Coolio is dead: "Gangsta's Paradise" rapper is only 59 years old

Created: 09/29/2022, 15:14

By: Zoran Gojic

The song "Gangsta's Paradise" made him a world star in 1995: Coolio (1963-2022).

© Rick Scuteri/dpa

"Gangsta's Paradise" was his greatest success and has cult status for many hip-hop fans: the rapper Coolio is dead. The US musician was only 59 years old. 

"I'm a good boy," Leon Ivey Jr. liked to say.

When you know that he was one of the most prominent gangsta rappers ever under his alias Coolio, this self-description is surprising at first.

On the other hand, compared to other big guns in the genre, Coolio was actually a fine guy overall.

Well, there was this story about trying to smuggle a gun onto a plane, for which Coolio got a four-year suspended sentence, and an incident in Germany when the rapper dressed up in a boutique and wanted to leave without pay.

The shopkeeper was roughly pushed out of the way.

But among all the felons, thugs and the one or other who is accused of murder, the almost always cheerful Coolio seemed almost like a gentleman.

Coolio: He rejected the term "gangsta rap".

Raised in the infamous Compton neighborhood of Los Angeles, Leon Ivey Jr. began rapping as a teenager - unsuccessfully like so many others.

He did well in high school, which is by no means a given for young rappers, and earned his first money as a firefighter.

He continued to make music, unlike many of his colleagues, he had a soft spot for the sound of the 1970s and melodic arcs.

It was way too nice from a fierce hardcore gangsta perspective, but Coolio never saw himself as a gangsta.

What's more, he found the term "gangsta rap" derogatory.

"I've never driven around stoned and waved a gun out the window." Instead, he was involved in various formations as a sideman.

His breakthrough as a solo artist came late.

Coolio wrote "Gangsta's Paradise" for the film "Dangerous Minds" with Michelle Pfeiffer

He was in his 30s when he released his debut It Takes a Thief in 1994, which was an instant hit.

The irony, the extensive renunciation of verbal muscle flexing, the adept citing of musical elements from the seventies, all this lifted the record from other rap products of those years.

The hit single "Fantastic Voyage" made it into the top five - Coolio had made it in the USA with it.

A chain of coincidences made him a world star.

For the soundtrack of the film Dangerous Minds, in which Michelle Pfeifer plays a teacher at a problem school, he contributed "Gangsta's Paradise," a song recognizable from Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise" from the sensational album Songs in the Key of Life” (1976).

You could also say: It was a cover version with a rap interlude.

In the hip-hop scene, Coolio was considered a "good boy"

The song became a radio hit around the world, Coolio decided to put the number on his next LP as well, and the record label cleverly named the album after the monster hit.

The third work "My Soul" was also a success in 1997, and with "CU when u get there" he has his third top hit in a row.

After that, he seemed to have lost interest in regular work, and explained this with the plan to only want to produce successful singles instead of full albums.

This plan didn't quite work out, a lavish lifestyle and seven children (most of them with his own wife) forced Coolio to appear on German television, in feature films in the Balkans and at festivals in Azerbaijan.

Otherwise he was a comparatively good boy who performed well before US troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina,

Coolio collapsed in a friend's bathroom

He died unexpectedly at the age of 59.

Coolio collapsed in the bathroom at a friend's house, his longtime manager Jarez Posey said.

Nothing was known about the cause of death so far.

Hip-hop, Coolio once said, can no longer be saved.