Big Pun

Christopher Lee Rios (November 9, 1971 - February 7, 2000), better known as Big Punisher or Big Pun, was an American rapper of Puerto Rican descent who emerged from the underground rap scene in The Bronx in the late 1990s. He first appeared on albums from The Beatnuts on the track "Off the Books" and on Fat Joe's second album Jealous One's Envy, on the track "Watch Out", prior to signing to Loud Records as a solo artist. Big Pun's career was cut short in 2000 at age 28 by a fatal heart attack due to his obesity. He is survived by a wife, Liza Rios, and three children. Big Pun was the first solo Latino rapper to sell over one million LPs. His first stage name was Big Moon Dawg. His name comes from the Marvel comic book anti-hero The Punisher.

History

Childhood
Born in the South Bronx in The Bronx during the early years of hip-hop, Christopher Rios grew up enjoying basketball, boxing, and other sports. He met his wife Liza in the eighth grade. At the age of five, he broke his leg in a Manhattan municipal park, resulting in a lawsuit against the City of New York, later settled out of court. He received a lot of money in compensation. By all accounts from Pun's family, his early years were very difficult, including witnessing his mother's drug abuse, his father leaving the family, and a stepfather who was very hard on Pun. According to his grandmother, Pun would become angry and self-destructive, punching holes in the walls of his family's apartment and eating the chunks of drywall rocks . At the age of 17, Rios dropped out of Stevenson High School and for some time was homeless, staying in abandoned buildings or at friends' homes.
Career
Sometime during the '80s, he met a young Moroccan known as DJ Rachid and introduced him to several prominent Latino rappers of the time, forming the Full a Clips Crew with Triple Seis, Prospect and Cuban Link who was at the time named "Lyrical Assassin". At this point Big Pun was operating under the alias Big Moon Dawg. Rios met fellow Puerto Rican and Bronx rapper Fat Joe in 1995 and made his commercial debut on Joe's second album, Jealous One's Envy, in addition to appearing on a b-side to Joe's "Envy" single, "Fire Water."
Later, "I'm Not a Player" (featuring an O'Jays sample) was supported by a significant advertising campaign and became an underground hit. The song's remix, "Still Not a Player" (featuring Joe), became Big Pun's first major mainstream hit. His full-length debut Capital Punishment followed in 1998, and was the first album by a solo Latino rapper to go platinum, peaking at #5 on the Billboard 200, and has gone on to sell 5 million copies to date. Capital Punishment was also nominated for a Grammy, but lost out on the award to Jay-Z's Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life. He became a member of The Terror Squad, a New York-based group of rappers founded by Fat Joe, with most of the roster supplied by the now-defunct Full a Clips Crew.

Death
Despite his athletic adolescence, Big Pun struggled with his weight for most of his life; his weight fluctuated in the early 90's between heavy and obese. In the last years of his life he fluctuated between 450 and 698 pounds. Big Pun enrolled in a weight-loss program in North Carolina, in which he lost 100 pounds, but he eventually quit the program before completing it, returning to New York and gaining back the weight he had lost. On February 7, 2000, Big Pun suffered a fatal heart attack and respiratory failure in a hotel in White Plains, NY.

Posthumous works
His second album, Yeeeah Baby, completed before his death, was issued as scheduled in April 2000. It peaked at #3 on the Billboard charts and earned gold record status within three months of its release. It eventually went platinum. A second posthumous album, Endangered Species, was released in April of 2001. Endangered Species collected some of Pun's "greatest hits," previously unreleased material, numerous guest appearances, and remixed "greatest verses." As with his other albums, it also peaked in the top ten of the Billboard 200, reaching #7, but didn't sell as much as the previous Pun albums had.
In recent times, Big Punisher was featured with Fat Joe on "Duets: The Last Chapter," Notorious B.I.G's most recent album. The track "Get Your Grind On" begins with a Big Pun radio interview in which he said he would perform a duet with Biggie at the gates of heaven. [4] Punisher was also featured on a track from the revived Terror Squad's second album, True Story, on the track "Bring 'Em Back" with Big L.
Sony Records has been considering releasing a second posthumous album featuring unreleased material [2], but the project is being delayed by Sony. [3] Liza Rios also held an auction in 2005 for her deceased husband's Terror Squad medallion, citing financial difficulties in the wake of Pun's death, and again claiming to have not received any royalty checks for Pun's posthumous album sales (save for a small check from the sales of Endangered Species). [4]

Still Not a Player documentary
In 2002, Pun's widow, Liza Rios, released a documentary about her late husband, Still Not a Player. The film features commentary from many of Pun's close friends and family members, details the struggles with his weight, and also reveals how at times, Pun would become physically abusive with his wife - in one scene, he is caught on camera while pistol whipping her.[5] The release of the documentary and its content caused a falling out between Fat Joe and Rios, as Rios repeatedly claimed to have not received any royalties from the sales of Endangered Species, which was where the proceeds from that album's sales were designed to go.[6]

Big Pun: The Legacy documentary
A new tribute documentary film, Big Pun: The Legacy is currently in post-production. The film will contain multiple interviews with artists, actors, close friends and others whose lives were touched by Big Pun, as well as rare exclusive performances and behind the scenes interviews with Big Pun himself. The film will feature appearance by Snoop Dogg, Rosie Perez, Method Man, Liza Rios, Xzibit, Cuban Link, Swizz Beatz and many more. This Film should be released by 2008.[7]

Lyrical ability and technique
Big Pun rapped at high speeds. He used huge multies and internal rhyme schemes. He showcased his punchline capabilities on 'Dream Shatterer', multies and flow in 'Twinz', 'You ain't a Killer' and 'Boomerang'. He was influenced heavily by Kool G Rap and Big Daddy Kane. He also showcased superior topic versatility ranging from street life to sex/relationships and politics to social injustice.
Examples: "Dead in the middle of little Italy, little did we know that we riddled two middle men who didn't do diddley" - From the song Twinz (Deep Cover '98)
"Just call me baby Jesus cause lately niggaz be praising me Just for the way I blaze to be crazily tape-to-CD lasery It pays to be amazingly flavery Daaaaaze into my rhymes that basically hypnotize you occasionally" From Super Lyrical by Big Pun feat. Black Thought of the Roots

Discography
Solo albums
1998: Capital Punishment (3x Platinum)
2000: Yeeeah Baby (2x Platinum)
2001: Endangered Species

Terror Squad
Terror Squad (as a member of The Terror Squad), (1999)
True Story (as a member of The Terror Squad), (2004) ("Bring 'Em Back" with Fat Joe and Big L) - Big Pun was already dead at this time as was Big L.

Singles
1997 "I'm Not a Player" - 57 US, 19 Hip-Hop/R&B Charts
1998 "Still Not a Player" (featuring Joe) - 24 US, 3 Hip-Hop/R&B Charts
1998 "Twinz (Deep Cover 98)" (featuring Fat Joe)
1998 "You Came Up" (featuring Noreaga) - 49 Hip-Hop/R&B Charts
1999 "Whatcha Gon Do" (Terror Squad)
2000 "100%" (featuring Tony Sunshine) - 85 US
2000 "It's So Hard" (featuring Donell Jones) - 75 US, 19 Hip-Hop/R&B Charts
2001 "How We Roll (Remix)" (featuring Ashanti) - 53 Hip-Hop/R&B Charts

External links
Big Pun Foundation Official Website
XXL Capital Punishment Tribute

References
^ Still Not a Player, Documentary
^ [1]
^ [2]
^ [3]
^ http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1453713/20020501/story.jhtml
^ http://www.allhiphop.com/hiphopnews/?ID=1315
^ http://imdb.com/title/tt1144866/
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