With his trademark shout of "Dale!" and reggaeton-infused party pop, bilingual rapper and producer
Pitbull made a steady ascent through the Miami hip-hop scene before dominating the mainstream charts in the late 2000s and 2010s with dancefloor-filling hits, including U.S. Top Ten singles "I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)," "I Like It," "Give Me Everything," "Timber," "Feel This Moment," and "Time of Our Lives." Early-2010s efforts
Planet Pit,
Global Warming, and
Globalization were all certified platinum, while his 2015 Spanish-language LP
Dale earned
Pitbull his first Grammy Award. The remainder of the 2010s was spent churning out Spanish-language hits, such as the multi-platinum single "Dame Tu Cosita," as well as "No Lo Trates" and "Me Quedare Contigo" from 2019's
Libertad 548.
Born Armando Christian Perez, the future "Mr. 305" was raised by first-generation Cuban immigrant parents who didn't let their son forget about his culture. They required him to memorize the works of Cuban poet
José Martí, and
Pitbull understood the power of words right away. Southern acts like
Poison Clan and
Luther Campbell were early influences, but as he grew, the young rapper got turned on to the G-funk sound of the West Coast and the New York City point of view
Nas brought to the game. When the Southern-flavored party rap called crunk took over urban radio, he decided it was time to seek stardom and began appearing on Miami mixtapes. A meeting with
Irv Gotti resulted in nothing, but soon
Luther Campbell called on the rapper to appear on his "Lollipop" single. It brought
Pitbull to the attention of the
Diaz Brothers management team, who introduced the rapper to the king of crunk,
Lil Jon. A
Pitbull freestyle landed on
Lil Jon's platinum-selling
Kings of Crunk album in 2002, and the rapper's "Oye" track appeared on the 2 Fast 2 Furious soundtrack in 2003. Ready to take it all the way to the top,
Pitbull unleashed his debut full-length, M.I.A.M.I., in 2004 on the TVT label, with the
Lil Jon-produced single "Culo" leading the way.
Soon
Pitbull was making guest appearances on tracks by everyone from
the Ying Yang Twins to
Elephant Man. The 2005 compilation Money Is Still a Major Issue collected the best of these collaborations along with some remixes and unreleased tracks. In 2006, the single "Bojangles" prepared fans for his next effort,
El Mariel. As the album landed on the shelves it was announced that his next release would be entirely in Spanish and titled
The Boatlift. When the end product arrived in 2007, it was an album mostly in English, introduced by the single "Go Girl."
Two years later he released
Rebelution, a full-length filled with slick club cuts including the hits "I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)" and "Hotel Room Service." Featuring the hit single "Bon Bon," his all-Spanish-language album
Armando followed in 2010. In 2011, his
Planet Pit album arrived, featuring the singles "Hey Baby (Drop It to the Floor)" and "Give Me Everything." Both the singles collection
Original Hits and
I Am Armando -- a "reloaded" version of
Armando -- arrived in 2012 along with his seventh studio effort,
Global Warming. The latter album featured the hits "Back in Time" and "Feel This Moment," and when a deluxe reissue appeared in 2013, the single "Timber," with special guest
Kesha, was added to the track list.
In early 2014,
Pitbull released the single "Wild Wild Love," which featured vocals from the girl group G.R.L. and debuted at number 30 on the Billboard pop chart. A few months later, he announced the release of an eighth studio album,
Globalization, which appeared near the end of 2014 and featured
Chris Brown,
Sean Paul,
Dr. Luke, and other guests. No less than four singles reached the Top 40, including "Wild Wild Love," "Fireball," "Time of Our Lives," and "Fun."
Dale, his second Spanish-language album, followed in 2015, the same year that he launched his satellite radio station, Pitbull's Globalization, on the Sirius XM network. The effort was extremely successful, scooping up the Grammy Award for Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards. It was
Pitbull's first Grammy Award win, and unsurprisingly, it reached number one on Billboard's Top Latin Albums chart.
The following year saw a return to the English language for the rapper with his tenth studio release,
Climate Change. It featured high-profile collaborators like
Robin Thicke,
Joe Perry,
Flo Rida,
Enrique Iglesias,
Jennifer Lopez,
Jason Derulo,
Stephen Marley,
Leona Lewis, and
R. Kelly, among others. The single "Messin' Around," featuring
Iglesias, hit the pop charts leading up to the album's release in March 2017. Later that year,
Pitbull issued his second compilation of solo hits from 2009's
Rebelution to 2014's
Globalization on the aptly titled
Greatest Hits. The collection featured two new songs: "Jungle" with Stereotypes,
E-40, and
Abraham Mateo and "Locas" with longtime collaborator
Lil Jon.
In 2018,
Pitbull contributed a pair of tracks to the
Gotti soundtrack: "So Sorry" and "Amore" with
Leona Lewis. That year, he also recruited Theron Theron for "Free Free Free" and appeared on
Claudia Leitte's "Carnaval,"
Enrique Iglesias' "Move to Miami," and
Arash's "Goalie Goalie." In 2019, he collaborated with
Papayo and
Ky-Mani Marley for "Yayo," along with "No Lo Trates" with
Daddy Yankee and
Natti Natasha. In early December,
Pitbull issued the full-length studio outing
Libertad 548. Co-produced by the artist,
IAmChino, and Jorge Gomez with
Jimmy Joker, the set was inspired by the memory of
Pitbull's late father. In a social media post he wrote: "The ...album title represents the amount of people my father, Armando Sr., led to freedom during the Mariel boatlift in Cuba in 1980. The album cover is a photo of him taken during this time; I was born just a few months later. The best gift Armando Sr. and my mother ever gave me was freedom."
Libertad 548 included the collaborative single with
Natasha, "Tell Me Again" featuring
Prince Royce and
Ludacris, and "Get Ready," with country star
Blake Shelton. It peaked at number 12 on Billboard's Top Latin Albums chart. More tracks followed in 2021, including "Cantare" featuring
Lenier and "Ten Cuidado" with
Farruko,
IAmChino,
El Alfa, and
Omar Courtz. ~ David Jeffries & Neil Z. Yeung