Miami's Pitbull: The Dog of the Dirty South

Miami's Pitbull: The Dog of the Dirty South

In a country that never stops arguing about ethnicity, the bilingual rapper Pitbull could have offered himself up as a solution —an embodiment of cultures coming together. But the 26-year-old Miami native has always gone at his work more like a businessman than a savior.

Being pragmatic has served Armando Christian "Pitbull" Pérez pretty well over the course of three CDs, including his newest, The Boatlift. Pitbull is not a visionary; he's not trying to establish a new school of thought or music-making. He's just bringing his own sensibilities —Cuban-American, Miami-bred— to the big enterprise of hip-hop. That results-oriented approach has won him a measure of fame and respect, and a few likable hits.

On The Boatlift he consolidates his position as the Dirty South's Hispanic voice. Get Up/Levántate and The Anthem merge streetwise rap and reggaeton with halftime-show sonic booms that Pitbull learned as a sidekick to Lil Jon, Atlanta's crunk maestro. But Pitbull also expands into well-trod R&B territory. The first single, Secret Admirer, is a ballad, with spangly keyboards and lovey-dovey hooks from Atlanta crooner Lloyd. Pitbull is practically crooning, too, in soft rap tones directed at some unnamed club hottie.

A lot of The Boatlift is Pitbull savoring the spoils and making the rounds of his Miami fiefdoms. On Midnight, a dance track with a big slab of synth, he touts his prowess with the ladies and gets in a reference to the great rap showdown of 2007: "Drive you crazy/like Bobby did Whitney/or like Kevin did Britney/or maybe like Kanye did Fifty."

Yet the boasts don't sound like gloats; Pitbull's straightforward rap style makes his claims seem matter-of-fact. The Boatlift differs from two previous Pitbull CDs, M.I.A.M.I. (2004) and El Mariel (2006), in that the hubris has corporate aims. Pitbull wants to establish himself as a mogul.

He co-founded a record label, Bad Boy Latino, with P. Diddy. He raised his profile with a newsworthy guest turn on Nuestro Himno, last year's briefly controversial Spanish-language adaptation of The Star Spangled Banner. He is talking up his involvement with programming on a bilingual cable channel, Mun2.

So it's probably no coincidence that on A Little Story —Intro you might think you're hearing rap's best-known CEO, Jay-Z.