Pitbull: Master of collaborations

Global Warming by Pitbull is an album made-up entirely of collaborations. The practice used to be, say, just one or two in an album. This changed though with the rise of the artist/producer, whose ideas, would at times need something particular from another artist and who has a lot of friends he wants to work with. As with all things created, some just fall by the wayside and are not heard from again. Others though become big hits like Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye featuring Kimba or that monster Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera.

Collaborations were once considered surprising and of major impact to the industry.

Remember all the fuzz when Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson recorded That Girl Is Mine or when Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson did a duet of To All The Girls I Loved Before. Nowadays though, collaborations among pop artists are a dime a dozen. These are easy to detect.

This is when one or two more artists make contributions to the project of another, be it vocal or musical. This practice has become so popular that it is now commonplace to see credits with the word featuring, to distinguish from a duet which is billed as and and where the artists contribute the same amount of work. At times, they do not even bother to say collaboration anymore but use the more trendy term, collab.

Pitbull is a rarity. He is a white-skinned, blue- eyed rapper, who was born in Florida of Cuban parents. I guess this is what accounts for the sexy, pulsating rhythm in his songs. Some of his early hits were I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho), Hotel Room Service, Give Me Everything featuring Ne-yo, Nayer and Afrojack, and Hey Baby Drop It To The Floor. On The Floor, his collab with Jennifer Lopez helped to raise his profile even higher. By the time Global Warming was released late last year, Pitbull had already become a global hot shot behind the hugely-anticipated album.

As can be seen in the CD, Pitbull is not only a master of dance music but also of collaborations. The line-up is star-studded and has already yielded several hits. These are Back In Time from the movie Men In Black 3, Get It Started featuring Shakira, Don’t Stop The Party featuring TJR and the current favorite Feel This Moment featuring Aguilera, whom I believe a lot of artists are dying to collaborate with these days.

Global Warming is one great dance track after another, of the sort wherein you will not mind letting everything hang out. Try it to the tune of my favorite cut in the album, Last Night featuring Havana Brown and Afrojack. At a time when the temptation to curse the heat is at an all-time high, it is nice to think that there is music like Pitbull’s that can make you feel hot and lusty like a sexy Latino and pay no mind to the heat at all.

Also included are: Global Warming featuring Sensato; Hope We Meet Again featuring Chris Brown; Party Ain’t Over featuring Usher and Afrojack; Drinks For You (Ladies Anthem) featuring J. Lo; Have Some Fun

featuring The Wanted and Afrojack; Outta Nowhere featuring Danny Mercer; Tchu Tchu Tcha featuring Enrique Iglesias; and I’m Off That. If you got the Deluxe Edition, then you now have copies of these great extra tracks: Echa Pa’lla (Manos Pa Arriba) featuring Papayo; Everybody F**ks featuring Akon and David Rush; and 11:59 featuring Vein.

Pitbull’s single Feel This Moment remains in the Top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 list after nearly six weeks in the stores. Psy’s phenomenal Gentleman with its unprecedented 70 million views in only three days, might soon change the order of things, but for now, here are the titles that people are listening to and buying:

When I Was Your Man by Bruno Mars; Thrift Shop by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis feat. Wanz; Just Give Me A Reason by Pink feat. Nate Ruess; Stay by Rihanna feat. Mikky Ekko; Suit & Tie by Justin Timberlake feat. Jay-Z; Harlem Shake by Baauer; Can’t Hold Us by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis feat. Ray Dalton; Cruise by the Florida Georgia Line feat. Nelly; Started From The Bottom by Drake; and Feel This Moment by Pitbull feat. Christina Aguilera.

The Top 10 albums are: The 20/20 Experience by Justin Timberlake; Pioneer by The Band Perry; Wolf by Tyler the Creator; Based On A True Story by Blake Shelton; I Am Not A Human Being II by Lil Wayne; 10 by New Kids On The Block; Disarm The Descent by Killswitch Engage; Night Visions by Imagine Dragons; The Truth About Love by Pink; and Unorthodox Jukebox by Bruno Mars.