Latinz Goin’ Platinum: 20 Years After Big Pun’s Death
Latinxs are more visible in American hip-hop than ever before, but yet still so obscured. Despite being part of this music from the very beginning, from the first Kool Herc party in the Bronx, Latinxs are still treated as second-class citizens in a genre we not only helped birth but have participated in as artists, managers, label team members and listeners. Latinz Goin Platinum is here to highlight our successes, past and present, as we build towards rap’s future, uncovering histories hidden in plain sight and identifying the Latinxs currently active in hip-hop.
As Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz took the field at Yankee Stadium in their video for “Déjà Vu (Uptown Baby)”, the unmistakable sound of salsa accompanied them. Though the iconic introductory tones of Jerry Rivera’s 1992 classic “Amores Como El Nuestro” eventually became synonymous with Shakira’s 2006 worldbeating smash hit “Hips Don’t Lie” with Wyclef Jean, back in 1997 they perfectly suited the music video’s Bronx environs, a reflection of the borough’s unique Hispanic/Latinx demographic majority. Sure enough, just a minute into the clip, the Fugee can be found seated in the bleachers with Big Punisher and Fat Joe, another nod to the cultural reality of this moment in rap history.
“But if it wasn’t for the Bronx, this rap shit probably never would be goin on,” Tariq famously rapped on the hook, a celebration of what had led to that crucial moment in the genre’s evolution. Less than two miles walk away from the ballpark was hip-hop’s birthplace, the site of DJ Kool Herc’s 1973 Back To School Jam that brought long factionalized and fiercely territorial Black and Latinx gang members together with other uptown youths and neighborhood denizens. While Big Pun was just a toddler at the time of that seminal event, growing up in the South Bronx in its wake served as a sort of aftershock that ultimately led to his own place in rap’s pantheon.
Few lovers of the game need much convincing of Pun’s greatness as an emcee, his name a mainstay of any serious G.O.A.T debate. “Still Not A Player” remains a staple of hip-hop radio and its contemporary streaming playlist equivalents, not to mention its vaunted status as a beloved boriqua anthem. Furthermore, his 1998 Capital Punishment LP will forever hold the distinction of the first ever solo rap album to earn RIAA platinum certification, a domestic sales threshold that its posthumously-released follow up Yeeeah Baby would too reach in October of 2017.
