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Pitbull: El Mariel Label: TVT Records Released: 2006

Please send our thank yous to TVT Records for getting your CD to us. We’re sorry this review is coming a bit late, but honestly it was picking up dust in what we call the “orphans” pile. These are CDs that are offered up numerous times to a publication’s music reviewers, only to be passed over time and again. As I was originally hired on to Bullz-Eye to review rap and hippity-hoppity music, I took pity on your CD, along with a disc by Mr. Styles P and decided to give it a spin and a write-up.

As you can see, this disc has earned zero stars. Do not feel bad, as Styles P’s CD got the same, so you’re in good company. Why the bad rating? Well, Pit, it’s like this. Your flavor of rap/hip-hop is so past the freshness date the mold growing on it is fresher than anything you actually recorded here. Have we not had enough of the rap CDs littered with pointless “skits” and overloaded with guest stars that make the CD seem more like a Circus of the Stars than an individual effort? I say yes. Apparently, you think otherwise. I mean, you’ve got Fat Joe on here, whose CD I also reviewed, and as your luck would have it, also got a low review, but a bit of a better one than your CD.

The only good thing Lil Jon has done was lend his name, likeness, and voice talents to a mobile phone game called “Lil Jon’s Crunk Golf.” I like it immensely because it puts Jon right into the cartoon world in which he belongs. Yet you have him here on the weak tune “Bojangles Remix,” which also features the Ying Yang Twins. So be it. I suppose there are just times when you need a support system, and Lil Jon was who was available that day. By the way, have you tried his Crunk Juice?

I’d also like to point out that I’m completely bored with rap CDs that bandy about the word “nigga” every five seconds. Now, I’m not being a goody two shoes here about the subject, I’m just being honest when I say it’s fucking predictable and sad in the manner that artists such as yourself can’t be bothered to actually sit down and contemplate some good lyrics without resorting to the expected bullshit that clutters up so many of these types of releases. But then again, this is what gets people to open their wallets and throw lots of bills your way, making you a much wealthier man than I, as well as someone who gets to release his CDs regularly and to a wide audience. Perhaps I should start dropping the word in my reviews from now on, to hook up with an urban audience that would surely then be in tune with the vibe I’m casting, as it were.

Other than that, there’s really not a whole to say about El Mariel, Mr. Bull. You’re running in a pack that is truly one of those “you’ve heard one, you’ve heard ‘em all” conundrums. On the CD cover you’re dressed in a boxer’s smoking jacket. The CD’s booklet then unfolds to reveal a picture of yourself on a city sidewalk at night with that “I’m gonna fuckin’ kick your ass if you don’t respect me…no wait, I’ll just fuckin’ kick your ass because I can” look. Again, it’s a very popular pose to adopt in these types of releases, and I would be gracious and give you half a star for that alone, but you’ve got the same cocky look throughout the package’s photos, and after a time, it just comes off as phony.

So that’s my summation of El Mariel. Again, thank your record label for getting whichever PR person to get this disc in someone’s hands on our side. I guess it didn’t really matter in the end on your end of things, but then again, us folks who can’t make subpar rap albums have to make our money writing them up. It’s the way of the world. I dig it, to tell you the truth.