Pitbull realised house music would be huge when he saw women “losing their minds” to it.
The American rapper is famed for his collaborations, having worked with Pharrell Williams, Enrique Iglesias and Alexandra Burke. He prides himself on being open to all music genres and always being able to tell when a new sound is going to become popular. “I grew up around salsa, merengue, bachata, bass music, freestyle, hip-hop, techno, house, rave. Miami is special for that. It's a city where you don't know if it's more a part of the US, or of the Caribbean, or of Latin America, or of Europe,” he explained.
“I was in the Dominican Republic [when I heard house music]. Bob Sinclar's World, Hold On comes on. And the women don't speak English, but I see them dancing and whistling, and I don't know what the hell they're singing but they're losing their minds – and I say, 'This is the next movement.’”
Pitbull’s parents are Cuban immigrants and he has strong views about their home country. He refuses to play in Cuba, insisting his stance that won’t change until there is a drastic overhaul there.
“I won't perform in Cuba until there's no more Castro and there's a free Cuba. To me, Cuba's the biggest prison in the world, and I would be very hypocritical were I to perform there. The people in Cuba, they know what I stand for, and there's a lot of people in Cuba that stand for the same. But they can't say it,” he said.
“[Wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt] it’s like wearing an Adolf Hitler T-shirt and not knowing. You're gonna offend a lot of people.”
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