American rapper Coolio passed away on Wednesday at the age of 59. The musician, famous for his song “Gangsta’s Paradise” included in the soundtrack of the movie “Dangerous Minds”, was visiting a friend when he was found dead according to TMZ.
The star’s manager, Jarez, shared that Coolio was found unconscious on a bathroom floor, and paramedics, who were called to the scene around 4 p.m., suspected he was in cardiac arrest.
The publication reported that EMTs pronounced Coolio dead at the scene and an official cause of death has not yet been determined.
Additionally, law enforcement sources shared with TMZ that “no drugs were found at the scene of Coolio’s death” and that “an autopsy and toxicology test will be used to determine the official cause of death.”
Coolio is survived by his six children and his ex-wife, Josefa Salinas, whom he married in 1996. The former couple separated four years after their wedding.
Coolio was recently seen performing on stage during Riot Fest 2022 held on September 18 at Douglass Park in Chicago, Illinois.
His passing comes just four days after he took to Instagram to share his last performance in Texas.
He was also seen looking healthy in early April at the Sydney airport, where he stopped to take photos with fans, before performing his scheduled concert at Luna Park. The rapper has toured smaller venues in the United States in recent years, playing a string of hits from his career. The hip-hop artist, born Artis Leon Ivey Jr., enjoyed a meteoric rise in the mid-’90s.
Coolio released “Gangster’s Paradise” in 1995 and the song topped the charts in the US, UK, France, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. The single sold over six million copies worldwide and comes from her 4-times platinum-winning, Grammy-nominated 17-track album of the same name.
Just this past May, Michelle Pfeiffer reminisced about sharing a picture taken in 1995 when the two worked on the music video for “Gangsta’s Paradise.”
Pfeiffer starred in the movie “Dangerous Minds,” playing ex-Marine LouAnne Johnson, who goes to work as a high school teacher in a rough neighborhood in California. Meanwhile, Coolio provided the hit song and received a Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance, two MTV Video Music Awards for Best Rap Video and Best Video from a Movie, and a Billboard Music Award for the song/ album. The singer used religious undertones in the lyrics and said he felt called to do the melody.
“Gangsta’s Paradise wanted to be born; it wanted to come back to life and chose me as its vessel,” he said. Some of the lines were from Stevie Wonder, who didn’t allow profanity. Coolio said, “I had some vulgarities…and he didn’t I was with it. So I changed it. Once he heard it, he thought it was amazing.”
Unfortunately, Coolio was unable to duplicate that level of success and garnered only a small amount of recognition with the subsequent song “I’ll CU When U Get There”. She later became a chef and even released a cookbook titled “Cookin’ with Coolio.”
He also appeared in an episode of “Celebrity Wife Swap” in 2013 and in dozens of movies and TV shows throughout his career, and had three movies in the works according to his IMDb page: “Bobcat Moretti,” “It Wants Blood 2” and a television movie “Vegas High”.
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Rapper Ice Cube took to Twitter after hearing the sad news and paid tribute to Coolio, writing, “This is sad news. I am a firsthand witness to this man’s grind to the top of the industry. May he rest in peace.” ”
For his part, Sean Evans shared a photo of a Coolio CD and wrote: “The first CD I bought in May and the most legendary Wing 10 Last Dab these eyes have ever seen RIP Coolio.”
American actress Michelle Pfiffer also decided to pay tribute to the rapper by sharing a fragment of the Gangsta’s Paradise video on her Instagram account, in which she recalled how talented he was.
ABC
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American rapper Coolio dies at 59; famous for his song ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’