''The Boatlift'' is the third studio album by

Cuban-American Cuban Americans ( es, cubanoestadounidenses or ''cubanoamericanos'') are Americans who trace their cultural heritage to Cuba regardless of phenotype or ethnic origin. The word may refer to someone born in the United States of Cuban descent or t ...

rapper

Pitbull Pit bull is a term used in the United States for a type of dog descended from bulldogs and terriers, while in other countries such as the United Kingdom the term is used as an abbreviation of the American Pit Bull Terrier breed. The term was f ...

. It was released on November 27, 2007 through TVT, Poe Boy and

Bad Boy Latino Bad Boy Latino is a Latin hip hop record label founded in 2005 by recording artists P. Diddy and Pitbull.Lil Jon Jonathan H. Smith (born January 17, 1971) better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American rapper, producer and former frontman of the rap group Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz. He was instrumental in the emergence of the hip hop subgenre cr ...

, Mr. Collipark, Nitti, Diaz Brothers and Sean "P. Diddy" Combs who served as executive producer with Pitbull. It also features guest appearances by Trick Daddy, Lil Jon,

Twista Carl Terrell Mitchell (born November 27, 1973), better known by his stage name Twista (formerly Tung Twista), is an American rapper and record producer. He is best known for his chopper style of rapping and for once holding the title of fastes ...

Jim Jones James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American preacher, political activist and mass murderer. He led the Peoples Temple, a new religious movement, between 1955 and 1978. In what he called "revolutionary suicide", ...

Jason Derulo Jason Joel Desrouleaux (born September 21, 1989), known professionally as Jason Derulo (; formerly stylized as Derülo), is an American singer and songwriter.

and

Don Omar William Omar Landrón Rivera (born February 10, 1978), better known by his stage name Don Omar, is a Puerto Rican reggaeton singer, songwriter, rapper, record producer and actor. On September 1, 2017, he announced that he would retire after a ...

among others. ''The Boatlift'' spawned four singles: " Go Girl", " The Anthem", " Secret Admirer", and " Sticky Icky". The song " Fuego (Remix)" was featured on the video game '' Madden NFL 2008''. The album received generally positive reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...

but received small commercial success despite critical acclaim. It debuted at number 50 on the US ''Billboard'' 200 chart, selling 22,398 copies in its first week.

Critical reception

''The Boatlift'' garnered a positive reception from

music critic ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mu ...

s. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 69, based on 5 reviews. Patrick Taylor of ''RapReviews'' praised the album's versatile production for going beyond crunk music and showing depth in club anthems, concluding that "Pitbull continues to prove himself as an MC who is able to bridge Latin hip hop and Southern hip hop, creating a sound that should appeal to fans from both camps. He may not be the deepest lyricist on earth, and his attempts at bedroom music may fall flat, but he makes a mean soundtrack for a night out." DJBooth's Nathan Slavik praised Pitbull for exploring vastly different genres to create party tracks with a worldview appeal and doing them with a talented cast of featured artists and producers, saying that "''The Boatlift'' isn’t going to expand your intellectual or spiritual horizons, but it is without question a go-to album for all your booty-shakin needs." Jose Davila of ''

Vibe ''Vibe'' is an American music and entertainment magazine founded by producers David Salzman and Quincy Jones. The publication predominantly features R&B and hip hop music artists, actors and other entertainers. After shutting down production ...

'' also praised the album's genre-hopping production mixing well with Pitbull's bilingual, charismatic flow, saying that it "solidifies Pitbull's position as one of the most diverse party MCs around. And little else." Wilson McBee of

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yo ...

said that, "For better or worse, the story of ''Boatlift'' concerns more the production and song structures than Pitbull’s own rapping. It’s clear he’d rather be a chorus-shouter than a verse-spitter, or at least he believes that will help him sell more records."

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

's David Jeffries commended the production and lyrical hooks for being catchy but felt that it lacked a sense of personality and talent compared to ''

El Mariel ''El Mariel'' is the second studio album by Cuban-American rapper Pitbull. It was released on October 31, 2006 through TVT Records and Bad Boy Latino. The album was leaked onto the internet on October 27, 2006, four days before the album was re ...

'', saying to consider ''The Boatlift'' "a fun floor-filler, but just not up to Pitbull's usual standards." A writer for Music for America felt that Pitbull was wasting his talent throughout the record rhyming typical club tracks and party jams and would like to see him collaborate with artists like Little Brother,

2Mex Alejandro Ocana, better known by his stage name 2Mex, is a rapper from Los Angeles, California. He is a member of The Visionaries and Of Mexican Descent. He has collaborated with underground hip hop artists such as Jel, Omid, Thavius Beck, Fa ...

, Deep Thinkers and Roots Manuva.

Commercial performance

''The Boatlift'' debuted at number 50 on the US ''Billboard'' 200 chart, selling 22,398 copies in its first week. In its second week, the album dropped to number 134 on the chart, selling an additional 9,686 copies. As of April 2009, the album has sold 131,000 copies in the United States.

Track listing

Track listing confirmed by iTunes, and songwriting credits was confirmed by

and the album's Liner Notes.Pitbull. "The Boatlift" Album Notes). TVT Records. 2007. ;Sample credits *"Go Girl" – Contains a sample of " Big Poppa" performed by The Notorious B.I.G., and "

Party Like a Rockstar "Party Like a Rockstar" is a song by American hip-hop group Shop Boyz. It was released as their commercial debut single and also served as the lead single from their debut album ''Rockstar Mentality'' (2007). It reached huge success during mid- ...

" performed by

Trina Katrina Laverne Taylor (born December 3, 1978), known professionally as Trina, is an American rapper. She rose to prominence in 1998 with her appearance on the Trick Daddy single " Nann Nigga". Trina has been described by '' XXL'' as "the mo ...

. *"The Anthem" – Contains a sample of "El Africano" performed by

Wilfrido Vargas Wilfrido Radamés Vargas Martínez (; born April 24, 1949 in Altamira, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic) is a band leader, trumpeter, vocalist, arranger, composer and producer who was instrumental in making the merengue style a worldwide phen ...

and "

Calabria 2007 "Calabria" is a song by Danish DJ/producer Rune Reilly Kölsch. It was originally released in 2003 by Credence, a sublabel of Parlophone Records. The song has been remixed or released in numerous other versions by different artists, the most suc ...

" performed by

ENUR Enur (also known as Artificial Funk) was a Danish electronic music duo. Career Artificial Funk was initially an alias of Rune Reilly Kölsch in the 1990s; in 2000, he joined forces with half brother Johannes Torpe to form the duo. They initially ...

and Natasja. *"Secret Admirer" – Contains a sample of " My Boo" performed by Ghost Town DJ's. *"Fuego (DJ Buddha Remix)" – Remix of "Fuego" from Pitbull's album ''

''. *"Stripper Pole (Remix)" – Remix of the Toby Love song "Stripper Pole" performed with KP Da Moneymaker; original version appears on Toby Love's '' self-titled album''. *"Tell Me (Remix)" – Remix of the Ken-Y song "Dime"; original version appears on the album ''

Masterpiece A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, ...

''.

Personnel

Unless otherwise noted, Information is taken from AllMusic and the album's Liner Notes *Pitbull - lead vocals *AIM - guest vocals (4) *Kori Anders - assistant audio mixing (16) *Keith Bizz - audio mixing (5) *Leslie Brathwaite - audio mixing (16) *Reather Bryant - percussion (14) *Al Burna - recording engineer (1, 5, 8-9, 14, 17-18) *Josh Butler - recording engineer (12) *Casely - additional vocals (5) *Albert Castillo - recording engineer, audio mixing (7) *Juan "Juan Ya" Chavis - background vocals (15) *Steven Cruz - guitar (15) *Cubo - guest vocals, recording engineer (4) *Ryan Deaunovich - bongos *Juan "John Q." DeJesus - background vocals (15) *Miguel DeJesus - background vocals (15) * DJ Buddha - remixing (14) *DJ Ideal - recording engineer (4) *Fabo - additional vocals (3) *Steve Fisher - recording engineer (12) *Jonathan "JaShell" Gelabert - background vocals (15) *Adam Gomez - bass guitar (15) *Danny Guira - guiro *Eddie Hernandez - assistant audio mixing (2, 12, 14) *LaMarquis Jefferson - bass guitar (6) * Harold Jones - percussion (14) * Julissa - background vocals (15) *Dawin Lapache - guitar, bass guitar (15) * Ari Levine - recording engineer (16) *

Lil Jon Jonathan H. Smith (born January 17, 1971) better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American rapper, producer and former frontman of the rap group Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz. He was instrumental in the emergence of the hip hop subgenre cr ...

- audio mixing (6) *Craig Love - guitar (6) *Toby Love - vocal arrangement, background vocals (15) *Jose "Jumanji Guira" Martinez - guiro (15) *Rafael Martinez - background vocals (15) *Ping "A. Fuegoski" Montana - bongos (15) *Detroit Nix - keyboards (6) *Steve Obas - recording engineer (2) *Rich DJ Riddler Pangilinan - Audio Production, Producer (7) *Eddie "Scarlito" Perez - piano, all keyboards, vocal arrangement, recording engineer, audio mixing (15) *Raulito - bongos *Leroy S. Romans - piano, all keyboards, background vocals (15) *Adrian "Drop" Santalla - recording engineer (2, 11, 13) *Young Rico Scott - percussion (14) *Ray Seay - audio mixing (2-3, 6, 9-12, 14, 17) *Stephen Siravo Jr. - assistant audio mixing (15) *Justin Trawick - assistant audio mixing (16) *Trina - additional vocals (2) *Yaharia Vargas - background vocals (15) *Andrea Venezuela - additional vocals (16) *Mark Vinten - recording engineer (6, 10, 17)

Charts

References

Bibliography

. . . . {{DEFAULTSORT:Boatlife, The 2007 albums Pitbull (rapper) albums Albums produced by Lil Jon Albums produced by Mr. Collipark