Pitbull - M.I.A.M.I.

Genre hip hop Publisher TVT Records External Links Official Site TVT Records

If you are looking for a life changing R&B release to make things all better, look eleswhere. Miami bred Pitbull just wants to crunk you up. Luckily for him, he has enough ambition not to pad out his debut with Culo clones. Smearing a little coconut fiddycent oil on his mic and slippin' on a pair of Eminem's slippers, Pitbull takes without stealing and gives back a mouthful of ground beef.

Half the battle of trying to punch out of the paper bag of a genre is to twist your tunes into something original. Taking cues from crunk culture and sweltering club scenes, this disc doesn't rip the babygurls to pieces or shout out pointless drug chants. What's really shocking is that there is anything new to say in this club at all. After so much radio action from Lil Jon and those ATL Kingz of Komedy, the Ying Yang Twins --- it's been a trunk full of low end for a while. But Pitbull spins enough vision onto his nods and nodders that it's a relief to not want to turn it off and sigh.

If your soundtracks have to have all the basic touchstones (Dre keyboards, staccato spittin', female collabs, Lurch piano stylings, hometown pride) it's all right here. The field that Pitbull inhabits contains a lot of filler and that stuffing is given a goblet of Ron Rico on M.I.A.M.I. that produces enough grit and groove to be a solid sandwich. A Cuban that is.

Miami is so the place that needs a gold toofed king to defend it's native population..it's filled with bulging bikinis, ultra rich coke dealers, tons of hungry alligators, fattening local cuisine..all the hallmarks of great r n bee storytelling..It'll take a second CD to see if Pitbull is gonna start a Liberty City revolution or retell it all over again.