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J.Lo and Pitbull's 'Live It Up': first listen

Jennifer-Lopez-feat.-Pitbull-Live-It-Up

Now when we say 'first listen' we don't of course mean that we are the first people to listen to it because the song was just played on US radio, but here is a diary of what we heard when we listened to it for the first time.

You can listen along, if you like — the lyric video has just appeared.

0:02: It has taken precisely two seconds for Pitbull to talk about himself — with a cry of 'Mr Worldwide!'. This is followed by a namecheck for RedOne, then a mention of 'The Beautiful Jennifer Lopez'. Amazing.

0:10: "We don't believe in de-feat," Pitbull explains. "That's why we're back for a re-peat." We like the fact that the grand(ish) tradition of The J.Lo & Pitbull Summer Song is being ref­er­enced in this song's lyrics.

0:34: Pitbull's still banging on. "I know it's hard to under­stand how a boy grew to a man, man turns to a brand, but guess what here I am." To be honest we think Pitbull is under­es­tim­at­ing listeners' ability to com­pre­hend the concept of 'growing up', and we suspect that even the most casual Pitbullologist under­stands that the rapper's main way of estab­lish­ing himself as a brand was to keep banging on about being a brand until everyone just went "OH CHRIST PITBULL ALRIGHT WE GET IT YOU'RE A BRAND". So that's all a bit silly, but we do like the way Pitbull intro­duces J.Lo's (eventual) appear­ance: "Jenny from the block — let's rock". This is a great line. (This is not really a rock song in any estab­lished sense of 'rock', and some may also query the 'song' factor too, but let's not dwell on these points.)

0:40: J.Lo starts singing about "rocking body to body" and "let's go insane", then it sort of breaks down for some clat­ter­ing drums and chanting about being in the spotlight. There are whistles. WHISTLES.

1:11: Time for the chorus. "Oh oh we can do anything we want — live it up, so live it up, live it up". It's all a bit lyrics-to-fill-space but it's worth admiring J.Lo's insist­ence that "we won't stop until we're done". In other words, they'll do it until they don't. They'll go out until they're not out any more. In a world where will.i.am insists that we must either go hard or go home, props to J.Lo for showing that you can do both. The chorus ends with a brilliant "GO GO GO GO" bit.

1:30:  The chorus suddenly ends and Pitbull says "make love, don't fight — let's fuck tonight". (Charming!) This is followed by either the sound of a champagne cork popping, or the sound of Pitbull's penis ejac­u­lat­ing. If the latter, it's worth wondering if this is an invol­un­tary spasm that Pitbull endures every time he is in the vicinity of a hit record. Imagine that.

1:36: Massive grinding RedOne-esque electro bit.

1:50: Boring second verse, followed by another bridge (yes the whistles are still there), chorus, another Pitbull ejac­u­la­tion, and another RedOne rave attack.

3:08: A rap from Pitbull in which it is stated that J.Lo has "done it" and that "she's the reason women run it". There's a really brilliant "clap your hands to the beat" breakdown, then there's a bit more chorus, some more RedOne rave attack, and the song finishes with one glorious final ejac­u­la­tion from Pitbull. Say what you like about 'Mr Worldwide', three times in as many minutes is pretty impressive.

VERDICT: No sample, which is a shame, but the whistling and ejac­u­la­tions are good. 7/10, with room to rise to an 8/10 as the summer progresses.