Los Angeles (USA), Sep 28 (EFE) .- The rapper Coolio, one of the most representative musicians of the Los Angeles urban scene and author of hits from the 1990s such as “Gangsta’s Paradise”, died this Wednesday at 59, confirmed his representative.
The musician died in the afternoon at a friend’s house, who, after verifying that he did not go out or answer his calls, went to look for him in the bathroom and found him dead from a heart attack, according to his representative Jarez Posey.
“What I know is that he was at a friend’s house, he went to the bathroom and he died of a heart attack,” Posey explained in statements collected by the NBC network.
Coolio, whose original name was Artis Leon Ivey Jr., rose to fame in the 1990s as one of the biggest names in California rap.
His peak of success came in 1995, when he released the song “Gangsta’s Paradise” as part of the “Dangerous Minds” soundtrack, which became one of the most popular rap songs to date, topping the Billboard Hot 100 chart. for 3 weeks and won a Grammy Award.
The song had such an impact on pop culture that it even had a satire, “Amish Paradise” by Weird Al Yankovic, whose lyrics were totally contrary to the original.
The rapper was born in 1963 in the state of Pennsylvania, but moved to the south of Los Angeles at the end of the 1980s to start his musical career with the publication of the album “It Takes a Thief” from which singles such as “Fantastic Voyage” and “It Takes a Thief”.
Among the albums that he subsequently published, “My Soul”, “Coolio.com”, “El Cool Magnifico” -with nods to the Latino community of Los Angeles-, “The Return of the Gangsta”, “Steal Hear” and “From the Bottom 2 the Top”.
Parallel to music, Coolio also participated in the audiovisual world with more than 100 credits in series and movies, in addition to publishing the cookbook and the program “Cookin’ with Coolio”.
