Photograph by Christopher Leaman
Pitbull,
born Armando Pérez, self-titled Mr. Worldwide, and often known simply
as Pit, slides into his seat at a hotel restaurant about 25 minutes
inland from South Beach. The place is well outside the Miami party scene
and its paparazzi, and is either purposefully retro—deco chairs, white
tablecloths, a waitress who must be 80 wearing bright coral lipstick—or
hasn’t been updated in 50 years. It’s empty save for one of the biggest
pop stars in the world and a group of his associates, all wearing suits,
and clustered at two tables. Pitbull taps his water glass, and the
waitress hurries over to fill it. His lawyer, Leslie Zigel, hands him an
agenda, which offers topics like “Endorsement Deal Matters,”
“Investments,” and, in capital letters, “DISRUPTION.”
Zigel and Pitbull started working together in 2010, after Pitbull closed his first major sponsorship deal, with
Dr Pepper (DPS),
which Zigel was representing at the time. “He told me he appreciated my
approach to dealmaking and asked if I would consider joining his team,”
says Zigel. “I’m a jazz bass player, and he liked that I thought like a
musician, not a typical lawyer.” Zigel looks like Stanley Tucci and
speaks to Pitbull encouragingly, like a cheerful high school gym
teacher.
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Courtesy Youtube
Cars: In a series of Spanish and English ads for the Dodge Dart. En Español: “Cómo hacer un auto.” Beer: Stars in two Bud Light ads as part of a multicultural campaign. Both spots take place in a club and feature his song Bon Bon (“Don’t stop the paaaarty!”). Soda: Appears in a Dr Pepper TV ad titled “Dream,” about making it as an immigrant. “I’m Pitbull, and I’m one of a kind.”
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Alcohol: A partner in Voli, billed as the first low-calorie vodka. Flavors include Raspberry Cocoa and Espresso Vanilla. Fragrances: Launches men’s and women’s scents in 2013. Cologne has notes of “warm spices of cardamom and sage.”
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Courtesy Playboy
Hot Girls: Strikes up a “strategic partnership” with Playboy Enterprises, features the mansion in his Wild Wild Love video.
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Food: Has a “significant” equity stake in the Miami Subs Grill sandwich chain, which offers items such as the Big Havana Burger. Water Filters: Investor in EcoloBlue, a startup that manufactures a filtration system that claims to “create water from air.”
Zigel slides over a stack of articles about Bitcoin and mentions a
possible sitdown with Merlin Kauffman, who runs a $7.5 million Bitcoin
investment fund focused on the hardware that runs the currency. Pitbull
flips through the pages quickly, not displaying much interest. In
public, Pitbull is rarely seen without an enormous pair of aviator-style
sunglasses, but he’s left them off for this meeting. His exposed eyes
are ocean-colored, surrounded by little-girl lashes. Freckles dot his
nose. There’s a
Twitter (TWTR)
joke that compares a picture of Pitbull to Lord Voldemort, and while
uncharitable, there’s something to it, with that crowded, leonine smile
and menacing cannonball-like head.
“I still want to know, what exactly is Bitcoin?” Pitbull says. “How real is it? Is it going to be adopted and be disruptive?”
“The
people who are going to adopt it are young,” Zigel replies. “If it’s
something they decide they want to do, it’s going to be a force to be
reckoned with.”
“What makes this real money?”
Zigel,
looking unsure, glances quickly at the articles Pitbull has shoved back
toward him. “It’s very speculative right now,” he says. “There’s nothing
that’s holding it together.”
Pitbull is dubious. “No gold, no nothing?”
“No banks behind it, no.”
“Are they having problems with the streets?”
Zigel’s
eyebrows rise. Pitbull may be referring to the financial markets, or he
may be referring to streets of a grittier variety. Pitbull, 33, spent
much of his life navigating them, as he’s quick to mention. He’s a
first-generation American whose parents came to Miami from Cuba, his
mother in the 1960s as part of Operation Pedro Pan—Miami’s effort to get
children out of the communist country—and his father in 1980. Armando
Sr. was a low-level criminal and drug dealer; he met Pitbull’s mother
while she was what Pitbull calls a “burlesque dancer.” By the time
Pitbull was a teenager and trying to make it as a musician, he’d dropped
out of school and was dealing drugs. In 2001 he hooked up with
successful rapper Lil Jon and producer Luther Campbell, the frontman for
2 Live Crew, and in 2004 released his first album,
M.I.A.M.I. It featured the single
Culo, which peaked at No. 32 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Culo,
which translates, roughly, to “ass,” is what’s referred to as
reggaeton—an upbeat sound that combines hip-hop, Jamaican dancehall, and
more traditional Latino music such as salsa. In it, Pitbull raps in
English and Spanish, and his style is hypnotizingly monotone, making it
an ideal counterpart for a great hook.
In the decade since,
Pitbull has become ubiquitous and is moving into the territory of empire
builder, along the lines of 50 Cent or Jay Z. His publicist, Tom
Muzquiz, a peppy man with spiky hair who’s lingering at the next table,
promised to figure out the perfect day for us to spend together to help
me understand his boss’s reach and ambition. And it didn’t involve a
yacht or a crazy night out in South Beach or anything to do with his
outsize lifestyle. Exciting for Pitbull, now, is thinking about things
other than partying, studio time, and ladies. (He has six children with
an undisclosed number of women.)
