Capital Punishment is released

Why it matters

Capital Punishment came out April 28, 1998, on Loud. It is Big Pun's debut album. Pun was the first Latino MC to go platinum as a solo artist. The album sold a million copies in the United States within a year and made the Bronx-Puerto-Rican MC a national-level commercial figure. Pun's rapping on Capital Punishment is the part you have to hear to understand. He was 26 years old and morbidly obese (he would die two years later of a heart attack at 28). The size made his presence on stage and on record physically singular. The rapping made his presence permanent. "Still Not a Player" was the radio hit. "Twinz (Deep Cover '98)" with Fat Joe is the cult cut, with one of the most-quoted multi-syllabic-rhyme verses ever recorded. "Beware" is the deep cut. The whole album functions as Pun's argument for the Bronx-Boricua tradition's place in the canon, with the technical skill to back it up. He delivered on the argument. He did not get to deliver much else. The next chapter of his discography happens posthumously. You should hear Capital Punishment as he made it: full, swaggering, in command.