The 2010s File Feature
Get It Started
Chart History and Recording Background of "Get It Started" by Pitbull Featuring Shakira Pitbull, born Armando Christian Perez in Miami, Florida in 1981, spen…
01 The Story
Chart History and Recording Background of "Get It Started" by Pitbull Featuring Shakira
Pitbull, born Armando Christian Perez in Miami, Florida in 1981, spent the 2000s building a career in Miami bass and hip-hop before a series of collaborations with pop and dance music producers repositioned him as one of the most commercially potent crossover artists in the global market. His 2011 album Planet Pit and its lead single "Give Me Everything" featuring Ne-Yo and Nayer reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and demonstrated that his particular formula of energetic production, straightforward party-oriented content, and strategic featuring partnerships could achieve extraordinary mainstream reach.
The success of Planet Pit led to the follow-up project Global Warming, released in November 2012 through Mr. 305 Inc. and RCA Records. The album continued and amplified Pitbull's by-then-established methodology: recruiting internationally recognized artists as collaborators to maximize the song's appeal across different markets and radio formats simultaneously. Shakira, born Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll in Barranquilla, Colombia, was one of the most commercially successful crossover artists in history by this point, having achieved major pop success in both English and Spanish-language markets and reaching global audiences through her work on the FIFA World Cup anthem "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)" in 2010.
The collaboration on "Get It Started" brought together two artists who shared several strategic priorities: both were oriented toward global markets, both had established relationships with dance and electronic music producers, and both had demonstrated crossover appeal that transcended any single national or linguistic demographic. The song was produced by RedOne, born Nadir Khayat, a Moroccan-Swedish producer who had become one of the most commercially successful pop producers in the world through his work with Lady Gaga, and whose production style emphasized euphoric, high-energy arrangements suited to international radio and dance music contexts.
The recording incorporated a prominent interpolation of a melody from the song "Pata Pata," originally recorded by South African artist Miriam Makeba in 1957 and internationally popularized through a 1967 recording. The use of this melodic reference gave "Get It Started" a global flavor that was consistent with both Pitbull's brand positioning as an internationally minded artist and the song's thematic content. The interpolation also brought a distinct sonic identity that helped differentiate the track from other material in the dense commercial pop landscape of summer 2012.
On the Billboard Hot 100, "Get It Started" debuted at number 99 during the chart week of July 21, 2012, and rose to its peak position of number 89 the following week. The song spent two weeks on the chart. This relatively modest Hot 100 performance did not reflect the song's wider commercial impact, which was considerably more substantial in international markets and on genre-specific charts. In several European markets, "Get It Started" performed strongly, reaching the top ten in countries including Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, where Pitbull's high-energy pop style had developed a substantial following through radio and club play.
The Global Warming album campaign was exceptionally active for a major pop release, with Pitbull participating in an extensive promotional schedule that included television appearances, international tours, and radio station visits across multiple continents. The album debuted at number seven on the Billboard 200 and contained multiple singles that received substantial radio attention, with "Feel This Moment" featuring Christina Aguilera becoming the album's biggest domestic hit, reaching number eight on the Hot 100. "Get It Started" functioned within this campaign as one of the primary vehicles for demonstrating Pitbull's ability to recruit credible international talent.
Shakira's involvement with the track occurred during a period of significant professional activity. She had released her self-titled album in early 2014, but the collaboration with Pitbull predated that release and was situated within a period in which she was maintaining international visibility through high-profile guest appearances and collaborations. Her appearance on "Get It Started" generated considerable media coverage in both Spanish-language and English-language entertainment outlets, and the song was promoted with an accompanying music video that received strong views on digital platforms.
The music video was filmed in Brazil, with imagery evoking carnival culture and street celebration, which suited both the song's energy and the promotional context of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, though the video's creation predated the peak of World Cup promotion. The visual content reinforced the song's positioning as a celebration of movement, festivity, and cross-cultural connection, themes that aligned naturally with both artists' public personas. RedOne's production choices, including the propulsive rhythm section and the anthemic build of the arrangement, were specifically designed to translate across the diverse environments, from nightclubs to radio to festival stages, in which a commercial collaboration of this profile would be heard.
02 Song Meaning
Themes and Meaning in "Get It Started" by Pitbull Featuring Shakira
"Get It Started" is an up-tempo dance pop and hip-hop collaboration built around themes of celebration, movement, and romantic or social invitation. The central message is an enthusiastic call to participate: to dance, to engage, to leave hesitation behind and join in the collective energy of the moment. This thematic core is typical of Pitbull's output, which consistently prioritizes the celebration of present-tense pleasure over reflection or emotional complexity.
The song participates in a specific tradition within commercial dance music in which the act of dancing itself becomes the subject matter. Rather than telling a narrative story or developing a psychological portrait, songs of this type use the occasion of music as a reflexive subject: the song is about the experience of hearing and responding to a song. This formal self-reference is a reliable commercial strategy because it aligns the emotional content of the song with the context in which it is most likely to be heard, creating a feedback loop between the music and the listener's physical response to it.
The interpolation of the Miriam Makeba melody gives the song a global sonic signature that reinforces its thematic content. By drawing on a melody associated with South African popular music and with cross-cultural celebration, the production signals that the invitation being extended in the song is not geographically or culturally bounded. This globalist ambition was consistent with both Pitbull's brand identity, which was explicitly constructed around images of international travel, cosmopolitan celebration, and multicultural appeal, and Shakira's own established position as an artist whose audience spanned continents and languages.
Shakira's contribution to the song, both vocally and in terms of the energy she brings to the collaboration, adds a distinctly Latin flavor to the arrangement's pop and hip-hop foundation. Her vocal timbre and performance style differ markedly from Pitbull's rap-derived delivery, and this contrast is one of the song's primary sonic pleasures. The interplay between their two voices and performance approaches enacts, sonically, the cross-cultural invitation that the lyrics articulate. The call-and-response dynamic between the two artists functions as a microcosm of the broader social dynamic the song celebrates.
Culturally, "Get It Started" arrived in a moment of significant commercial interest in Latin-inflected pop and urban crossover music. The success of collaborations between American hip-hop artists and Latin pop stars had demonstrated a reliable commercial formula, and the song participated in and helped sustain that trend. Its reception in European markets, particularly in countries with strong dance music cultures, reflected an international appetite for music that combined familiar pop structures with non-Anglo sonic elements, a combination that was producing commercially successful results across multiple markets simultaneously.
The song makes no claims beyond entertainment and collective pleasure, and this transparency is part of its identity. Pitbull's artistic project has always been relatively explicit about its priorities, presenting music as a vehicle for enjoyment rather than as a forum for social commentary or emotional complexity. Within those self-defined parameters, "Get It Started" is a fully realized and coherent artistic statement: a song that does what it says it will do, inviting its audience to participate in a moment of uncomplicated, energetic celebration.
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