Big Pun

Christopher Lee Rios (November 10 1971 – February 7 2000), better known as Big Punisher or Big Pun, was a New York 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, and Fat Joe before signing to Loud Records as a solo artist. Big Pun's career was cut short in 2000 by a fatal heart attack. He was survived by a wife (Liza Rios) and three children.

History

Born 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. At the age of 15, Rios dropped out of Stevenson High School. Sometime during the '80s, he began to write rap lyrics, forming the Full A Clips Crew with Triple Seis, Cuban Link, Prospect and Lil Punisha. 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 (J.O.E.).

"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. He became a member of The Terror Squad, a New York-based group of Latino rappers founded by Fat Joe, with most of the roster supplied by the now-defunct Full A Clips Crew.

Despite his athletic adolescence, Big Pun struggled with his weight for most of his life; his weight fluctuated between heavy in the early 90s and obese. In the last years of his life he fluctuated between 450 and 700 pounds. At Fat Joe's urging, Big Pun enrolled in a weight-loss program at Duke University in North Carolina, at which he lost 80 pounds, but he quit the program before completing it, returning to New York and gaining back the weight he had lost. On February 7th, 2000, Big Pun suffered a fatal heart attack.

His second album, Yeeeah Baby, completed before his death, was issued in April 2000. A second posthumous album, Endangered Species, was released in 2001, a collection of "greatest hits," new material, guest appearances, and remixed "greatest verses." Most recently, Big Punisher was featured with Fat Joe on "Duets: The Last Chapter," as well as on Notorious B.I.G's most recent album on the track "Get Your Grind On". The track begins with a Big Pun radio interview in which he said he would perform a duet with Biggie at the gates of heaven. ^*

Recently, Sony Records has been considering releasing a second posthumous album featuring unreleased material but the project is being delayed by a producer who owns some of this material and refuses to return calls. [http://www.sohh.com/articles/article.php/9320

Style

Big Pun's output featured complex rhyme schemes and wordplay, multi-syllabic verses, a strong ability to stay on beat, and relentless "flow." Another noted aspect of his work, his ability to recite long passages without taking a breath, may have resulted from his large size (as with certain opera singers in the Luciano Pavarotti mold).

Legacy

Big Pun is considered among the last real gangsta rappers and rappers in general, along with rappers such as DMX. before the Public attention turned to other rap genres such as hip-pop, dirty south rap, and the Eminem/50 Cent/G-Unit era.

Example Verses:

Just call me Baby Jesus 'cause lately niggas be praisin me

Just for the way I blaze the beat crazily, tape to CD lasery

It pays to be amazingly flavery

Gaaaaaze into my rhymes that basically hypnotize you occasionally

- Big Punisher, Super Lyrical

Dead in the middle of Little Italy, little did we know

that we riddled some middlemen who didn't do diddily

- Big Punisher, Twinz (Deep Cover '98)

Trivia

Big Pun's first stage name was Big Moon Dawg.
Big Pun's name comes from the Marvel comic book hero The Punisher.

Discography

Solo albums

Capital Punishment, (1998) Platinum
Yeeeah Baby, (2000) ^*
Endangered Species, (2001)''' ^*

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)

Singles

1998 "Still Not A Player" (featuring R&B singer Joe) #1 US
1998 "I'm Not A Player"
1998 "Twinz (Deep Cover 98)"
1998 "You Came Up" (Featuring. Noreaga)
2000 "It's So Hard"
2000 "100%"''

External links

Big Pun forever (tribute site)
Big Pun Foundation Official Website

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