Late hip-hop powerhouse Big Punisher, aka Big Pun, was a gifted rapper and proud Nuyorican who enjoyed widespread commercial success in the late ’90s. • Pun grew up in a Puerto Rican neighbourhood in the South Bronx. He moved out of his unstable household at the age of 15. • He performed under the moniker Big Moon Dawg but later named himself after the Marvel superhero The Punisher. • Pun’s wordplay and multisyllabic rhymes impressed rapper Fat Joe, who decided to develop Pun’s career. • Fat Joe helped Pun sign to Loud Records and inducted him into Terror Squad, his Bronx-based hip-hop collective. • Pun’s 1998 debut album, Capital Punishment, opened at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. Its popularity was largely due to the summertime cookout classic “Still Not a Player,” which peaked at No. 24 on the Billboard Hot 100. • The album sold upwards of 2 million copies, making Pun the first solo Latino rapper to go platinum. • Pun’s career tragically ended in February 2000, when he died of a heart attack at the age of 28. His posthumous sophomore album, Yeeeah Baby, reached No. 1 on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.