Rapper Coolio, who was one of biggest hip-hop’s names in the 1990s with hits like “Gangsta’s Paradise” and “Fantastic Voyage,” died Wednesday at the age of 59,
Rapper Coolio died at the home of a friend in Los Angeles, according to longtime manager Jarez Posey. The reason was not immediately apparent
Coolio won a Grammy for best solo rap performance for “Gangsta’s Paradise,” a 1995 hit from the soundtrack of Michelle Pfeiffer’s film “Dangerous Minds”
The Grammy, and the pinnacle of his popularity, arrived in 1996, amid a bitter feud between the two coasts’ hip-hop communities,
Born in Monessen, Pennsylvania south of Pittsburgh, Coolio moved to Compton, California. His mother sent him to Northern California as a teen because she thought the city was too dangerous.
In interviews, he stated that he began rapping at the age of 15 and knew by the age of 18 that it was what he wanted to do with his life, but he would attend community college and work