LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Coolio
built 215 days ago
Coolio was one of the first rappers to balance pop accessibility with gritty, street-level subject matter and language. Yet despite his nods to hardcore, his music was clearly more happy-go-lucky at heart; he shared the West Coast scene's love of laid-back '70s funk, and that attitude translated to his music far more often than Dr. Dre's Death Row/G-funk axis. Most of Coolio's hits were exuberant, good-time party anthems (save for his moody signature song "Gangsta's Paradise"), and he created a goofy, ingratiating persona in the videos that supported them. He was ... popular with younger audiences and became a favorite on Nickelodeon comedy shows thanks to the thin, spidery dreadlocks that stuck straight out of his head in all directions. In the process, Coolio took the sound of West Coast hip-hop to wider audiences than ever before, including those put off by -- or too young for -- the rougher aspects of G-funk. A combination of inactivity, legal troubles, and newly emerging rap stars stole Coolio's thunder in the late '90s, but by that point he'd helped lay the groundwork for an explosion of hardcore-themed pop-rap (most notably Puff Daddy's Bad Boy empire), and played an underappreciated role in making hip-hop the mainstream pop music of choice for a new generation.
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Coolio, the multi-talented Grammy Award winning and multi-platinum selling artist, composer and actor, is one of the most popular and successful rappers worldwide. His international hit song Fantastic Voyage was recently used in a national Pepsi ad that ran during the 2005 Super bowl, featuring P. Diddy, Carson Daly, Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria and many more. To date, Coolio has sold over 27 million records globally and has performed in concerts to adoring fans in Africa, Israel, Russia, Japan, Thailand, Brazil, Australia, Turkey and throughout Europe. In the diversified hip hop industry, Coolio is one of the few rap artists who has been able to garner mainstream success and critical acclaim. The new LP entitled "The Return of the Gangsta" has proven once again that Coolio is a master at mixing what everyone wants into a marketable album.
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What was interesting to see was the interaction Coolio had with the crowd. Considering this man has rocketed to stardom in such a short while following his hit "Gangsta's Paradise" from the Dangerous Minds movie, one would think that he would have a swelled head. But Coolio was indeed quite cool. He was in Vancouver to give a show and to have fun.
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One-time Cali rapper Coolio has a landed his own reality show for the Oxygen Network. Coolio + the Gang show will follow the ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ rapper as he raises six teenagers as a single dad.
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Coolio continues to receive worldwide attention for his work as an entertainer and as a role model who continues to help young people through his role as Honorary Director of the Heritage Begins Within Foundation. His foundation sponsored a nation-wide contest (in conjunction with a computer company) called How cool is your school. Students, teachers, parents and friends were encouraged to write in and state why their school deserves a "Cool Computer Room." 20 schools were selected to receive computers. The first contest took place in Honolulu, Hawaii and Coolio presented 15 computers to the winning school. Coolio is a strong believer in education and wants to provide computers to schools so students can fulfil their potential.
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Following up his breakthrough success, Coolio teamed up with gospel-trained singer L.V. on a tune based on Stevie Wonder\'s Songs in the Key of Life cut "Pastime Paradise." "Gangsta\'s Paradise" was a social statement about ghetto life, and the music was dark, haunting, and spellbindingly atmospheric. In other words, it was nothing like what the public had come to expect from Coolio, and a less than enthusiastic Tommy Boy discouraged him from putting it on an album, instead placing it on the soundtrack to the film Dangerous Minds, which starred Michelle Pfeiffer as a tough inner-city teacher. Released as a single, "Gangsta\'s Paradise" was a staggeringly huge hit; it became Coolio\'s first number one pop single and ... the first ghetto-centric rap song to hit number one in the U.K. Its chart longevity was such that, even with the Mariah Carey/Boyz II Men duet "One Sweet Day" setting a new record for most weeks at number one that year, "Gangsta\'s Paradise" still managed to beat it out as the number one single of 1995. It was such a phenomenon that when Weird Al Yankovic recorded the parody "Amish Paradise" (authorized by Tommy Boy but not Coolio, leading to much discord), the accompanying album Bad Hair Day became his biggest-selling record ever. Naturally, "Gangsta\'s Paradise" was featured on Coolio\'s next album, released toward the end of 1995, and naturally, it was the title track.
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Coolio