On this day 14 years ago, the rap world woke up to the news of Big Punisher’s passing. Let’s check out what else went down over the years on this day, 7 February…
1981: Kool & The Gang started a two week run at the top of the US singles chart with ‘Celebration’. This was their first No.1 and 8th top 40 hit.
1993: Carmen Electra’s self-titled debut album was released. Under the mentorship of Prince, who was one of the main composers on the album, the album was a failure, ending Carmen’s music career. Hey – at least we had Baywatch right?
1995 – Tupac Shakur was sentenced to 1 to 4 1/2 years in jail for sexual abuse.
2000, Big Punisher died of a heart attack at age 28. The rapper had weighed 318kg at the time of his attack. His sophomore album Yeeeah Baby completed before his death, was issued two months later and went to No.3 on the Billboard charts.
2005: Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ was named the top pop video of all time in the UK. The 1983 video which depicts the singer as a werewolf and a zombie, beat out all the competition as he naturally would.
2008: The late Amy Winehouse was denied the opportunity to perform at the Grammy awards that year because her US visa application had been rejected by the embassy in London. She’d been nominated for six Grammy awards ahead of the ceremony in Los Angeles, and subsequently won Grammys for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Best Pop Vocal Performance and Best New Artist. Her producer Mark Ronson also won a Grammy that year for Producer of the Year. Winehouse entered the Guinness Book of World Records for most Grammy Awards won by a British Female Act. At the live Grammy ceremony she performed her smash hit ‘Rehab’ via satellite. [
2013: It was exactly 24 hours ago that Drake released ‘Started From The Bottom’ last year. Produced by Mike Zombie and Noah “40” Shebib, the smash hit was taken off his 4th album Nothing Was The Same and went on to sell over two million copies in the U.S. alone to date.