How Coolio’s ‘Gangsta Paradise’ changed the rap game
nypost.comthe shocking death of the rapper born Artis Leon Ivey Jr., at just 59, from unknown causes Wednesday in Los Angeles — it’s worth remembering just how much of an impact that song had.“I was No.
1 all over the entire planet — not just in the States. I was No. 1 everywhere that you can imagine,” Coolio told Rolling Stone in 2017, adding that he had been touring in Europe when he first realized the enormity of his song’s impact. “I was like, ‘Man, these people don’t even speak English, and they’re loving the song like this?’ That’s what really tripped me out.”In the middle of the gangsta-rap heyday — with the likes of 2Pac, Dr.
Dre and the Notorious B.I.G. — “Gangsta’s Paradise” brought gravitas to the grittiness of thug life. It didn’t so much as glamorize it but reflect the street demons that are hard, maybe even impossible, to escape.
Against the song’s melancholy, almost mournful strains, Coolio — who grew up on the streets of Compton — almost sounds resigned to his fate to repeat the cycles that are all that he and his fellow gangstas know.
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