In 1980, a flotilla of 125,000 exiles arrived in Miami from the Mariel harbour in Cuba. A few months later, Armando ‘Pitbull’ Perez was born. Some years later, Pitbull’s second album proper is a riotous carnival of modern Miami latino life squeezed into 74 minutes.
The standard accusation against hip hop albums goes something like this: there are too many tracks. If only artists would put out 12 quality-controlled, thematically-linked tracks like their rock cousins, how much more refined and listenable these albums would be. This position betrays a fundamental misunderstanding. The hip hop album is not an elegantly designed flower garden but a promiscuous, fecund jungle of sound. The profusion of guests, styles, skits has more in common with a bravura vaudeville show than a collection of short stories.
As you might expect, El Mariel refuses to focus on just one style. Everything gets miscegenated in the tropics. The opener is an introduction to Miami-Dade in the operapocalyptic style beloved of rappers. Florida-born, Atlanta-based producer Mr Collipark who brewed crunk out of Miami bass goes back to his roots on two tracks – including ‘Ay Chico (Lengua Afuera)’ which proselytises the joys of orally pleasuring a female companion over freestyle percussion and a groin-shifting bassline. ‘Que Tu Sabes D’Eso’ is a pumping club track, powered by the twin turbos of The Ghost Writers’ dimestore latin electro and the Spanglish flow from Pitbull/Fat Joe/Sinful. Meanwhile Lil’ Jon relaxes us on ‘Dime’ before releasing the dry humping rhinoceros of ‘Bojangles’. Oh, and the Neptunes do an OK job with ‘Jealouso’. But nothing to keep Timbaland awake at night.
Of course, diversity brings challenges. In much the same league as stem cell research, ‘Hey You Girl’ tests the limits of acceptable experimentation with its sample of The B-52s ‘Rock Lobster’ – are we ready for Cuban Psychobilly Hip Hop? But things get all sensitive and serious with spoken words from Amanda Diva and Will “Da Real One” and the Tracey Chapman-esque ‘Raindrops’. The closer ‘Se Acabo’ (“It’s Over”) joyously, aggressively celebrates the receding power of Fidel Castro – daring you not to dance on his grave.
Right now, 60% of Florida’s population is Latino-Hispanic. In 50 years, a quarter of the US population will be Hispanic. The future is in Spanish…
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