The 59 -year -old rapper was discovered unconscious in a friend in Los Angeles. His song “Gangsta’s Paradise”, which appeared on the soundtrack of the film “Rebel minds”, earned him a Grammy Award in 1996.
Le Monde with AFP
The American rapper Coolio died at the age of 59, in Los Angeles, announced, Wednesday, September 28, his manager, Jarez Posey. The latter, a long -standing relative, told TMZ – publication specializing in the coverage of celebrities – having found it unconscious in the bathroom of a friend, without specifying the cause of death.
Coolio – Artis Leon Ivey Jr., his real name – won a Grammy in 1996 for the best solo rap performance with his Gangsta’s Paradise tube, which was on the soundtrack of the film Rebel Spirits (Dangerous Minds), Directed by John N. Smith, notably with actress Michelle Pfeiffer. The song took up an extract from the song Pastime Paradise, by Stevie Wonder, in 1976.
Coolio was nominated for five other grammys during a career that started in the late 1980s.
Born in Monesen, Pennsylvania, south of Pittsburgh, Artis Leon Ivey Jr. then moved to Compton, California, in the agglomeration of Los Angeles. He works as a volunteer firefighter and in the safety of airports, before devoting himself full time to the hip-hop scene. His career took off with the release, in 1994, from his first album on the Tommy Boy Records label, It Takes A Thief. His opening piece, Fantastic Voyage, reaches third place in the Billboard Hot 100, the weekly ranking of the 100 most popular songs in the United States, all musical categories combined.
dark words
A year later, Gangsta’s Paradise became number one, with his dark words: “While I walk in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I look at my life and I realize that he Don’t stay much left, because I kicked myself up and I laughed so long that even my mother thinks that I went crazy. “
Subsequently, the rapper will not know other hits of this magnitude, but will still meet success in 1996 – 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’new) – and 1997 – C U when U Get there. In total, the artist sold more than 4.8 million albums and his songs total hundreds of millions of listenings on streaming platforms.
” C’est une triste nouvelle “, said rapper Ice Cube on Twitter . “I was at the forefront to attend the rise of this man at the top of industry. Rest in peace, Coolio,” he added. “Peaceful brother travel”, tweeted for his part the producer Questlove, drummer in particular of the group The Roots.