<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Since 1923, Rio de Janeiro&amp;apos;s opulent Copacabana Palace hotel has housed everyone from Eva Per&amp;#xF3;n to the Clintons on their way through the tropics. Tonight, down one of the Palace&amp;apos;s perfumed hallways and behind a dark-wood door, sits the latest visiting dignitary: Armando Christian P&amp;#xE9;rez, better known as the chart-topping rapper Pitbull. Hunched over a coffee table in a white wifebeater and black Armani Exchange track pants, the MC scribbles intently and nurses a caipirinha. His 79th show of the year will be starting soon. But first he has to finish up the last two tracks for his seventh album, Global Warming &amp;#x2013; with less than 48 hours to go before the disc is due for mastering.\r\nPitbull nods along with the caffeinated synths blaring from engineer Al Burna&amp;apos;s speaker and tries to decide which foreign locales he should incorporate into his ad-libs. &amp;quot;Istanbul, definitely &amp;#x2013; I had such a fucking good time in Istanbul,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Singapore &amp;#x2013; the economy is booming.&amp;quot; His gregarious manager, Charles Chavez, chimes in, &amp;quot;How about Bangkok?&amp;quot; All three guys crack up knowingly.\r\nThe song, featuring an earworm of a hook from Chris Brown, is called &amp;quot;Hope We Meet Again.&amp;quot; It might be about a woman, or several. But mostly it&amp;apos;s about overseas markets, and how much Pitbull loves conquering new ones with his buoyant Spanglish dance rap. The 31-year-old Miami native offers a sports analogy: Most rappers are like football or basketball pros, their appeal all but ending at the U.S. border. Pitbull wants to play soccer.\r\nAfter a while, he enters the spacious bedroom, where he has propped pillows and blankets against the walls for makeshift soundproofing. &amp;quot;Rio, Panama, Colombia,&amp;quot; he intones gravely into a stand-up microphone. &amp;quot;Dubai, Beirut, Malaysia...&amp;quot; He raises his voice dramatically: &amp;quot;Let&amp;apos;s take over the world!&amp;quot;\r\n***\r\nBrazil is still a work in progress for Pitbull. When he joins his six-man backing band onstage at Rio&amp;apos;s indoor sports arena around midnight, the stands are far from full. Pitbull takes this as a challenge. He turns up the charm, flashing a million-watt grin as he thrusts his pelvis in ways that threaten the structural integrity of his tailored black trousers. Pretty much everything gets the same Magic Mike moves &amp;#x2013; his own hits, a quick cover of LMFAO&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;Sexy and I Know It,&amp;quot; the riff from &amp;quot;Smells Like Teen Spirit.&amp;quot; Halfway through the set, he drapes a large Brazilian flag around his shoulders, drawing cheers.\r\n&amp;quot;That was a cool little crowd,&amp;quot; he remarks the next afternoon as a black SUV speeds us to the airport. &amp;quot;A little too cool.&amp;quot;\r\nClimbing aboard his chartered Gulfstream jet, Pitbull sinks into a plush cream-colored seat. &amp;quot;I look at last night and go, &amp;apos;OK, we got a lot of work to do here.&amp;apos; I&amp;apos;m up there studying, doing my own homework. I love that. Complacency is the cousin of death.&amp;quot;\r\nPitbull learned early on how to spin setbacks into opportunities. He grew up in a succession of dicey neighborhoods all over Miami, where his parents had settled after escaping Fidel Castro&amp;apos;s Cuba. His mother held down multiple jobs to support Armando and his half-sisters; his late father, who split when Armando was young, got in on Miami&amp;apos;s Reagan-era coke boom. Pitbull whips out his BlackBerry and shows me a faded photo of his dad, a tough-looking guy in a sharp suit. &amp;quot;I really didn&amp;apos;t like him at a certain time,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;But I am him &amp;#x2013; he&amp;apos;s the one who put the hustle in my blood.&amp;quot;\r\nThe drug trade proved irresistible. &amp;quot;I thought cocaine was the end-all, be-all,&amp;quot; he says. When his mother caught him selling at age 16, she kicked him out. &amp;quot;She goes, &amp;apos;I can put up with a lot of shit, but you&amp;apos;re not going to fucking disrespect me,&amp;apos;&amp;quot; he recalls. &amp;quot;&amp;apos;Grab what you can and get the fuck out of my house.&amp;apos;&amp;quot;\r\nHis slate-blue eyes widen as he thinks about where he might have ended up if he hadn&amp;apos;t discovered rap around this time. &amp;quot;I could have easily taken another turn. Hip-hop became my therapy.&amp;quot;\r\nPitbull&amp;apos;s hungry freestyles caught the ear of 2 Live Crew&amp;apos;s Luther &amp;quot;Uncle Luke&amp;quot; Campbell, who took him on tour in 2001. He went on to release three albums on TVT Records between 2004 and 2007, yielding a handful of hits. But he felt stifled at TVT, and after a legal battle with the label, he got out of his contract in 2009. &amp;quot;The head of TVT reminded me of Castro,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;As soon as I got free, I started doing business with everybody.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nPitbull the pop star was born that year. Out went the street snarl and crunk-meets-reggaeton thump that powered his early success; in came three-piece suits, four-on-the-floor beats and party anthems that make the Black Eyed Peas sound depressed. &amp;quot;He started to produce these mass-appeal hits that stations all over the country could play,&amp;quot; says Sharon Dastur, program director at New York&amp;apos;s Z100 radio.\r\nPitbull&amp;apos;s career reboot kicked off with 2009&amp;apos;s clubby &amp;quot;I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho),&amp;quot; which sold 2.7 million downloads and reached Number Two on Billboard&amp;apos;s Hot 100. Since then, he&amp;apos;s churned out six more Top 20 singles &amp;#x2013; including last year&amp;apos;s Number One smash, &amp;quot;Give Me Everything&amp;quot; &amp;#x2013; and has guested on major hits by Usher, Jennifer Lopez and Enrique Iglesias. &amp;quot;I&amp;apos;m never worried about overexposing myself,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;That shit&amp;apos;s for the birds, man. They want new shit all the fucking time.&amp;quot;\r\nAs part of his reinvention, Pitbull has gone fully, unapologetically corporate &amp;#x2013; inking lucrative endorsement deals with Bud Light, Kodak, Dr Pepper and Zumba Fitness, as well as securing equity stakes in companies that make vodka, dissolvable energy strips and fast food. &amp;quot;To establish myself as a brand,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;I had to do deals with big brands.&amp;quot;\r\nHe dreams of making music a side hustle to a larger marketing and consulting operation by the time he&amp;apos;s 35. Even the luxury aircraft currently carrying us to his next show is part of the overall strategy. &amp;quot;There&amp;apos;s no better place to do business than in here, &amp;apos;cause you can&amp;apos;t go no-fucking-where,&amp;quot; he says after we reach cruising altitude. &amp;quot;If I got you for four or five hours, I&amp;apos;m-a have that deal cut by the time I land.&amp;quot;\r\nPitbull&amp;apos;s arch-capitalist turn has made him an easy target for mockery. Last summer, when he signed on to make an appearance at whichever Walmart won a Facebook contest, a wiseguy blogger marshaled thousands of &amp;quot;likes&amp;quot; for a remote branch in Alaska. &amp;quot;I guess they thought they were going to bully me on the Internet,&amp;quot; he says, smiling. &amp;quot;Kodiak was gorgeous.&amp;quot;\r\nHe does turn down some offers, particularly when he suspects he&amp;apos;s being used for his ethnicity. &amp;quot;When I sit in those board meetings, they say &amp;apos;multicultural&amp;apos; and &amp;apos;general market,&amp;apos;&amp;#x2009;&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;No, motherfucker, multicultural is your general market!&amp;quot;\r\nPitbull peers out the jet&amp;apos;s oval-shape window, sunlight streaming across his face. &amp;quot;I am the American dream,&amp;quot; he adds. &amp;quot;Hip-hop gave me an out, and the world is giving me an in. Where do we go from here?&amp;quot; He laughs. &amp;quot;God knows.&amp;quot;\r\n***\r\nAfter touching down in Salvador, northeastern Brazil&amp;apos;s party capital, we head for a local festival, where Pitbull&amp;apos;s staff is extremely frustrated to learn that the promoters have failed to supply the video screen required for his blockbuster-grade graphics. One of his managers, Michael Calderon, paces anxiously backstage. &amp;quot;We might be canceling the show,&amp;quot; Calderon says with a sigh after ducking out of the star&amp;apos;s dressing room.\r\nIn the end, Pitbull wins over the crowd without special effects. He opens with his 2011 hit &amp;quot;Hey Baby (Drop It to the Floor),&amp;quot; leaping up and down and barking slick lines even more urgently than he did last night in Rio. He headbangs vigorously to his band&amp;apos;s covers of &amp;quot;Seven Nation Army&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Sweet Child O&amp;apos; Mine&amp;quot; between songs. Before long, young women are climbing on their boyfriends&amp;apos; shoulders to wave their hands frantically and mispronounce his name at the top of their lungs: &amp;quot;PITCHI-BOOL!&amp;quot;\r\nAt his hotel a couple of hours after the show, a beautiful brasileira in a tight yellow minidress reclines on the rumpled bed while Pitbull, his engineer and another friend lay down some background vocals for &amp;quot;Hope We Meet Again.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;It sounds like a choir of angels,&amp;quot; she says dreamily. Pitbull smirks and says, &amp;quot;It sounds like three guys that know how to eat pussy!&amp;quot;\r\nWith a glass of white wine in one hand, he uses the other to cue up a few more new songs on his engineer&amp;apos;s laptop. &amp;quot;Feel This Moment&amp;quot; has a gale-force Christina Agui&amp;#xAD;lera hook and a sample of A-ha&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;Take on Me.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Have Some Fun&amp;quot; is a flirtatious club track featuring British-Irish teen idols the Wanted &amp;#x2013; &amp;quot;my Fifty Shades of Grey,&amp;quot; he announces to general laughter. Next up is a raunchy Akon collaboration, straightforwardly titled &amp;quot;Everybody Fucks.&amp;quot;\r\nThat last one probably won&amp;apos;t be showing up in any Dr Pepper ads. But it&amp;apos;s not as if any of this is about to scare off his corporate partners, either. &amp;quot;They&amp;apos;re trying to sell a product through my life,&amp;quot; Pitbull says. &amp;quot;People believe that I have a fucking good time. Damn right, bitch.&amp;quot; He takes another swig of wine. &amp;quot;I have the time of my life.&amp;quot;\r\nThis story is from the November 22, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone.\r\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/pitbulls-global-hustle-cant-be-stopped-20121114?page=1>