#Artis Leon Ivey Jr.

[6i]

Rest In Peace, Coolio.

[rollingstoneandvogue]

ARTIS LEON IVEY JR.

COOLIO

( 08/01/1963 - 28/09/2022 )

[yemme]

RIP.  Thank you for your contribution to the culture.

[andysmuse]

In Loving Memory chapter seven: Coolio.

In Loving Memory chapter seven: Coolio.

In Loving Memory chapter seven: Coolio. In Loving Memory chapter seven: Coolio. It’s a sad day in the history of music when a true artist passes away. Coolio was one of those artists. He inspired many people with his music and will continue inspiring people with the songs he has created during his rich career. Coolio was born: Artis Leon Ivey Jr., on August 1, 1963, in Monessen, Pennsylvania.…

[ausetkmt]

6:47 PM PT -- Law enforcement sources tell TMZ no drugs or drug paraphernalia were found at the scene of Coolio’s death. An autopsy and toxicology test will be used to determine an official cause of death.

UPDATE

6:24 PM PT -- Law enforcement sources tell TMZ ... paramedics were called to a house in Los Angeles around 4 PM for a medical emergency and when they got there they pronounced Coolio dead.

UPDATE

We're told police have opened a death investigation but as of right now there does not appear to be signs of foul play. However, our sources say the coroner will make a final determination following an autopsy.

Coolio died Wednesday in Los Angeles ... TMZ has learned.

The rapper who achieved enormous success in the 90s was visiting a friend late Wednesday afternoon when he passed away.

Coolio's longtime manager, Jarez, says Coolio went to the bathroom at his friend's house, but when he didn't come out after a while ... the friend kept calling for him, and eventually went in and found Coolio laying on the floor.

We're told the friend called EMTs, who arrived and pronounced Coolio dead on the scene -- and Jarez tells us the paramedics suspect he suffered cardiac arrest. An official cause of death has not been determined.

Coolio, whose real name is Artis Leon Ivey Jr., came up on the L.A. rap scene in the late 80s, but blew up nationally in 1995 when he released "Gangsta's Paradise" for the soundtrack of the Michelle Pfeiffer film, "Dangerous Minds."

TMZ.com

The song reached #1 and stayed there for 3 weeks.

While 'Paradise' became his signature hit, Coolio had several others ... including 1994's "Fantastic Voyage" -- which hit #3 on Billboard's Hot 100 -- as well as "1,2,3,4 (Sumpin' New)" and "It's All the Way Live (Now)."

Coolio was 59.

RIP

[shedontlovehuhself]

Oh wow. RIP, Coolio. 😥💔

[whileiamdying]

The Story of ‘Gangsta’s Paradise,’ Coolio’s Biggest Hit

The 1995 song changed the rapper’s life, bringing a rush of stardom — along with a new level of success that he was unable to match again.

Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise,” built off Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise,” held No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in 1995.Credit...Paul Bergen/Redferns, via Getty Images

By Julia Jacobs Sept. 29, 2022

It started in 1995 in a home in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills, where two roommates — a music producer and a D.J. — used to compete over who could find the best sample from their record collections.

One day, Paul Stewart, the D.J., conceded that his roommate, the producer Doug Rasheed, had bested him when Rasheed put on a vinyl copy of Stevie Wonder’s 1976 album “Songs in the Key of Life.”

The track that Rasheed played, “Pastime Paradise,” opened with a mournful synth loop that replicated the sound of a string section. The song that it inspired, “Gangsta’s Paradise,” would change both of their lives and catapult an up-and-coming West Coast rapper named Coolio to global stardom.

Coolio, born Artis Leon Ivey Jr., died on Wednesday in Los Angeles at age 59; the cause has not been disclosed. The rapper had a handful of hits before and after “Gangsta’s Paradise,” but nothing in his career would top the popularity and cultural influence of that track, which was featured in the 1995 movie “Dangerous Minds” and went on both to win a Grammy and inspire a Weird Al Yankovic parody.

In recent years, Coolio had commented on the legacy of the song and its long shadow over the rest of his career, calling it, in one interview, both a blessing and curse (“More of a blessing than a curse,” he noted).

“That record: It took him over the top,” Rasheed, the song’s composer and producer, said in an interview on Thursday. “It made him a household name worldwide.”

Coolio’s opening words, which are based on Psalm 23, became one of the most widely remembered verses in ’90s rap: “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life and realize there’s nothin’ left.”

The singer L.V. (born Larry Sanders), who features on the song, had already started collaborating with Rasheed on the track, he said in an interview, when Coolio wrote those lyrics. Listening to the Wonder song in that Hollywood Hills home, it had been L.V.’s idea to turn “Pastime Paradise” into “Gangsta’s Paradise.”

L.V. recorded multiple vocal tracks that Rasheed combined to sound like a large choir singing a haunting refrain, as well as the chorus: “Been spending most their lives living in a gangsta’s paradise.”

The tale of how Coolio first heard the track differs depending on who is telling it. In L.V.’s version, L.V. brought the song, with his recorded vocals, to Coolio on a cassette tape, hoping to persuade him to collaborate on it after another rapper had turned him down. In Coolio’s account, according to a Rolling Stone oral history of the song from 2015, the rapper was visiting the Hollywood Hills home to pick up a check from Stewart, who was his manager, when he heard the track.

“I walked into the studio, and asked Doug, ‘Wow, whose track is that?’” Coolio told Rolling Stone. “Doug said, ‘Oh, it’s something I’m working on.’ I said, ‘Well, it’s mine!’”

Coolio recalled writing his verses in one session, rapping about chasing his dreams and the uncertainty of whether he would live to 24 years old. (He was in his early 30s at the time, but 24 rhymed better, he said in a 2015 radio interview.)

The reinterpreted song still needed to get a green light from Wonder’s camp. But, Rasheed recalled, Wonder was turned off by the profanity and violence expressed in the lyrics. The producer asked Coolio for a rewrite, and the rapper agreed. The other catch: Wonder’s music publishing company would receive three-quarters of the publishing proceeds.

“The terms were a little harsh, but without them approving it there’s no hit,” Stewart, who managed both Coolio and L.V. at the time, said in an interview on Thursday.

Stewart shopped the song around and found a very interested party in MCA Records, which was producing the soundtrack for “Dangerous Minds,” starring Michelle Pfeiffer as a former Marine who becomes a teacher at an underfunded Bay Area high school. (The movie received mixed reviews, with The Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan calling it “stereotypical, predictable and simplified to the point of meaninglessness.”)

The music video, directed by Antoine Fuqua and featuring a severe-looking Pfeiffer staring down Coolio, initially received a pass from MTV, Stewart recalled, until MCA arranged to advertise the video on the channel, generating interest from viewers.

MTV picked it up, and “it was the most phenomenal takeoff of a record that I’ve ever seen,” Stewart said. “Gangsta’s Paradise” spent three weeks atop Billboard’s Hot 100 and was named the chart’s No. 1 song at the end of the year. It won the Grammy for best rap solo performance in 1996.

Then came Weird Al.

The musical parody artist and his team approached Coolio to get his blessing to make their own version of the song — “Amish Paradise” — Rasheed said, but the rapper refused. Knowing that legally speaking, Weird Al didn’t need their green light, Rasheed gave them his approval, despite Coolio’s skepticism.

“I think he just didn’t want to be made light of,” Rasheed said. To Coolio, his collaborators explained, “Gangsta’s Paradise” spoke to the real hardships and fears around street life in a way that seemed to resonate with people from different walks of life.

“A lot of people say it saved them from whatever demons they were dealing with, that they listened to the song and it helped them carry on,” Coolio said in the Rolling Stone oral history.

The “Amish Paradise” music video from 1996 opened with Yankovic in a broad-brimmed hat and a thick beard rapping, “As I walk through the valley where I harvest my grain.” In place of Coolio’s references to being “raised by the state” and finding protection in “the hood team,” Yankovic rapped about “milkin’ cows” and partying “like it’s 1699.”

Rasheed said that over time, he saw Coolio soften to the parody, viewing it as more homage than mockery. And in later interviews, the rapper said that he had changed his perspective on Yankovic’s song.

“I let that go so long ago,” Coolio told Vice in 2014. “Let me say this: I apologized to Weird Al a long time ago and I was wrong.” He added, “I listened to it a couple years after that and it’s actually funny,” adding an expletive.

In an interview with Newsweek a few months later, Yankovic said he was relieved. “I’m not the kind of guy that has beef with people, because I go out of my way to make sure that people are fine with what I do,” he said. “That was the one little moment in my whole history where there was a problem,” he noted, saying it was “very sweet” of Coolio to have told Vice he had made amends.

While “Amish Paradise” gave Coolio’s song a boost, the track was a smash on its own. L.V. remembered Coolio and his crew touring the world — Japan, France, Australia — and feeling like they were drawing “Michael Jackson-level” crowds that recited the lyrics along with them. Earlier this year, Coolio celebrated the song reaching a billion streams on YouTube.

“He put some magic on that track,” Rasheed said. “His voice, his delivery his cadence — it was something really special.”

[tonguesofdestruction]

Rapper Coolio mit 59 gestorben

Rapper Coolio mit 59 gestorben

Rapper Coolio, geboren am 1. August 1963 mit bürgerlichem Namen Artis Leon Ivey Jr. in Monessen, Pennsylvania, USA, ist am 28. September 2022 in Los Angeles gestorben. Neben seiner Musikerkarriere war er auch noch Schauspieler. Sein größter Erfolg war 1995 der Song “Gangsta’s Paradise”. Er verstarb während eines Besuches bei einem Freund in Los Angeles. Trinity Artists International, bei denen…

[keepingitneutral]

Artis Leon Ivey Jr. (August 1, 1963 – September 28, 2022)

Ivey known professionally as Coolio, was an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Coolio achieved mainstream success in the mid-to-late 1990s with his albums It Takes a Thief (1994), Gangsta’s Paradise (1995), and My Soul (1997).

He was best known for his 1995 Grammy Award-winning hit single “Gangsta’s Paradise”, as well as other singles “Fantastic Voyage” (1994), “ 1, 2 ,3, 4 (Sumpin’ New)” (1996), and “C U When U Get There” (1997).  

He provided the opening track “Aw, Here It Goes!” for the 1996 Nickelodeon television series Kenan & Kel.

From 1996 on, Coolio released albums independently.

He also created a web series titled Cookin’ with Coolio and released a cookbook.

Ivey originally rose to fame as a member of the gangsta rap group WC and the Maad Circle alongside WC and his brother, Crazy Toones.

Rest In Peace Coolio, You made a Masterpiece to be remembered.

Coolio - Fantastic Voyage (Official Music Video) [HD]

[moodboardmix]

Artis Leon Ivey Jr. (August 1, 1963 – September 28, 2022)

Ivey known professionally as Coolio, was an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Coolio achieved mainstream success in the mid-to-late 1990s with his albums It Takes a Thief (1994), Gangsta's Paradise (1995), and My Soul (1997).

He was best known for his 1995 Grammy Award-winning hit single "Gangsta's Paradise", as well as other singles "Fantastic Voyage" (1994), " 1, 2 ,3, 4 (Sumpin' New)" (1996), and "C U When U Get There" (1997).  

He provided the opening track "Aw, Here It Goes!" for the 1996 Nickelodeon television series Kenan & Kel. 

From 1996 on, Coolio released albums independently. 

He also created a web series titled Cookin' with Coolio and released a cookbook. 

Ivey originally rose to fame as a member of the gangsta rap group WC and the Maad Circle alongside WC and his brother, Crazy Toones.

Rest In Peace Coolio, You made a Masterpiece to be remembered.

Coolio ft. L.V. “Gangsta's Paradise” on the Howard Stern Show (1995)

[justforbooks]

The rapper Coolio has died at the age of 59 in Los Angeles, his manager has confirmed.

The artist, whose real name is Artis Leon Ivey Jr, passed away at a friend’s house, his longtime manager, Jarez Posey, told the Associated Press and other outlets including TMZ, Rolling Stone and Variety.

Coolio is best known for his 1995 single Gangsta’s Paradise, for which he won a Grammy for best solo rap performance. The runaway hit came from the soundtrack of the Michelle Pfeiffer film Dangerous Minds and sampled Stevie Wonder’s 1976 song Pastime Paradise.

He was nominated for five other Grammys during a career that began in the late 1980s.

His career took off with the 1994 release of his debut album, It Takes a Thief, on Tommy Boy Records. 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 haunting opening lyrics: “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death / I take a look at my life and realize there’s nothin’ left / ’cause I’ve been blastin’ and laughin’ so long that / even my mama thinks that my mind is gone.”

Earlier this year, the song hit 1bn views on YouTube. “I want to thank everybody for all the years of love and being there for me,” Coolio said in a video marking the milestone, Billboard reported. “I hope I got you through some good times and got you through some bad times.”

Pfeiffer was among those to pay tribute to the rapper. In a post on Instagram, the actress said: “Heartbroken to hear of the passing of the gifted artist @coolio. A life cut entirely too short … I remember him being nothing but gracious. 30 years later I still get chills when I hear (Gangsta’s Paradise).”

Rapper Ice Cube wrote on Twitter: “This is sad news. I witness first hand this man’s grind to the top of the industry. Rest In Peace.”

Born in Monessen, Pennsylvania, south of Pittsburgh, Coolio moved to Compton, California, where he went to community college. He worked as a volunteer firefighter and in airport security before devoting himself full-time to hip-hop.

His early work for firefighting crews in the San Jose area was “a way to clean up”, he told the Los Angeles Times in 1994. “In firefighting training was discipline I needed. We ran every day. I wasn’t drinking or smoking or doing the stuff I usually did.”

Coolio would go on to become an actor as well as an award-winning musician, appearing in dozens of films and TV shows throughout his career. Starting with a guest spot as himself on “Martin” (1995), Coolio’s credits include the “Dangerous Minds” TV spinoff (1996), “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” (1996), “Batman & Robin” (1997), “The Nanny” (1998), “Tyrone” (1999), “Midnight Mass” (1999), “Charmed” (2002), “Star-ving” (2009), “Futurama” (2001, 2010) and “Gravity Falls” (2012).

In recent years, Coolio had appeared on the reality show Big Brother and developed a cooking series, which grew an online following. He made headlines in 2013 for a planned auction of his music rights, including to Gangsta’s Paradise, in order to fund his career as a chef. He also wrote a cookbook and appeared on celebrity cooking shows.

Tributes have been paid to the Grammy award-winning musician. The death of the rapper was confirmed by Sheila Finegan, who represented him at Trinity Artists International, and said in a statement: “We are saddened by the loss of our dear friend and client, Coolio, who passed away this afternoon.

“Thank you to everyone worldwide who has listened to his music and to everyone who has been reaching out regarding his passing. Please have Coolio’s loved ones in your thoughts and prayers.”

The actor Michelle Pfeiffer, who starred in the 1995 film Dangerous Minds, for which Coolio recorded the multi-award winning hit single Gangsta’s Paradise, said she was “heartbroken” to hear of his death.

Writing on an Instagram post, Pfeiffer said: “Heartbroken to hear of the passing of the gifted artist @coolio. A life cut entirely too short.”

She added: “30 years later I still get chills when I hear the song. Sending love and light to his family.”

Ice Cube, a former member of the hip-hop group NWA, said Coolio’s death was “sad news”.

Writing on Twitter, the rapper and actor said: “This is sad news. I witness first hand this man’s grind to the top of the industry. Rest In Peace @Coolio”.

MC Hammer, best known for his hit single U Can’t Touch This, paid tribute by posting a picture of Coolio, describing him as “one of the nicest dudes I’ve known”.

American rapper Snoop Dogg also paid tribute, writing “Gangstas paradise. R I P”, while singer Bret Michaels said: “My deepest condolences go out to the family, friends, and fans on the loss of @Coolio. Awesome guy who will be missed.”

The cause of Coolio’s death has not been confirmed, although it is understood that he was found unresponsive on the bathroom floor of a friend’s house in Los Angeles.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[louis9979]

[rollingstoneandvogue]

COOLIO

( 08/ 01/ 1963-09/ 28 /2022 )

[justifiedmadness]

Shoutout Saturday 10-1-2022

[deepclover80]

The gangsta who made it to paradise, Coolio, has sadly passed away. Rest in Power, legend. ❤️🙏🏻🕊

[ausetkmt]

Published Sept. 29, 2022Updated Sept. 30, 2022

It started in 1995 in a home in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills, where two roommates — a music producer and a D.J. — used to compete over who could find the best sample from their record collections.

One day, Paul Stewart, the D.J., conceded that his roommate, the producer Doug Rasheed, had bested him when Rasheed put on a vinyl copy of Stevie Wonder’s 1976 album “Songs in the Key of Life.”

The track that Rasheed played, “Pastime Paradise,” opened with a mournful synth loop that replicated the sound of a string section. The song that it inspired, “Gangsta’s Paradise,” would change both of their lives and catapult an up-and-coming West Coast rapper named Coolio to global stardom.

Coolio, born Artis Leon Ivey Jr., died on Wednesday in Los Angeles at age 59; the cause has not been disclosed. The rapper had a handful of hits before and after “Gangsta’s Paradise,” but nothing in his career would top the popularity and cultural influence of that track, which was featured in the 1995 movie “Dangerous Minds” and went on both to win a Grammy and inspire a Weird Al Yankovic parody.

In recent years, Coolio had commented on the legacy of the song and its long shadow over the rest of his career, calling it, in one interview, both a blessing and curse (“More of a blessing than a curse,” he noted).

“That record: It took him over the top,” Rasheed, the song’s composer and producer, said in an interview on Thursday. “It made him a household name worldwide.”

Coolio’s opening words, which are based on Psalm 23, became one of the most widely remembered verses in ’90s rap: “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life and realize there’s nothin’ left.”

The singer L.V. (born Larry Sanders), who features on the song, had already started collaborating with Rasheed on the track, he said in an interview, when Coolio wrote those lyrics. Listening to the Wonder song in that Hollywood Hills home, it had been L.V.’s idea to turn “Pastime Paradise” into “Gangsta’s Paradise.”

L.V. recorded multiple vocal tracks that Rasheed combined to sound like a large choir singing a haunting refrain, as well as the chorus: “Been spending most their lives living in a gangsta’s paradise.”

Sign up for the Louder Newsletter  Stay on top of the latest in pop and jazz with reviews, interviews, podcasts and more from The New York Times music critics.

The tale of how Coolio first heard the track differs depending on who is telling it. In L.V.’s version, L.V. brought the song, with his recorded vocals, to Coolio on a cassette tape, hoping to persuade him to collaborate on it after another rapper had turned him down. In Coolio’s account, according to a Rolling Stone oral history of the song from 2015, the rapper was visiting the Hollywood Hills home to pick up a check from Stewart, who was his manager, when he heard the track.

“I walked into the studio, and asked Doug, ‘Wow, whose track is that?’” Coolio told Rolling Stone. “Doug said, ‘Oh, it’s something I’m working on.’ I said, ‘Well, it’s mine!’”

Coolio recalled writing his verses in one session, rapping about chasing his dreams and the uncertainty of whether he would live to 24 years old. (He was in his early 30s at the time, but 24 rhymed better, he said in a 2015 radio interview.)

The reinterpreted song still needed to get a green light from Wonder’s camp. But, Rasheed recalled, Wonder was turned off by the profanity and violence expressed in the lyrics. The producer asked Coolio for a rewrite, and the rapper agreed. The other catch: Wonder’s music publishing company would receive three-quarters of the publishing proceeds.

“The terms were a little harsh, but without them approving it there’s no hit,” Stewart, who managed both Coolio and L.V. at the time, said in an interview on Thursday.

Stewart shopped the song around and found a very interested party in MCA Records, which was producing the soundtrack for “Dangerous Minds,” starring Michelle Pfeiffer as a former Marine who becomes a teacher at an underfunded Bay Area high school. (The movie received mixed reviews, with The Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan calling it “stereotypical, predictable and simplified to the point of meaninglessness.”)

The music video, directed by Antoine Fuqua and featuring a severe-looking Pfeiffer staring down Coolio, initially received a pass from MTV, Stewart recalled, until MCA arranged to advertise the video on the channel, generating interest from viewers.

MTV picked it up, and “it was the most phenomenal takeoff of a record that I’ve ever seen,” Stewart said. “Gangsta’s Paradise” spent three weeks atop Billboard’s Hot 100 and was named the chart’s No. 1 song at the end of the year. It won the Grammy for best rap solo performance in 1996.

Then came Weird Al.

The musical parody artist and his team approached Coolio to get his blessing to make their own version of the song — “Amish Paradise” — Rasheed said, but the rapper refused. Knowing that legally speaking, Weird Al didn’t need their green light, Rasheed gave them his approval, despite Coolio’s skepticism.

“I think he just didn’t want to be made light of,” Rasheed said. To Coolio, his collaborators explained, “Gangsta’s Paradise” spoke to the real hardships and fears around street life in a way that seemed to resonate with people from different walks of life.

“A lot of people say it saved them from whatever demons they were dealing with, that they listened to the song and it helped them carry on,” Coolio said in the Rolling Stone oral history.

The “Amish Paradise” music video from 1996 opened with Yankovic in a broad-brimmed hat and a thick beard rapping, “As I walk through the valley where I harvest my grain.” In place of Coolio’s references to being “raised by the state” and finding protection in “the hood team,” Yankovic rapped about “milkin’ cows” and partying “like it’s 1699.”

Rasheed said that over time, he saw Coolio soften to the parody, viewing it as more homage than mockery. And in later interviews, the rapper said that he had changed his perspective on Yankovic’s song.

“I let that go so long ago,” Coolio told Vice in 2014. “Let me say this: I apologized to Weird Al a long time ago and I was wrong.” He added, “I listened to it a couple years after that and it’s actually funny,” adding an expletive.

In an interview with Newsweek a few months later, Yankovic said he was relieved. “I’m not the kind of guy that has beef with people, because I go out of my way to make sure that people are fine with what I do,” he said. “That was the one little moment in my whole history where there was a problem,” he noted, saying it was “very sweet” of Coolio to have told Vice he had made amends.

While “Amish Paradise” gave Coolio’s song a boost, the track was a smash on its own. L.V. remembered Coolio and his crew touring the world — Japan, France, Australia — and feeling like they were drawing “Michael Jackson-level” crowds that recited the lyrics along with them. Earlier this year, Coolio celebrated the song reaching a billion streams on YouTube.

“He put some magic on that track,” Rasheed said. “His voice, his delivery his cadence — it was something really special.”