Rapper Coolio, from the West Coast, passed away on Wednesday in Los Angeles at the age of 59. His gritty songs and anthems like "Gangsta's Paradise" helped define hip-hop in the 1990s. Jarez Posey, his longtime manager, announced his passing. Mr Posey, who spent more than 20 years working with the rapper, claimed to have learned of Coolio's passing at a friend's home around 5 o'clock. The reason wasn't stated.

Rappers were formerly mocked as garish criminals, but Coolio, real name Artis Leon Ivey Jr., became a mainstream phenomenon and enjoyed critical acclaim with "Gangsta's Paradise," the number-one single on Billboard in 1995 and the 1996 Grammy winner for Best Rap Solo Performance.  The song outperformed the film it was featured in, "Dangerous Minds," and was later certified triple-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. At the MTV Video Music Awards, the music video took home the prizes for Best Rap Video and Best Video From a Film.

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“Coolio still builds his raps on recognizable 1970s oldies, and he delivers intricate, syncopated rhymes as if they were conversation,” wrote Jon Pareles in a review in The New York Times, noting that “Gangsta’s Paradise” uses “the sombre minor chords” of “Pastime Paradise,” by Stevie Wonder. Critic Caryn James wrote in for The Times in 1996 that the song almost did not make it into “Dangerous Minds”. She wrote that the late addition “turned a preachy Michelle Pfeiffer film about an inner-city teacher into a hit that sounded fresher than it really was.”

Among his other hits included “Fantastic Voyage” — the opening song on his debut album — and “1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New),” which were both nominated for Grammys. “C U When U Get There,” which samples Pachelbel’s “Canon in D Major,” was a standout track on his third album of the 1990s, “My Soul.”

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By creating and performing the theme song for "Kenan & Kel," a Nickelodeon mainstay in the late 1990s, he increased his influence. After the 2008 series "Coolio's Rules," which centred on his personal life and his attempt to find love in Los Angeles, Coolio later established himself as a regular on reality television. The number of survivors in their entirety wasn't immediately known. With Josefa Salinas, whom he wed in 1996 and later divorced, Coolio has four children.

According to his official online biography, the rapper, who had asthma his entire life, acting as the spokesperson for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. According to Page Six, he experienced an asthma attack at a 2016 concert in Brooklyn, New York, and was saved by a supporter carrying an inhaler. Coolio has recently become conscious of his irrevocable impact on hip-hop. In 2018, he claimed that after years of complaining about his difficulties in the music business, he had come to the conclusion that "others would kill to take my place."

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