Celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Michelle Pfeiffer have been paying respect to the late US rapper Coolio, who passed away at the age of 59.
His manager, Jarez Posey, told the US media that he was discovered unconscious on the bathroom floor of a friend’s LA home.
For the 1995 song Gangsta’s Paradise, which served as the soundtrack’s lead single for the movie Dangerous Minds, Coolio—whose true name was Artis Leon Ivey Jr.—won a Grammy.
Pfeiffer, who played the lead in the film, expressed her “heartbreak” over the development.
His death on Wednesday is still being investigated for its precise reason.
Nevertheless, Mr. Posey informed TMZ, who broke the news, that paramedics thought he might have experienced a heart attack.
Sheila Finegan, Coolio’s agent at Trinity Artists International, expressed their sadness and said that they will “profoundly miss” him. Coolio “touched the world with the gift of his talent and will be missed.”
Pfeiffer claimed that she still experiences “chills” every time she hears Coolio’s song and believed it to be the “cause our film saw such popularity.”
She shared a clip from the well-known song video in which she can be seen sitting next to the hip-hop star and yelling at him as he raps, writing on Instagram, “Heartbroken to hear of the demise of the great musician Coolio.
She said, “A life cut much too short.” I recall him being gracious.
Pfeiffer played an ex-Marine who transitions into teaching and works on a pilot program for intelligent students but underachievers in a challenging inner-city school in Dangerous Minds.
One of the most popular rap songs of all time, Coolio’s eerie track from it, which samples the Stevie Wonder song Pastime Paradise for its chorus, contributed to the mainstreaming of the genre.
According to his official website, it is still being extensively heard and recently reached a billion Spotify streams.
The opening line of the song’s first lyric is a quote from the bible that Coolio recites before veering off into a soul-baring confession in which he questions his deeds and those of people around him, wondering if he will “live to see 24.”
The song became the biggest-selling hit of the year in the US, and Coolio won the Grammy for best rap solo performance. The movie made close to £85 million (£78 million) globally.
Snoop Dogg made a reference to the song in his online eulogy for the late musician while posting a photo of themselves and Coolio posing on the shoot of the music video for their 2006 collaboration, Gangsta Walk.
Ice Cube, a fellow rapper and actor, said:
“This is awful news. I saw this man’s struggle to rise to the top of the profession firsthand,” Vanilla Ice wrote on Twitter. “I’m freaking out I just learned my close friend Coolio passed away,” he added “.
Coolio was referred to as “one of the nicest men I’ve known” by MC Hammer.
He wrote, posting a black and white image of the rapper and then another image of the group, including Tupac and Snoop Dogg, later.
Questlove, an Oscar-winning musician, and filmmaker, merely tweeted “Peaceful Journey Brother.”
Rapper Flavor Flav claimed that he and Coolio were scheduled to “perform together on Tuesday” and that his pal “liked telling everyone that he was the West Coast Flavor Flav.”
Rest in power was the tribute phrase sung by singer Debbie Harry, and “Love & Respect” was also written by rapper LL Cool J. Al Yankovic, a musician, who shared a photo of the late rapper and himself.
Coolio began recording music in the 1980s, but the release of Gangsta’s Paradise solidified his place in hip-hop history.
He was a key player in the US West Coast rap music movement in the 1990s. He was born in Pennsylvania, but he spent his formative years in the Compton neighborhood of Los Angeles, where his career took off.
According to The Black Names Project website, he was referred to as Coolio Iglesias during a conversation with a buddy who questioned him: “Who do you think you are, Coolio Iglesias?”
Before focusing solely on hip-hop, he served as a volunteer firefighter in the San Jose region.
He described doing so as “a means to clean up” in an interview he gave to The Los Angeles Times in 1994. “I required discipline in firefighting training,” he remarked. “We exercised daily. I wasn’t doing the things I usually did, like drinking or smoking.”
Coolio accepted the position as an all-around entertainer and refused the moniker “gangster rapper.”
He had numerous appearances in movies and TV series as a creative producer and actor, including Celebrity Big Brother in the UK in 2009.
Additionally, he discovered a way to indulge his passion for food with the book and web series Cooking with Coolio.
He recorded eight studio albums throughout a four-decade career and took home three MTV Video Music Awards and an American Music Award.
Fantastic Voyage, Rollin’ With My Homies, 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New), and Too Hot were some of his other top successes.
Up until the time of his passing, Coolio was still performing; just a few days prior, they had a show in Texas while on tour with other 90s musicians like Vanilla Ice and Young MC.
With his ex-wife Josefa Salinas, whom he wed in 1996 and later divorced, Coolio has four children. His family’s full list was not immediately available.
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