The hip hop community was (somewhat) shocked this week when the 698-pound, Grammy-nominated rapper Big Punisher died of a heart attack. Christopher Rios, the 28-year old creator of 1997’s acclaimed Capital Punishment was rushed from the Crowne Plaza Hotel in White Plains, New York to a hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival at around 4 pm Monday afternoon. The coroner confirmed that Rios’ heart problems were due for the most part to his obesity, but pending tests for drugs and alcohol have not yet suggested external factors.

Thus Big Punisher joins Eazy-E, Tupac Shakur and the Notorious BIG in the pantheon of MCs passed, and considering the fact that Pun’s forthcoming Yeehah Baby album was expected to be released in April, he will no doubt also enjoy the most troubling hip hop craze: immense posthumous success.

There is no end in sight to the reported 200 unreleased tracks Tupac recorded before he died, and producer Sean "Puffy" Combs has attempted to resurrect Biggie (Christopher Wallace) with a "new" album from his late, great friend. Hip hop fans will undoubtedly enjoy Yeehah Baby in the months to come and Big Pun will inevitably appear each year, as other artists scramble to include lost recordings on new songs, either intending to honor Big Pun or cash in on his success, or both. Fans have certainly not heard the last of Big Pun. But will we ever mourn the death of Christopher Rios?

Courtesy of Foxnews.com

With the popularization of gangsta rap came a fixation with death characterized by artists such as Shakur and Wallace, who foretold their untimely ends all too well. The Notorious BIG’s first album Ready to Die, and last album, Life After Death, not only reflected the impending doom within most of his songs but also aptly laid the groundwork for Born Again, which Combs pieced together entirely after Wallace’s death. Tupac’s oeuvre reflected similar themes that anticipated his death and inspired countless theories that his death was faked.

Big Pun was different: he was an enormous, jubilant MC who surrounded himself with beautiful Puerto Ricans in his videos and rapped about what seemed to be physically impossible trysts with each of them. "Still Not a Player," his big hit, includes no trace of Biggie’s self-hatred or Tupac’s paranoia; watching Big Pun rock from side to side in the video as he raps, "they used to say I’m too chubby, but since the money/The honies got nuthin’ but love for me" is an irresistible pleasure. Watching him jauntily hop aboard a very small scooter and ride off into the BX sunset is, uh, more irresistible even than watching him rock from side to side. The album version, a raunchy, cringe-inducing piece of work, belies the darker side of Rios’ artistic enthusiasm. Both songs, however, are light years away from the few violent, furious verses The Notorious BIG contributes to "Born Again."

The immediate reaction from his fans and colleagues has been one of reverence. Rios was seen as a pioneer for Latino artists in the rap genre, and he proudly incorporated his Puerto Rican heritage into his music. Pop star Jennifer Lopez, who features Big Pun on her new single, "Feelin’ So Good," said, "He was a source of pride for the Latin community, a great artist and a great person. We will miss him terribly." No conspiracy theory here; Christopher Rios was simply a successful rap star who got so large he could no longer perform or even tie his shoelaces. And it killed him.

But how do we mourn this loss? Do we insist he is still alive? Do we launch an all-star campaign against obesity? Or can we perhaps refrain from waking the dead or laying the blame? Big Punisher was no Notorious BIG or Tupac, yet I fear who he was in his brief life will be forever shadowed by his association with these other icons in dying so young. If you honestly intend to pay your respects, I suggest that before you succumb to the melodramatic upturned 40oz cliché, you might want to first pop in Capital Punishment and do what Big Pun would have wanted: shake that booty.