Pitbull has learned valuable lessons from a number of artists.
First there was Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew, who initially pushed Pitbull to flex his gruff-voiced freestyle skills on Miami rap radio.
Then there was Lil Jon, the crunk king who gave Pitbull his first major feature, on the 2002 "Kings of Crunk" album, and produced his debut solo single, 2004's "Culo." And one mustn't forget Italian beatmakers Nicola Fasano and Pat Rich, whose song "75, Brazil Street" served as the basis for Pitbull's 2009 global smash "I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)," which in addition to selling 2.6 million copies in the United States (according to Nielsen SoundScan) has racked up nearly 200 million plays on YouTube.
Still, ask this MC -- born 30 years ago as Armando Christian Perez in Florida to Cuban-immigrant parents -- whom he's looking to for inspiration these days, and it's not a chart-topping producer or an arena-packing rapper. It's Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
"You have to be constantly outdoing yourself," Pitbull says via the phone from Paris, where he's knee-deep in a round of promotion for his new album, "Planet Pit," due June 21 from Mr. 305/Polo Grounds/J. Following the City of Light, he was off to Germany and the Netherlands. "That's what [Jobs] knew: He had the Mac, but then he did the iPod, then the iPhone and then the iPad. There's always room for improvement."
A self -described entrepreneur who says he envisions music paving the way toward his own marketing firm, Pitbull measures success the way multinational corporations do -- which comes as no surprise, given the wide-ranging business he does with blue chip brands like Kodak, Bud Light and Dr Pepper. "I make music with no boundaries," he says. "There's no specific class or people or culture I'm trying to target. And every time I reach a new audience, that means I'm doing something right."
Two years after "I Know You Want Me" sparked a pop crossover that ultimately drove the song to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, outdoing himself is precisely what Pitbull hopes to accomplish with "Planet Pit," his sixth studio outing and the follow-up to last year's Spanish-language "Armando." Pitbull's most recent English album, "Rebelution," came out in 2009 and has sold 222,000 copies, according to SoundScan. The fresh 12-track set finds the rapper teaming with an assassins' row of A-list writer/producers, including Dr. Luke and RedOne, as well as guest stars like Enrique Iglesias, Chris Brown and Marc Anthony. Ne-Yo sings the arena-disco hook on the album's current single, "Give Me Everything," which this week stands at No. 2 on the Hot 100; elsewhere, Pitbull recruits Kelly Rowland to endow "Castle Made of Sand" with a glimmer of electro-emo melancholy.
