Artist: Pitbull

Album: Planet Pit

Record Label: Polo Grounds

Soundwaves: 2.5/5

Sounds Like: Radio friendly Latin-tinged hip-hop

Pitbull is a hip-hop enigma of sorts. He has cleverly crafted a career as a rapper worthy of laying down a guest verse on chart-climbing, club-friendly tracks alongside big names like Usher and Jennifer Lopez. But with his own lukewarm singles, the self-indulgent samba-flavored ‘I Know You Want Me’ and the laughable come-ons of ‘Hotel Room Service,’ Pitbull has yet to prove he can muster enough charisma to carry his own weight as an artist. And on ‘Planet Pit,’ a shallow and transparent cash-in on the mainstream trend of all things extraterrestrial, things are no different for the Miami rapper.

It doesn’t bode well when an album’s first track is a profane minute and a half of throwaway filler, a role that ‘Mr. Worldwide’ slides into comfortably. The introduction to ‘Planet Pit’ is boastful, but most of Pitbull’s lame brags are immediately swallowed up by glitzy overproduction and a cheesy retro-style beat.

It’s hard to call this a solo album when Pitbull only stands alone on two tracks — and for good reason. ‘Pause,’ a midtempo song heavy on synthesizers and unnecessary additions of the Spanish trilled R’s, lacks in coherent lyrics and choruses with hooks. ‘Something for the DJs’ shamelessly steals its hook from a children’s rhyme, (‘if you’re sexy and you know it clap your hands’) and its singsong lines are the only part of the song with any rhyme or reason, followed by mumbled verses and a jumbled array of electronica effects that barely resemble a beat.

Instead, Mr. Worldwide relies on a star-studded lineup to catapult album sales, riding on the coattails of more famous, if not more talented, co-stars. Auto-tune innovator T-Pain and fellow Latino rapper Sean Paul steal the show, especially on ‘Shake Senora,’ a juggling act of dubstep influenced club beats and a more traditional hook that would make Samba queen Carmen Miranda roll in her grave and ‘Hey Baby (Drop it to the Floor),’ a smoking hot dance track that should rollick its way up the charts. Even Akon drops in for a cameo on the sexy R&B leanings of ‘Mr. Right Now,’ an ironic track name for an artist who hasn’t had a bona fide mainstream hit since 2008.

Even artists who didn’t collaborate on ‘Planet Pit’ are dragged kicking and screaming onto the album by Pitbull, whether they like it or not. ‘Castle Made of Sound’ is almost a note-for-note homage to Eminem’s ‘Love the Way You Lie,’ only substituting Rihanna’s heart wrenching verses for Kelly Rowland’s apathetic monotone, and substituting Eminem’s gritty lyrics and emotion-stricken delivery with his own boring take on the rags to riches cliché that’s only in every rap song ever written. Even ‘Give Me Everything Tonight’ has a beat that’s a copied-cut-pasted clone of the Black Eyed Peas’ ‘I Gotta Feeling,’ a brash rip-off for an artist who prides himself on bouncy club tunes.

Amid collaborations with ‘has-beens’ (the main offender is Ne-Yo, hitless since 2008) and ‘never-will-be’s (upon introducing Nicola Fasano,vocalist in’Oye Baby,’Pitbull admits: ‘I hope I said that right,’ and rapper Jamie Drastik doesn’t even earn an introduction on ‘Castle Made of Sound’), Pitbull’s own voice and unique Cubano flow is drowned in a flood of guest vocalists.

At this point in his career, Pitbull should stop slinking behind the star personas of his guests on another overcrowded album. Until Pitbull can prove that he can carry himself both lyrically and musically throughout an entire album (not an impossible feat, proven by the flash of brilliance on the completely solo effort ‘I Know You Want Me’), he will stumble into the limbo of musical mediocrity, only to be remembered as ‘that guy who couldn’t even get top billing on an Enrique Iglesias song.’

ervanrhe@syr.edu

Published on June 30, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Erik: ervanrhe@syr.edu | @therealvandyman