Big Punisher's debut album Capital Punishment and the single "Still Not a Player" were big hits in 1998, making him the first solo Latin rapper ever to go platinum. He joined other Latin rappers in the group Terror Squad, which released a self-titled album in 1999. Big Pun was a huge man, his weight reportedly varying between 450 and 700 pounds. He died of a heart attack at age 28.
Representative Albums: "Capital Punishment," "Yeeeah Baby," "The Legacy: The Best of Big Pun"
Representative Songs: "Still Not a Player," "I'm Not a Player," "It's So Hard"
Biography
The first solo Latino rapper to go platinum, Big Punisher was also yet another member of the hip-hop community to fall victim to an early death -- though in his case, it was due to health problems, not violence. In contrast to his large frame, Big Pun was a surprisingly graceful and nimble rapper, delivering his often clever, tongue-twisting rhymes at a torrential pace. Big Pun was born Christopher Rios on November 10, 1971, and grew up in the South Bronx's Puerto Rican community. He endured a rough childhood in an unstable home, and moved out when he was 15, dropping out of high school around the same time. Still, he continued his education on his own, and became interested in rapping and breakdancing (he was a solid athlete during his teen years). In 1989, under the name Big Moon Dog, he and several friends formed a street-corner rap group called the Full a Clips Crew. He later changed his name to Big Punisher, after the Marvel Comics superhero, and caught his big break when he met and impressed fellow Bronx rapper Fat Joe in 1995. He guested on a couple of Fat Joe tracks, "Fire Water" (which also featured Raekwon) and "Watch Out," and following an appearance on Funkmaster Flex's The Mix Tape, Vol. 1, quickly made a name for himself in the underground community. He guested prominently on the Beatnuts' "Off the Books" in 1997, and also worked with B Real and Flesh-N-Bone. Pun scored an underground hit of his own with "I'm Not a Player" in 1997, and also contributed "You Ain't a Killer" to the Soul in the Hole basketball documentary. With Fat Joe's help, he secured a deal with Loud Records.
Big Pun's solo debut, Capital Punishment, was released in 1998 and debuted in the Top Five thanks to "Still Not a Player," a club-ready remix of "I'm Not a Player" that proved massively popular. Earning credibility in the hardcore rap world as well, Capital Punishment went on to sell over two million copies. The following year, Pun teamed up with his mentor, Fat Joe, and several up-and-coming MCs to form the Terror Squad, which released a self-titled debut album. Pun stayed in the public eye with guest work on records by Noreaga and Jennifer Lopez (the hit "Feelin' So Good," which also featured Fat Joe) while working on his second album. Unfortunately, his longtime struggles with overeating and obesity were beginning to get the better of him. At Fat Joe's urging, he checked into a weight-loss clinic in North Carolina, where he lost 80 pounds. However, he returned to the Bronx before finishing the program, and gained back everything he'd lost, plus some extra; reports had his weight fluctuating between 450-700 pounds during his last few years. Tragically, but perhaps not unpredictably, Big Punisher suffered a fatal heart attack on February 7, 2000; he was only 28 years old, and left behind a wife and three children. His completed second album, Yeeeah Baby, was released two months later to positive reviews and entered the charts at number three. 2001's Endangered Species was a compilation mixing hits, guest appearances, and unreleased material; it, too, was a Top Ten seller. Big Pun's life was the subject of the 2002 documentary film Still Not a Player. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
First Major Screen Credit: Thicker Than Water (1999)
Biography
Rap star Big Punisher, the nearly 700-pound, platinum-selling rap sensation, made only a couple of film appearances prior to his death at the age of 28, in a hotel room in New York City, in early 2000. ~ All Movie Guide
Christopher Rios (November 9, 1971 – February 7, 2000), better known by his stage nameBig Pun (short for Big Punisher), was an Americanrapper 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 when he died of a fatal heart attack. He is survived by his wife, Liza Rios, and three children.
He grew up in a Puerto Rican community in New York City's South Bronx neighborhood.[1] By all accounts from Rios'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 Rios. According to his grandmother, Rios would become angry and self-destructive, punching holes in the walls of his family's apartment. Rios dropped out of high school and for some time was homeless staying in abandoned buildings or at his friends' homes.[2]
Career
During the 1980s, he formed the Full a Clips Crew with Triple Seis (rapper), 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 Ones Envy, in addition to appearing on a b-side to Joe's "Envy" single, "Fire Water" and "Watch Out."
Later, "I'm Not a Player Homie" (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) produced by Knobody, 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'sVol. 2: Hard Knock Life. He became a member of 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 who released their debut album The Album in 1999. In 1999 he co-starred in the Albert Pyun-directed ghetto-movie Urban Menace, alongside his frequent collaborator Fat Joe.
Death
Excluding his adolescence, Big Pun struggled with his weight for most of his life; his weight fluctuated in the early 1990s between obese and morbidly obese. Big Pun enrolled in a weight-loss program in North Carolina, in which he lost 80 pounds, but he eventually quit the program before completing it, returning to New York and gaining back the weight he had lost.[1] On February 7, 2000, Big Pun suffered a fatal heart attack and respiratory failure while temporarily staying with family at a Crowne Plaza Hotel in White Plains, New York during a home renovation. Pun was pronounced dead at the hospital after paramedics could not revive him. [3]
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. A posthumous compilation album, Endangered Species, was released in April 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.
Big Punisher was featured with Fat Joe on Duets: The Final Chapter, an album of tracks featuring the Notorious B.I.G, also deceased. 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.
On May 2, 2001, a Bronx City Council committee stalled plans to rename a small portion of Rogers Place in honor of Big Pun because of distaste over Big Pun's lyrics, which according to The New York Times "include profanity and references to violence and drug dealing".[5]
Sony Records has been considering releasing a second posthumous album featuring unreleased material [6], but the project is being delayed by Sony. [7] 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). [8]
Big Pun: The Legacy documentary
A tribute documentary Big Pun: The Legacy was released on September 15, 2009. The film contains multiple interviews with artists, actors, close friends and others whose lives were touched by Big Pun, as well as rare exclusive performances and scene interviews with Big Pun himself. The film also features appearances by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Snoop Dogg, DMX, Method Man, U-God, Liza Rios, Xzibit, Cuban Link, Swizz Beatz, DJ Skribble, Chino XL and many more. Film is directed by Vlad Yudin. It is distributed through Vivendi Universal and The Soundtrack is released through Legacy/Columbia Records, Sony Music. Footage from the documentary included Prodigy, of Mobb Deep, saying that Big Pun, "ordered like all the entrees and all the appetizers." He stated that Big Pun had become out of control to the point where when Prodigy, Pun, and Fat Joe would be in the studio and Joe left for a few minutes, he "would order two buckets of KFC, like two, three buckets and try to eat them before (Fat) Joe came."[9]
