Pitbull: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

London was teeming with baldies.

As I walked from my hotel toward Hyde Park on a sweltering evening in July, they started to pop up occasionally — oddities with their hair completely covered by rubber bald caps despite the heat, aviator sunglasses, starched white shirts and black ties giving the impression they were lost on their way to a Men in Black convention.

But soon, as the park neared, the oddities became throngs: college girls, bro crews, moms, 10-year-olds, queer couples, straight couples, groups of thirtysomethings, all on their way to see the OG baldie himself: Pitbull.

The man whose name is synonymous with Miami might at first seem an unusual presence in London, but he is in fact beloved in the city, and he was there for good reason: With this concert at BTS Hyde Park, he would set a Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people wearing bald caps ever, at 22,141. By the time Mr. 305 took the outdoor stage, he had set another record: More than 70,000 people were in attendance, besting the previous high at the venue set by Garth Brooks just a month earlier. It was an impressive sight: a seemingly endless sea of uniformed “Bald-Es” (as Pitbull himself has christened them) — pink and beige caps glistening in the sunset, transforming Hyde Park into a hairless nightclub to the beat of a cubanito from South Florida.

Read the full Pitbull Billboard cover story here. Pitbull is set to join the 2026 Billboard Latin Music Week lineup for a Superstar Q&A. Billboard Latin Music Week runs from Oct. 19-22; registration is open now.