woman” sample which gives it a classic house feel with some smoothed out vocals from Red Foo, Vein, and David Rush.
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It’s summertime. Pop a bottle, hit the club, dance on a sofa, and chase some tail. Pitbull wants you to, even though he makes it clear on Planet Pit that his “girl got a big ol’ booty, your girl got a lil ol’ booty.” But it never hurts to try to out do him. Let Planet Pit be the soundtrack to that attempt. It might not help cure the next day’s Coco Loso hangover, but it will make that period of intoxication worth it. Dalé!
