The Man, The Legend, Big Punisher (6th in a series)

"Time to expand, New York to Chicago, Colorado
You know my motto, clock G's and rock keys like Drago"

"Sometimes rhymin' I blow my own mind like Nirvana
Comma, and go the whole nine like Madonna"

I'm not exactly sure how we got here. I had a list of rappers and moments that I wanted to talk about. Big Pun wasn't on that list. But then a couple of things happened. When my brother came to Colorado, Twinz (Deep Cover '98) plays from my iPad and we both rap Big Pun's part of the 1st verse. Then a week or so later, I have a discussion about rap music with a classmate and Big Pun's name comes up. I was surprised because Big Pun doesn't have that many huge singles and he died a decade ago. Then over the weekend Pun's name comes up again. So here I am writing about him rather than some other story.
With Big Pun I have a stark visual of what rap music is to me, and some of my harshest criticisms about the themes involved. Big Pun, despite having a devastatingly short career was a person who I grew up hearing stories about every so often. I would hear something and assume it was made up. No way that this guy could be all of the things that he purported to be. Besides, rappers make up things all the time (Example: Rick Ross, purported drug dealer, actual corrections officer). But even as I got older, Big Pun's stories remain surreal but a lot of major ones are very true. 1) Big Pun was a violent dude. As a kid, he was reckless and would take out anger on the walls. As an adult, he was emotionally abusive and volatile towards the people close to him including his wife. 2) Even measured against other entertainers, his sex romps were the stuff of legend. Most of the stories I didn’t hear about until long after his death. I'd hear stories about him running through a record label chasing rappers around with 100 Latin Kings carrying Uzi's. Then I'd hear about some other "street business" he handled with his bare hands. Then I'd hear that Pun was just picking women up by the dozens, even after he was married with kids. While interesting, none of these activities are things I approve of. With that caveat, Big pun is one of the best lyricists rap has ever produced and he's the stereo typical "your favorite rapper's favorite rapper"

"I'm the first Latin rapper to baffle your skull
Master the flow, niggas be swearin' I'm blacker than coal(Cole)
Like Nat King, I be rapping in tongues
Packing the ones, magnums, cannons and Gatling guns"

With that comes his music. Much like Biggie, Big Pun's Capital Punishment is the only album released during his life time. Its considered to be a classic. It starts with a kid talking about how "The Punisher" is a better hero than any other ones. He's realer than any other heroes and therefore, is a better hero than any other one. Then the it goes into "Beware", a Mobb Deep produced masterpiece of a beat. The chorus begins "I gave you fair warning, beware." Most rappers have empty boasts about how good they are, big Pun says and then proves it, immediately.

"Flawless victory you niggas can't do shit to me
Physically, lyrically, hypothetically, realistically "

There is no question whether he's a great rapper. He just crushes the beats on the album. Dream Shatterer is a perfect example for how to open a song, because the 1st verse is unbelievable. How amazing is it? In a crew of some of the best up and coming rappers of the time, its clear that Big Pun has the respect of everyone else in the room. Just for reference, other people involved include Canibus, DMX, and Mos Def. Check DMX's absolute deference to Pun and the respect he gives him. How many people does DMX respect? Seriously. At around the 5 minute mark, Pun presents the verses that would become "Dream Shatterer" as a freestyle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEB7E1nCV6w&feature=player_detailpage#t=296s
The problem with writing about Capital Punishment as an album, and the reason why this isn't a pure review of the album is that I'm compelled to just write quotes. That and the album has a lot of holes in it. It has a couple too many skits and there are a lot of songs that are repetitive. Really the song could have been limited to the best songs and there would have been nothing lost. He includes "I'm not a player" and "Still Not a Player". He includes Super lyrical, and Dream Shatterer, two pieces which aren't really songs as much as they are canvases for free style. When freestyling, he's a amazing, but creating cohesive songs is a struggle. He's not the only rapper to have this issue. Slaughterhouse, as a group, now has been criticized for precisely the same thing almost a decade and a half later. While I think that the album would be better if he just chose one song with the same message rather than trying to fit all of his work in one album. Capital Punishment comes across as more of an anthology than as a novel . It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes writing about the album track by track difficult. That being said, there are a lot of really nice songs other than the ones mentioned like Tres Leches and the Pakinamac skits
When his next album came out the 1st single features the line "I just lost a 100 pounds I'm try'na live. I ain't goin nowhere" as an adlibbed line during the chorus. Between the single's release and the album's release Big Pun, the larger than life figure, died of a heart attack. While he never struggled with crime, money and women, he struggled his entire life with his weight. BIG pun was around 700 pounds at the time of his death.
One of the things that makes Pun's work amazing is that it is an honest portrayal of himself. It separates him from the Rick Ross's of the world, or even Tupac who made up personas on the mic that they didn't live in real life. Pun speaks as if he's larger than life because he is. When he talks about random encounters with women, there's no question that they either happened or could happen. When he talks about making threats and then carrying them out, there's no doubt that he's speaking from lots of experience. Each song is a story that adds to the legend. Perhaps his debut album sounds a certain way to me, because his life (and my encounters with it) was also a scattered set of "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, but here's what happened" stories. Realness is often a silly theme in rap, but Big Pun was honest to his situation and saw life through the lens of a rapper from the Bronx, New York. When he rapped about things the familiarity came out in the form of great witty lyricism that won’t be forgotten.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLiZyr7m8K4&feature=youtu.be