Pitbull talks about his Las Vegas residency, how Vegas icons shaped him

Later this month, Pitbull is slated to kick off his Las Vegas residency at the Axis at Planet Hollywood, a seven-show run that will play through Oct. 7 (9/23, 9/25, 9/26, 9/30, 10/2, 10/3, 10/7). In advance of his performances, we caught up with the rapper (aka Christian Perez), who was on the set of a video shoot in the Florida Keys earlier today.

We got the scoop on him expanding the efforts of SLAM, his Miami charter school, by opening a new campus in Las Vegas in 2017, as well as what to expect when he comes to town and why performing on the strip is significant to him. 

He also talked to us about being dispatched to Kodiak, Alaska, for a contest, growing up in Miami in the era of ‘Miami Vice’ and ‘Scarface,’ his thoughts on relations being restored to Cuba and how he went from being a battle-tested rapper to a debonair pop star. Keep reading for the full interview, and then catch Mr. Worldwide at the Axis at Planet Hollywood later this month.

On being sent to Alaska to promote Sheets via Walmart’s Facebook contest:

That actually just popped up. You know, I think that was somebody trying to be slick on the internet, and I guess trying to pull somebody’s card. But the way I grew up, I didn’t have internet. So I had to see people, meet ’em face-to-face. So I thought it would be great to invite somebody that thought they were a jokester. So I was like, ‘I tell you what, I’ll meet you in Kodiak, Alaska.’

He happened to be a great kid. We had a little bit… I was only there for about four hours, but he got a chance to roll with me everywhere and do everything, and I think he got a different perspective on not only who am I, as an artist, but who am I, as a person. I think it was a great thing for everybody. Kodiak was amazing. The people there were great. They were very welcoming. They gave me the key to the city. It was a great experience. 

On his early days as a battle rapper and how he went from that to writing his own songs:

When I was doing battle raps, it was all of the top. What made me switch up and really get into the music business was Irv Gotti pulled me to the side after a video shoot were I battled Drag-On from the Rough Ryders, at a DMX video shoot, and he pulled me to the side, and he was like, ‘Hey, you the one causing all this ruckus up here?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ I’m, like, 17 years old, so I’m thinking I’m the s---, you know, like, aw that’s cool. He said, ‘Do you write records?’ I said, ‘Naw, I don’t write records; I just freestyle. He said, ‘Yeah, that freestyling s--- is great, but it don’t make no money.’ 

I said, ‘Oh, wait a second. I gotta start writing records. And that’s basically where it flipped. And if you really come to think about the word ‘freestyle,’ it tells you everything: It’s a free style. So, me, personally, I’m more about business, and, I would say, building something for my family for the next hundred years, and music has given me an opportunity. 

But the minute Irv Gotti told me that that day, that was the lightbulb that said, ‘Oh, no, wait a second.’ We’ve gotta start writing records. I see a lot of guys freestyling in this day and age. I just think their freestyle is different. Like, it’s all about punchlines, so he might rap, like, four or eight bars, and it’s like a punchline. But they’re not rapping rapping, the way we used to, I would say. So it’s interesting. But for anybody that’s out there that likes battle rapping, I think it’s amazing, but I don’t think it really works for you in the business.

On Hope Martinez, the teacher that influenced him in high school and helped set the course for his life:

Hope Martinez was somebody that changed my life and believed in me when I would say… not that nobody believed in me -- my mom always believed in me – but she was the one that seen the musical talent and said, ‘Hey, you need to go to this video shoot, and that’s basically how this all started. So she was, I would say, one of the first real visionaries in my life. 

On the idea that he now has the opportunity to be Hope Martinez for a new generation of kids through SLAM Miami (Sports & Leadership Academy), the charter school he helped launch in 2013:

Man, to me, I think that’s what this whole journey’s about -- you know, to be able to grab a young mind and teach it how to focus, believe in himself, work hard, envision and achieve. I mean, there’s no price to that. So to be able to see these kids, I see me in these kids. And a lot of these kids, I can look at them and know their story without having to even, I would say, have a conversation. So it’s…I wouldn’t even use the word ‘empowering’… It’s something that I can’t even describe in words, to be honest with you. 

So that’s why we’re not only, I would say, have SLAM in Miami, we have SLAM coming up in Nevada also. I also have a second SLAM coming up in Miami. So that means I’ll have 3,000 kids on that same block – we will, I would say. You know, the more kids that we can touch and let them know, ‘Hey, I was you. I am you. And look what we’ve achieved by believing in ourselves.’ And using our stories as strength and not as, I would say, victimizing stories… it’s something that is, I’ll say it again, priceless.

On the emphasis of sports in the school’s curriculum:

Everybody knows that kids love – we all love sports. But the beautiful thing about sports is, you’ve gotta understand, it teaches general principles, as far as teamwork, punctuality, reliability and to be resourceful. So when you’re able to teach these kids around that and use those general principals and apply to anything they’ve got going on – you’ve gotta see these kids and what they’ve got…it’s phenomenal.

On his motivation for being involved with charter schools:

Well, my role is real simple. I’ve gone to…in my life, I’ve done about 30 schools. So growing up, touring schools in the public school systems, all I said was, when I sat down with my partner, and I said, ‘Hey, we need to make school exciting again, sexy again, where the kids…the kids get sick, they still want to go school. You know, they’re not looking for a cop out. How do we do that?’ Now he’s had an amazing system. All we did was took his system and just remixed it a little bit. That’s all we did, as far as taking the curriculum and making it around sports. 

Now we’ll have other schools that we’re developing as we speak that it’s going to be the curriculum around music, curriculum around coding, curriculum around, I would say, acting. And that way, these kids are learning what we need them to learn but through things that they love. We’re teaching them that, hey, you don’t have to become the best athlete in the world, you can become the best actress, the best attorney, you can be the best broadcaster. You know there’s a whole business around this, still doing what you love.

On the significance of his Las Vegas residency, and how Vegas icons like Elvis and Sinatra have shaped his perspective:

I mean, Sinatra’s definitely somebody I look up to. What he had going on, the way he was connected to everything. I mean the guy had a life that was a full perspective, whether it was politics to mob to entertainment to acting – I mean, you name it. The guy was amazing. And, obviously, he is one of the biggest known figures that has ever played in Vegas, so for me just to be able to align my name with people such as a Frank Sinatra or the Rat Pack, or Elvis Presley, or Celine Dion, or whoever it may be – you have Britney that went through there, and now Jennifer’s on her way. We’re all kind of the up-and-coming now. It’s an honor. It really is an honor. So what I do is I look back at what they’ve done in the career, and I try to apply those things, moving forward now, and, you know, just with a little bit of a twist.

On what fans can expect from him in Vegas:

I mean, the fans are gonna… for them, there’s nothing… you know, I’m not trying to go overboard or go crazy with the show or nothing like that. I’m here to give people what they always loved and wanted from me, which is a good time. I want them to come out, have fun, escape, enjoy and forget about all of the negative things that may be going on in the world for that hour and a half or two hours that they come to the show. That’s basically what it’s about. Are we going to do fun things? Absolutely. Are we going to apply new things to the show here and there? Yes. But remember, this is a temporary residency, so we don’t want to give it all away, so when we have the permanent residency, then we really come out with full guns blazing.

On his style and his debonair image and how that differs from how he dressed and presented himself when he first started out:

Growing up in Miami, I already knew what my style was going to be, when I was a little kid, because I used to see the guys that were involved in extracurricular activities that were very well dressed gentlemen, and just very dangerous also. So I always looked at those guys and I said, ‘I want to be one of those guys someday, to be honest with you. So from when I was a little kid, this was a style that I’ve watched, I’ve embodied. My father used to dress like that also. I mean, all those guys were like that. 

So, to me, coming up through the streets and things that I went through and neighborhoods that I lived in, yeah, I mean, that’s basically what you see me wearing is what I could afford at the time. And it is what it is. Now, to me, it’s to show the world what it is to grow, mature, more than anything, evolve.

So it’s definitely a style that I had my eye on for many, many years. That’s why I love the Rat Pack. That’s why love Frank Sinatra. I love…I just love that look, a person that can be a gentlemen… What was it I read the other day? It was James Bond, that it had… it said... I’ll tell you right now, it says, ‘Be polite, be courteous, show professionalism and always have a plan to kill everyone in the room.’ [laughs] I f------ love it. 

On what it was like growing up in Miami during the time when his city was being portrayed by Hollywood through the lens of TV shows like “Miami Vice” and movies like “Scarface”:

Not only watching the films, but exactly, I was in it. So I got a chance to… ‘Scarface,’ we knew everybody else’s father was a Scarface. Everybody was involved in that heavy down there. There was a lot of things going on. The whole ‘Miami Vice’ thing… the thing is that you don’t understand that it’s abnormal to the world, because it’s your normality. It’s when you step out of it, when you go, ‘Oh, wow, wait a second, this is crazy to a lot of people.’ But for us, it was just, you know, it’s, OK, this is where we live.

But it definitely helped mold… it showed me what not to do with my life. It showed me how to hustle. It showed me how to grind and look at the situations from different perspectives and make the most out of them. And I got, what you’re speaking about, it showed me style. So it was something very, very negative in my life, but also something very positive. And that’s why I always say it’s all about taking a negative and making it a positive.

On being named Florida’s official tourism ambassador – after being the unofficial ambassador for so long:

Ah, man, it’s amazing. It’s amazing to not only be able to bring the New Year’s Eve show with Fox – which we’re partners in – to Miami and create our own legacy, the same way that Dick Clark did with Time’s Square, but now to be the ambassador of the whole state of Florida… I mean, I think it’s all about taking it to the next level. But it also gives me a chance to… it’s, like, I’ve been rapping about my city, my state, for so, so many years, and people are like, ‘OK, that’s cool.’

But now to be the official ambassador, I feel like people are going to take it even more serious with the things that I’m talking about, and then they’re going to come down and see it and then go, ‘Wow! It’s crazy. We thought this was just a rap song, but this is really how he grew up, and this is what he lives, and this is why he loves Miami and the state of Florida. 

His thoughts on relations with Cuba being restored:

I’m all about it. One thing I can’t wait to see in my life is to see Cuba free. We have a name for a drink called ‘Cuba Libre,’ which is ‘Free Cuba.’ And then we call in the neighborhood a ‘mentira,’ like a little lie because Cuba’s not free. So I can’t wait til Cuba’s free and it’s not just a drink at the bar.