Coolio

  • Trivia
  • Wikipedia
  • All Subpages
  • Create New
    /wiki/Cooliocreator

    Artis Leon Ivey Jr. (August 1, 1963 – September 28, 2022), better known by his stage name Coolio, was an American rapper and actor.

    He was best known for the Grammy Award-winning single "Gangsta's Paradise" (originally made for the Dangerous Minds film soundtrack) which has since become his Signature Song. Coolio also ventured into acting, having minor parts in Daredevil (2003) and as the voice of the Kwanzaa Bot in Futurama.

    He passed away at age 59 from a drug overdose.

    Coolio provides examples of the following tropes:
    • As the Good Book Says...: "Gangsta's Paradise" begins with a line from Psalm 23:4: "As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death".
    • Being Evil Sucks: "Gangsta's Paradise" is a lamentation of how being a gangster is self-destructive and how one can get mired in such a dark rabbit hole.
    • The Cameo: For most of his acting roles.
    • Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: "Gangsta's Paradise" inverts the gangsta rap formula by presenting it instead as a volatile life full of fear, paranoia and regret where you can get killed at moment's notice.
    • Lighter and Softer: "Dexter (What's His Name?)" from Dexter's Laboratory: The Hip-Hop Experiment (which is fair enough as it is a children's album), and enforced in "Gangsta's Paradise" at Stevie Wonder's insistence as he did not want to have his song peppered with profanities (reference to gun violence are present in the song, though since this is intended to be a Deconstruction of gangsterism, it is fair game).
    • Sampling:
      • "Fantastic Voyage" is a reworking of the song by Lakeside.
      • "Gangsta's Paradise" extensively interpolates "Pastime Paradise" by Stevie Wonder. Stevie gave Coolio his blessing to sample "Pastime" on the condition that it would be devoid of any profanities, which may have benefited Coolio as it was a more radio-friendly single without the need to release a censored version.
    Discography:
    • It Takes a Thief (1994)
    • Gangsta's Paradise (1995)
    • My Soul (1997)
    • Coolio.com (2001)
    • Dexter's Laboratory: The Hip-Hop Experiment (2002)
    • El Cool Magnifico (2002)
    • The Return of the Gangsta (2006)
    • Steal Hear (2008)
    • From the Bottom 2 the Top (2009)
    This article is issued from All The Tropes. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.