Big Pun(isher), born Christopher Lee Carlos Rios (November 10, 1971–February 7, 2000), was an Afro-Latino rapper. The child of Puerto Rican immigrants, he was based mostly in the Bronx and released three main albums, only one of which came out before his death. He is noted for having a very direct, clear and commanding delivery along with clever and often intimidating lyrics. Despite being morbidly obese (which ultimately led to his demise from a massive heart attack), he was capable of long, seemingly breathless performances.
Tropes Big Pun utilized in his works:
- Acrofatic: In his own words: "400 pounds/but I move fast." He was morbidly obese and it ended up killing him but he was capable of breathless and quick delivery even a healthy person would struggle to have the lung capacity for.
- As the Good Book Says...: Despite being a "lapsed" Catholic, some of his tracks have Biblical references.
- Badass Boastful Rap: Most of his songs.
- The Cameo: Snoop Dogg shows up in the music video for "Twinz (Deep Cover '98)", this is due to the original "Deep Cover" by Dr. Dre being Snoop Dogg's first major appearance on a song.
- The Casanova: Simultaneously invoked and defied in "I'm Not a Player" and it's remix "Still Not a Player".
- "I'm not a player, I just fuck a lot."
- Comedic Sociopathy: "Nigga Shit" and "We Don't Care".
- Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: Deconstructed in "Boomerang".
- Disappeared Dad: Pun attempts to defy this in "Punish Me". His ex-girlfriend is trying to keep him from seeing their son out of spite, but Pun wants to be in his son's life so he can be raised right, with the strong implication Pun is willing to go to the extreme to make sure his son knows he has a dad who wants to be in his life.
- "I wanna raise my little man, but you keep resisting
I'm insisting you chill, for real, before you come up missing
Listen, I don't wanna fight, I'd rather do what's right
A boy needs a father, that's the most important part of his life."
- Double Entendre: Used cleverly on the radio edits of "I'm Not a Player"/"Still Not a Player". "Crush" is used as an euphemism for "fuck", however, considering that Pun was over 400 pounds on average, he likely was literally crushing anyone he had sex with.
- Gangsta Rap: Big Pun has a lot of stories about thuggin' in the "South Boogie".
- Horrorcore: Leatherface. He also likes to rap about chainsaw attacks in many of his songs and considers himself "Charles Manson in the flesh".
- Kavorka Man: His weight didn't stop him from creating many songs about his skill in picking up the ladies; "Still Not a Player" likely being the most famous one.
- Motor Mouth: An excellent example is his famous "Dead in the middle of Little Italy..." line in "Twinz (Deep Cover '98)".
- Rags to Riches: Detailed in "The Glamour Life".
- Rock Me, Amadeus!!: A fairly subtle example, but the main riff in "The Dream Shatterer" is sampled from the opening riff of Ride of the Valkyries.
- Shout-Out:
- His stage name to the Marvel Comics character Frank "Punisher" Castle. Lampshaded in a sketch in which children describe Frank as a "7-foot Terminator nigga" and X-Men as "baby stuff holmes".
- Also to Scarface, Kurt Kobain, the film "Casino" and others.
- "Beware" proves that Big Pun may be the only rapper that could make a reference to The Smurfs sound menacing:
Niggas is hard as hell, but they Gargamels, picking on the smallest victim 'cos I'm hard to kill - Title-Only Chorus: "Nigga Shit".
