Big Pun was only 26 years old when he became the first Latino rapper to go platinum. He was dead by 28.

Born Christopher Rios, the Bronx-native bum rushed rap radio in the '90s with tongue-twisting lyrics and a razor-sharp flow. Bigger than life in every sense, the Nuyorican MC made a star turn on the 1996 Beatnuts classic Off The Books. A year later, Big Pun released his debut single, the X-rated I'm Not a Player. The streets were buzzing about a "Latino Notorious B.I.G." and his follow-up single did not disappoint. The racy Still Not a Player helped his 1998 debut album, Capital Punishment, go double platinum.

But by 2000, Big Pun's battle with obesity was making more headlines than his music. In a span of just two years, he went from 400 to just over 600 pounds. Fellow Terror Squad member and close friend Fat Joe recalls how Big Pun struggled with his weight for over a decade: "For a long time, even though he was a big guy, he could do whatever he wanted… [a]s time went on, however, his health got worse." Big Pun, who often had trouble breathing during interviews, weighed nearly 700 pounds when he died of heart failure.

Rios was survived by his wife and three children. His second album, Yeah Baby, was released two months after his death. It also went platinum.

Years before Shakira shook her hips with the bootylicious Beyonce, Puerto Rico's Iris Chacón was hypnotizing Americans with her traffic-stopping curves.

Born on March 7, 1950, the Boricua bombshell began her career in the late '60s, performing as a dancer in variety shows throughout La Isla Del Encanto. In 1970, Chacón made the jump from the stage to radio with her debut album, Tu No Eres Hombre (You're Not a Man). The record featured the standout single Rey de Amores, but it was her second album, Yo Soy Iris Chacón, which yielded her biggest hit, "Caramelo y Chocolate." Sometimes called "La Vedette de América" (America's Showgirl), Chacón parlayed her popularity as a singer-dancer into a lucrative acting career, performing a syrupy "Caramelo y Chocolate" in the movie Eva, ¿Qué Hace Ese Hombre en Tu Cama? (Eva, What Is That Man Doing in Your Bed?).

Throughout the 70s and early 80s, Chacón hosted a popular weekly TV variety show that aired in 15 Latin American countries. With a legion of Spanish speakers already under her voluptuous spell, a redhead Chacón soon became a household name in the United States. In the mid to late 80s, the triple threat often appeared on American talk shows, including The Merv Griffin Show and Late Night with David Letterman, where she made the cool hosts break a sweat with double entendres and revealing outfits. Her seemingly effortless ability to leave tongues wagging landed her the lead in a now iconic TV commercial for some "tremendo" coolant. (Say it in Spanish.)

Alas, her crossover ended with minor roles in movies like Desperately Seeking Susan and East Side Story as well as regular appearances as Juana in the 90's Nickelodeon show Gullah, Gullah Island. Chacón, now a born-again Christian, recently announced she is working on a movie about her life.

Masters At Work may lack the hits that would make them a household name, but their influence as Latin house DJs goes way beyond the Brooklyn neighborhood where they grew up.

Nuyoricans Kenny “Dope” González and “Little” Louie Vega formed Masters in 1990 after years of playing house and block parties in the Bronx. Vega, the nephew of El Cantante Hector Lavoe, started spinning records at age thirteen. The two were already famous on the Manhattan circuit having DJ'ed at such legendary clubs like Studio 54 and The Palladium.

As a duo, Masters literally synthesized the jazz sounds of '70s New York Latin soul with disco and house, a combination that came to define Latin house with tracks like I Can't Get No Sleep (featuring salsa singer and hottie La India), Pienso En Ti (with Luis Salinas) and the epic Work. As producers, they created material for house diva Barbara Tucker, Jody Watley, Freedom Williams and an up-and-coming actor/rapper by the name of Will Smith. As remixers, they've "Latinized" tracks for Madonna, British funk outfit Jamiroquai and Janet Jackson – and more.

Taking their electronic Latin jazz back to basics, Masters González and Vega formed Nuyorican Soul, a live band with such legendary musicians as Tito Puente and members of the Salsoul Orchestra. Though the pair have also dabbled in solo releases, its their influential output as Masters At Work that has kept them in the mix, both via mix CDs on prestigious labels like Ministry Of Sound and in numerous festival and club appearances throughout Europe and Asia.

Mellow Man Ace was the first hip hop artist to score a hit in Spanglish. His 1989 hit single Mentirosa, a Santana-sampling club jam, had millions singing "Right now you're just a liar, a straight mentirosa, today you tell me something, y mañana otra cosa."

Mellow Man, real name Ulpiano Sergio Reyes, was born in Havana, Cuba and moved to the U.S. in the early 1970s with his family. After a few years on the East Coast, the Reyes family finally settled in the predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood of South Gate, California on the outskirts of Los Angeles. In high school, "Ulpianito" teamed up with Lawrence Muggerud (DJ Muggs), Louis Freese (B-Real) and his older brother Senen Reyes (Sen Dog) to start the rap group DVX (Devastating Vocal Excellence).

But after a few years, his crew's notorious pot smoking and related recreational activities posed a problem for Mellow Man, who had become a born-again Christian. According to the rapper, he "couldn't have one foot in the church and one in the club."

The move to a solo career proved to be more than a moral victory for the caramel-colored, bilingual rapper: his 1989 debut Escape From Havana was a huge commercial success and likely inspired a short-lived boom in Latino rap which catapulted the thuggish ruggish Kid Frost and "Rico Suave" Gerardo to the limelight. A less notable sophomore album followed and Mellow Man was soon dropped from major label Capitol. Meanwhile, his former outfit, DVX, was on its way to becoming the 90's sensation Cypress Hill.

A decade later, Mellow Man has regrouped with older brother Sen Dog to form The Reyes Brothers and in 2006 the pair released Ghetto Therapy – a collection of street joints that combines the lyrical content of Cypress Hill with Mellow Man's rounded corners.

Long before Aventura, Monchy y Alejandra and Xtreme were tearing up the charts in the U.S. and Latin America, the Dominican-born Bachata was considered too ghetto – and too damn sad – to get radio play.

Often referred to as the “música de amargue” (the music of bitterness) old school Bachata told tragic stories of poverty, alcoholism and prostitution in the Dominican Republic. A natural progression of the bolero, merengue and salsa rhythms that took off in the late 1960s, Bachata was originally only available via pirated tapes of artists like Leonardo Paniagua and Luis Días – not unlike today's rap mix tapes.

It wasn't until the 1980's when artists like Luis Segura and Juan Luis Guerra began taking Bachata in a more romantic direction that the genre was granted both radio play and an aboveground avenue to commercial success. It wasn't long before its super sweet melodies, sweeping electric guitar arpeggios and bouncy güira and bongo rhythms made Bachata not just a national sensation, but an international hit.

In 1992, Guerra’s Bachata Rosa won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album, a clear sign that the genre had gone from “ashy to classy.” And as with other Latin styles, the accompanying dance also caught on, inspiring couples from Washington Heights to Buenos Aires to get close and, perhaps, a little dirty.

It also inspired Dominican Americans to leave their distinctly urban mark on this very traditional sound. With the backing of radio stations like New York City's La Kalle, urban Bachata, which adds R&B vocal stylings, bilingual lyrics and electronics to the mix, would eventually replace its antecedents.

Long before Shakira and Jennifer Lopez' hip-shaking jams propelled them to the top of the charts, Latina freestyle stars were going head to head with pop divas like Madonna and Janet Jackson. In the mid-80s, The Cover Girls, Nayobe and Exposé were getting heavy rotation on radio and selling millions of records – but it was an artist with two first names, Lisa Lisa, who stood out from the crowd.

A cold, confident blend of electro and disco with a Latin flair, Freestyle music blew up in New York and Miami dance clubs before entering the mainstream and traveling around the world – thanks in large part to the assertive Latinas who were the icons of this groundbreaking urban culture.

Lisa Lisa, born Lisa Velez, walked into her destiny when she met record producers Full Force (recently of Nina Sky, Britney Spears, Rihanna and the Black Eyed Peas) at the Fun House, the same pivotal club where Jellybean Benitez discovered a young singer from Michigan named Madonna Louise Ciccone.

The teenaged Puerto Rican beauty soon had a band – Cult Jam – and a record deal with Columbia on the strength of her dance-party classic I Wonder If I Take You Home. Other hits like Can You Feel The Beat and All Cried Out quickly followed, helping Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam's debut reach platinum status. While her second and third albums enjoyed the same level of success, the fourth, 1991's Straight Outta Hell's Kitchen, did not and ushered the breakup of the band that same year. A relatively obscure solo record LL77 followed in 1994.

For the next decade, Velez continued to perform live and took up acting with notable appearances in Nickelodeon's teen sitcom Taina and NBC's Law and Order. But it wasn't until 2005 when the Black Eyed Peas bought the chorus of her 1985 classic "I Wonder If I Take You Home" for their smash hit "Don't Phunk With My Heart" that a new generation would be seduced by Lisa Lisa's sweet, detached vocals – even if most assumed it was Fergie on the mic. (That same year, Nina Sky sampled the bridge to the 1984 "Can You Feel The Beat" for their own breakthrough "Move Ya Body.")

Her new label, Mass Appeal Entertainment, promises a new Lisa Lisa album by year's end but whether her undisputed status as one of the most influential Latin female artists in pop music history translates into a second wind is unclear. At the very least, she'll delight her MySpace fans.

Who invented reggaetón and when?

If you're thinking it was Daddy Yankee or Don Omar and "five years ago," think again.

In the 1920s, skilled Jamaican immigrants arrived in Panamá looking for work on the Panama Canal. These former African slaves brought with them their food, their religion and their beats – as well as ties to their island homeland and its pop music. A generation later, in the late 1970s, Panamanian rude boys were still keeping those roots alive by trying covers of popular English-language dancehall tracks in Spanish. A decade later, these covers morphed and spread to other countries in Central and South America thanks to innovative Panamanian artists like Pocho Pan, Chicho Man and Nando Boom.

Pocho Pan would flip Chaka Demus & The Pliers' now-classic Murder She Wrote on Pantalón Caliente while Chicho Man kicked melodic raps over Muevela, a banger made out of machine-gun snares and subterranean bass. On the vocal side, Nando Boom showed off his tongue-twisting, Barrington Levy-influenced flow on the romantic Enfermo de Amor, stepping up his game even further when he began writing his own lyrics. Soon enough, dance floors from Boquete to the Bronx were packed with dancers grooving to "Mi Amor, Solo Pienso en Ti ," and "Mi Resistencia."

But it was the toothy Edgardo A. Franco, better known as El General, who took over Spanish-language radio throughout Latin America – and the U.S. – with his hip-shaking reggae en Español. Franco, the son of Jamaican and Trinidadian immigrants, was a master of explicit wordplay – his rhymes had mothers squirming and daughters grinding. A commercial success, the charismatic El General, often decked out in gaudy military gear, was named best Latin rap artist by Billboard magazine five years in a row, scoring major hits with the frantic Rica Y Apretadita, the relatively mellow yet still dirty Tu Pum Pum, and the flirty Muevelo. Eventually, the lanky MC won over a multitude of listeners in Puerto Rico, a nation with its own bustling reggae movement, and home of emerging rap superstar Armando Lozada Cruz, better known as Vico C.

With songs by Nando Boom, El General, Vico C and Jamaican dancehall mainstays like Shabba Ranks blasting from cars and clubs, it was only a matter of time before Puerto Rican DJs would blend each style and create one of their own. Today, Puerto Rican reggaetoneros have a firm grip on the mainstream, but artists like Tego Calderón are quick to give credit where it is due: "[W]e started doing reggaetón … because El General and Nando Boom were hitting hard."

Years before Lil' Rob was cruising on summer nights, Lighter Shade of Brown showed homies how to party on a Sunday afternoon.

Lighter Shade of Brown was formed in 1989 by Robert "ODM" Gutierrez (One Dope Mexican) and Bobby "DTTX" Ramirez (Don't Try To Xerox), two up-and-coming solo MCs who came together at the suggestion of their manager. By 1990, the two Riverside, California natives were signed to an independent record deal – just as major-label acts Mellow Man Ace and Kid Frost attacked mainstream radio with their spanglish hits "Mentirosa" and "La Raza." Marketed as the "first Chicano rap group," Lighter Shade of Brown debuted with Brown and Proud. The breezy breakthrough single On a Sunday Afternoon and party-starter "Latin Active" landed on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, ushering in a new wave of Latino hip hop that would include acts like Cypress Hill, Funkdoobiest, Delinquent Habits and Proper Dos.

Lighter Shade Of Brown followed up with a string of catchy singles, including "Homies," from 1992's Hip Hop Locos and club anthem Hey D.J., from 1994's Layin' In The Cut. The group released two more LPs, eventually selling one million albums worldwide over the course of their career. By the end of their first decade, the duo's hard-partying lifestyle, personal conflicts and management disputes drove a wedge between the two, resulting in an indefinite hiatus that continues to this day.

ODM and DTTX still hustle as solo artists, appearing on compilations with newer-school Chicano rap acts Lil' Rob, Mr. Capone-E and Brown Boy. Last month, DTTX released the solo record Stuck N' Da Game. ODM is all over SoCal radio: he's the music director for KGGI in Riverside and a deejay at Los Angeles' KIIS-FM.

Before bachata was blowing up and DJs could fade Aventura into Xtreme, the cutting edge sound of Dominican music belonged to Proyecto Uno.

At the start of the '90s, Proyecto Uno's founder, Nelson Zapata was a high school student in New York City. At this early age, he began mixing house music, freestyle and hip hop with the merengue of his native Dominican Republic. The blend proved to be both innovative and influential, with groups like Los Ilegales and Zona 7 using the New York group's vibrant Caribbean style as a foundation for their own takes on dance music.

Club bangers like Brinca and El Tiburon soon had dance floors shaking, but Proyecto Uno, comprised of Zapata, Magic Juan, Erik Boog, Johnny Salgado and Erik Morales, was always more than a just dance outfit. By shamelessly dropping salsa and syrupy ballads into their music, they would delight fans across the U.S. and Latin America.

Without the underground but universal influence of Proyecto Uno's first two albums, Todo El Mundo and In Da House, reggaeton might never have become the phenomenon that it is today. In fact, the current incarnation of the group now includes the Dominican reggaetonero Spragga. It's this adapt-to-the-times fluidity that keeps Proyecto Uno fresh and active today. While some might dismiss them for being old-timers in a young man's game, Zapata's energy and charisma remains intact.

Fans of Daddy Yankee and Don Omar who have yelled out "No pares, sigue sigue" during the apex of a party are witnesses – whether they know it or not – to Proyecto Uno's influence on modern Latino music.

Far from New York and London, the punk rock capitals of the 1970s, sits Chula Vista, California, birthplace of The Zeros. Formed by Robert López, Javier Escovedo, Hector Peñalosa and Baba Chenelle in 1976, The Zeros were sometimes called "the Mexican Ramones." They played fast and catchy power-pop numbers in the vein of garage punk legends like the New York Dolls, The Stooges, and, of course, The Ramones.

Think of early Green Day or latter-day The Strokes but fronted by four Mexican-American kids and you get an idea of what The Zeros sounded like. An important part of the young west coast punk scene in the late '70s, The Zeros played alongside important punk icons like The Germs, Patti Smith and The Clash.

Before disbanding in the early '80s, The Zeros released a few singles on Bomp records. Singer Robert López reinvented himself as the now pretty damn famous for an underground act El Vez – the "Mexican Elvis" – while Javier Escovedo, the younger brother of Alejandro Escovedo, continues playing in various bands. In 1999, The Zeros reformed with a new album, only to disband once again. But their legacy as Americano punk rockers lives on.