Big Pun
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| Big Pun
<tr style="text-align: center;"><td colspan="3">Image:Capitalpunishpun.jpg </td></tr> | ||
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| Background information
<tr><td>Birth name</td><td colspan="2">Christopher Lee Rios</td></tr><tr><td>Born</td><td colspan="2">November 9, 1971</td></tr><tr><td>Origin</td><td colspan="2">Bronx, New York City</td></tr><tr><td>Died</td><td colspan="2">February 7, 2000</td></tr><tr><td>Genre(s)</td><td colspan="2">Hip hop</td></tr><tr><td>Years active</td><td colspan="2">1995–2000</td></tr><tr><td style="padding-right: 1em;">Label(s)</td><td colspan="2">Relativity Records</td></tr><tr><td textalign="top" style="padding-right: 1em;">Associated |
Christopher Lee Rios (November 9 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 due to his large size. He was survived by a wife, Liza Rios, and three children. He is especially notable as one of rap's premier lyricists.
Contents |
[edit] 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. 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 step-father 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 pieces of sheetrock that fell out. At the age of 15, Rios dropped out of Stevenson High School and for some time was homeless, staying in abandoned buildings or at friends' homes.<ref>Still Not a Player, Documentary</ref> Sometime during the '80s, he began to write rap lyrics, 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 (J.O.E.), in addition to appearing on a b-side to Joe's "Envy" single, "Fire Water."
"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. 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.
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 700 pounds. At Fat Joe's urging, Big Pun enrolled in a weight-loss program at Duke University, 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 in White Plains, NY.
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. 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 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. [1] 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. [2]
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. [3] Punisher was also featured on a track from the revived Terror Squad's second album, True Story, on the track "Bring 'Em Back."
Sony Records has been considering releasing a second posthumous album featuring unreleased material [4], but the project is being delayed by Sony. [5] 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). [6]
Example Verses:
- ... - all my memories are vivid; I remember only minutes
- That's how I mentally get rid of all the enemies,
- The spirits that definitely mimic my every melody
- And lyric which's so heavenly rhythmic.
- In magic do I build, but math do be equally compatible
- And secretively battle you to reach my peak in equilateral
- I'm from the streets, deep in the barrio, yo aint no Mario Brothers
- Official Bronx niggas, quick to body yo mother (ouch!)
- Big Punisher, My Turn
- You made a grave mistake
- Shouldn't of come here, you changed your fate
- Your brains'll make the debut on the table when I raise the stakes
- The pain is great but only for a second
- It starts strong then lessens
- Just when you restin the Armaggedon sets in
- Left him with so much stress (T.S.) blessed him with no regrets (yes)
- Welcome to Hell son, the threshold of death
- Now face the serpent, I blaze your person you get laced for certain
- Even Jakes don't trace the work so close the case to curtains
- I'm hurtin, head severely really tryin to bring the pain
- There's nuttin mo' satisfyin than when you cryin screamin my name
- It's not a game, it's Purple Rain, floods and bloodstains
- Big Pun's my thug's name, bustin my guns, that's my love thang
- I split the jug' vein and snatch your Adam's Apple
- John Madden tackle your corpse
- then hoist it on the cross at the tabernacle
- That'll have to hurt, I'll work your body 'til it burst
- Then curse tu vida, like a Brujeria verse
- I'm worse than anything you ever been through
- Sick in the head and mental
- Essentially meant to be the soul frentic mental
- When you awaken, your manhood'll be taken
- Fakin like you Satan, when I'm the rhymin abomination
- Big Punisher, You Ain't A Killer
- Ay-yo my murderous rap verbal attack is actual fact
- Tactical tracks match perfectly with graphical stats
- Half a you lack the magical dap of tragical rap
- That tackles you back and shackles and laughs at you
- That's...the mathematical madness I'm on, the savage, the strong
- The marriage, a bond of havoc and song
- This massacre's on as if Picasso laced you
- There's lotsa hateful skeletons locked
- In the closet of my castle of Grayskull
- I'm possum at grade school, that's why I have to debate you
- My raps are like Capel, slashin' your face, you
- That's how a master degrades you
- I'm battlin' Jesus (hay-soos) if he passes through my label
- I'm snatchin' his halo
- God I pray that you send my father back as an angel
- Language is fatal and it's hypnotizin'
- I'm only emphasizin', I'm still all about business and enterprisin'
- I'm super lyrical, a brain boosts the chemicals
- That's used contenicals inside of my mental projectable
- Big Punisher, Super Lyrical
[edit] Trivia
- Big Pun's first stage name was Big Moon Dawg, and a reference to this name can be seen on the back cover of the Endangered Species compilation.
- Big Pun's name comes from the Marvel comic book hero The Punisher.
- During the notorious video footage of Big Pun pistol-whipping his wife, Pun can be heard to shout "Oh wrinklepaws" repeatedly. Nobody knows why.
[edit] Discography
[edit] Solo albums
| Album cover | Album information |
|---|---|
| Capital Punishment | |
| Yeeeah Baby | |
 | Endangered Species |
[edit] 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
[edit] 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 "Shake Yo Ass Bitch" (featuring the ITFN) - #68 Hip-Hop/R&B Charts
- 2000 "It's So Hard" (featuring Donell Jones) - #75 US, #11 Hip-Hop/R&B Charts
- 2000 "100%" (featuring Tony Sunshine) - #64 Hip-Hop/R&B Charts
- 2001 "How We Roll (Remix)" (featuring Ashanti) - #53 Hip-Hop/R&B Charts
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Big Pun forever (tribute site)
- Big Pun Foundation Official Websitede:Big Punisher
