Yeeeah Baby is the second (and first posthumous) studio album by rapper Big Pun. In the wake of Big Pun’s death in February 2000, it was released in April of the same year as planned, peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200 charts selling 179,000 units during the week it was released, and subsequently was certified Gold. Fat Joe, Pun’s close friend and mentor, is the executive producer of the album.
Struggling with morbid obesity, Pun experienced breathing problems throughout the album’s recording process, slowing down his iconic flow. He died at 28 years of age, just two months before the album’s release.
The album consists of two of Big Pun’s biggest hits, the first single “It’s So Hard” and the Puerto Rican anthem “100%”. In the former song, he exclaims: “It’s hard work, baby. I just lost 100 pounds. I’m trying to live. I ain’t going nowhere.”
In his last magazine interview, conducted by Industry Insider only a week before his death, Pun detailed that his approach on Yeeeah Baby was not as “hardcore” as his previous album Capital Punishment, in an attempt to reach out to an even wider fanbase than his debut album already had.
