Pitbull - 'El Mariel'

Regrettably, Pitbull is a rubbish gangster rapper who sounds much like every other wannabe hardman, with some daft bugger on the Casiotone trying to make crunk out of a bossanova pattern. Which is a shame, because he is a Latin rapper, born in Cuba, and as such could have well been the next rapper to give props to the many, many Latin hip-hop fans in the US, as Big Pun and Cypress Hill have in previous years. But no, he insists on doing the ThugLifeTM gruff shouting thing, while his producers do their best to imitate Three 6 Mafia, and he lamely fails to rap anywhere near as fast or as cleverly as they can. Perhaps the bits in Spanish are really, really good - but it seems unlikely, as his English lyrics are the usual litany of guns, hoes and drug deals. The album's title refers to a boatlift that relocated over one hundred thousand Cubans to Florida, a notable event in recent history, but it seems Pitbull is more concerned with reprising his role in the recent 'Scarface' videogame than he is in talking intelligently about Cuban history. This is the kind of hip-hop that gets money chucked at it indiscriminately - it should be studiously avoided by all fans of the genre. If Pitbull was British, he'd be Phil Mitchell. Think about that before you listen. [Omar Kudos]