Grammy -winning rapper Coolio, who was best known for his songs Gangsta’s Paradise and Fantastic Voyage, died on Wednesday at the age of 59. The cause of his death is not yet clear. The confirmation of his death was made by his manager Jarez Posey. Coolio won a Grammy for best solo rap performance for Gangsta’s Paradise, the 1995 hit from the soundtrack of the Michelle Pfeiffer film Dangerous Minds that sampled Stevie Wonder’s 1976 song Pastime Paradise and was played constantly on MTV.
His career took off with the 1994 release of his debut album on Tommy Boy Records, It Takes a Thief. Its opening track, Fantastic Voyage, would reach No 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. A year later, Gangsta’s Paradise would become a No 1 single, with its dark opening lyrics: “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life and realize there’s not much left, ‘cause I’ve been blastin’ and laughin’ so long, that even my mama thinks that my mind is gone.”
The Grammy and the height of his fame occurred in 1996, during a bitter conflict between the two coasts’ hip-hop scenes that would soon claim the lives of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious BIG. Coolio generally avoided being caught up in the fighting. He declared from the stage as he took the prize, “United we stand, divided we fall. I’d like to claim this Grammy on behalf of the entire hip-hop country, West Coast, East Coast, and global.
Many celebrities and his fans poured their condolences on social media.