Coolio lived large in the mid-1990s, but fame also had its downsides.
From drug arrests to weird celebrity feuds, the "Gangsta's Paradise" rapper's voyage was
far from fantastic.
Coolio's personal tragedies started at a very young age, as he came from a fractured home.
His parents divorced when he was young.
In an interview with Hot Press, Coolio himself shed some light on his early days, noting
that his actual father was in prison even before the divorce came.
The rapper told the outlet:
"I come from very humble beginnings.
My mother was a factory worker, my stepfather was a postal worker, and my real father was
a convict.
And when I was 11, my stepfather and mother divorced, and believe me, it got pretty rough
around that time."
Coolio's status as a divorce kid was just part of his troubles.
He couldn't quite fit in with his peers because of his small stature, asthma, and studious
nature.
Even his attempts to join the Crips gang didn't really work out, as he remained a peripheral
figure.
Coolio still ended up in trouble with the law, however.
When he was 17, he even spent some time in jail, reportedly on account of trying to cash
in a stolen check.
"A lot of the things, and a lot of the situations that I got into were by my own choice.
You know, were things that I did that were stupid."
Coolio's music might be on the poppier end of the hip-hop genre, but this stylistic choice
belied the fact that his background gave him more than enough street credibility.
Artis Ivey Jr. was 11 when he moved to Compton — the troubled L.A. County city that became
synonymous with gangsta rap in the late 1980s with N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton."
This is where he got his start as a rapper — but only after his life almost took a
far worse path.
Because, for a time, young Coolio was using crack.
There's no telling where Coolio would have ended up, had he not been able to get clean.
Fortunately, he managed to get off the drugs, and focused on volunteer firefighting for
a while to get back on track.
However, it seems to have been a pretty close call.
In an interview with Radar Online, Coolio recounted that his drug abuse got so bad that
his brother, Spoon, actually had to threaten him with a firearm.
Coolio said,
"I was down to 100 lbs.
I was a skeleton and Spoon pointed a .38 caliber at my head and told me if I didn't promise
to clean up, he would kill me."
"I was determined.
I was going to make it or I was going to probably end up in prison."
Coolio famously strayed from the straight and narrow path in his youth, but he wasn't
entirely incident-proof during his adult years, either.
In 1997 the rapper was touring Germany when he entered a Stuttgart clothing store with
a six-strong entourage and attempted to walk away with $940 worth of clothes.
Allegedly, he also punched the owner while attempting to leave.
The group was eventually arrested in another city.
When the court date came in 1998, Coolio's defense argued that the artist was operating
under the assumption that his entourage would receive free clothes after an autograph signing
session, and also that the store was cash-only and declined his credit card.
Coolio was found guilty, but he avoided the four-year prison sentence he could have potentially
received.
Instead, the theft incident earned him a $30,000 fine and six-months probation.
Coolio was addicted to crack cocaine in his youth, and getting off the drug was instrumental
to his development as an artist.
However, relapse is often part of recovery, and the rapper struggled with this, as well
— as evidenced by his 2009 arrest for possession of crack cocaine.
During a search of Coolio's luggage at the Los Angeles International Airport, the authorities
discovered a drug pipe.
According to The New York Times, the rapper faced charges for possession of the drug and
the pipe, as well as battery charges due to grabbing an official during the incident.
In June 2009, however, he pleaded guilty to the drug possession charge, which allowed
him to avoid the others.
In the end, he was sentenced to 18 months in a rehab program, instead of the three years
in prison he might have received.
In 2009, Coolio took part in Channel 4's UK reality show Celebrity Big Brother, along
with several other famous contestants.
It ... did not go well.
Communications regulator Ofcom received no less than 527 complaints about the rapper's
interactions with others.
Many had found Coolio's remarks and overall behavior threatening and even sexist.
While Ofcom didn't find anything wrong with Coolio's actions within the program's context,
outlets like the Mirror pointed out that Coolio received ample viewer criticism for his boastful
behavior and unsavory language.
There were allegations of sexual harassment from fellow contestant Mutya Buena, and another
contestant, Lucy Pinder, noted that Coolio's comments and behavior were highly concerning.
While John McDonnell of The Guardian praised Coolio as an outrageous, yet highly entertaining
reality show star, Channel 4 itself allegedly failed to air some of the rapper's worst scenes.
Coolio was eventually removed from a 2010 follow-up program after things escalated with
yet another contestant.
It can be hard to be a celebrity and avoid attracting the ire of another famous person.
There are tons of celebrity feuds that got out of hand, but few musician feuds out there
are stranger than the one Coolio is known for.
Instead of partaking in a feud against a fellow rapper, Coolio took issue with comedy musician
"Weird Al" Yankovic.
Yankovic made a parody version of Coolio's hit "Gangsta's Paradise," called "Amish Paradise."
The rapper felt Yankovic didn't have permission to cover the song and made his feelings publicly
known.
Eventually, Coolio came to realize that he was in the wrong.
In a 2014 interview with Vice, the rapper revealed that he deeply regretted his animosity
toward "Weird Al," and considered the feud one of the lower and more humiliating points
of his public career.
Coolio told the outlet:
"It's one of those things where I made a wrong call and nobody stopped me.
That's one thing I'm still upset about — my management at the time.
Somebody should've stopped me from making that statement because it was dumb.
And I think it hurt me a little bit.
It made me seem stupid."
Fortunately, at the time of Coolio's death, the feud was already a thing of the past.
In fact, Yankovic paid tribute to the rapper with a Twitter post that featured a picture
of the two hugging it out.
Divorce is one of the more tragic things that can happen to a family, and like so many other
celebrities, Coolio had to go through it.
The rapper married his wife, Josefa Salinas, in 1996.
Unfortunately, their marriage wasn't meant to last, and they ended up getting a divorce
in 2000.
The reason behind Coolio and Salinas' decision hasn't been made public.
Still, while divorces can be pretty stressful, at least Coolio and Salinas seem to have managed
to stay on decent terms after they went their separate ways.
In July 2022, Salinas even wholeheartedly congratulated her ex-husband for the music
video of "Gangsta's Paradise" reaching a huge billion-view benchmark on YouTube.
"Being a star and I'm only a human, so that's what I do.
I just walk on the ground."
It's one thing to play a concert to an audience that doesn't appreciate your art.
However, it takes things to a whole other level when you don't even get the chance to
play said gig because the country the concert is supposed to take place in refuses to let
you in.
This exact strange thing happened to Coolio in 2017.
In September 2017, Coolio was supposed to play a gig at a Formula One afterparty in
Singapore.
The trip had already been somewhat inconvenient, as the rapper's entourage had missed a connecting
flight, and arrived late.
However, when Coolio and his gang finally landed in Singapore, the authorities promptly
prevented him from entering the country.
As TNP noted at the time, Coolio was a convicted felon with a history of troubles with the
law, which may or may not have contributed to the decision to keep Singapore's doors
shut to the artist.
For their part, the country's authorities declined to comment on the subject.
Fame is a fickle mistress, and while Coolio retained name recognition until the very end,
there's little denying that the highest peak of his fame came with 1995's "Gangsta's Paradise."
The success didn't come long after the rapper had left gangsta rap group WC and the MAAD
Circle and embarked on a solo career.
In 1994, he signed a solo deal with Tommy Boy Records, which served as his label throughout
his mid-1990s heyday.
Coolio himself felt that "Gangsta's Paradise" loomed far too large over the rest of his
career, according to The New York Times.
This certainly seems to have been the case when it came to his relationship with his
label.
When Coolio's 1997 album My Soul couldn't hold a torch to the success of the Gangsta's
Paradise album, Tommy Boy Records ended up dropping the artist.
This marked the end of Coolio's days as a commercial powerhouse.
In 2009, Coolio insinuated that his later days with Tommy Boy Records involved much
executive meddling and pressure to change his image.
"I couldn't imagine me not doing music.
I mean, not anymore.
And if rap didn't pay, I'd rap for free."
In 2013, Coolio was dating a woman called Mimi Ivey.
The pair took part in the ABC reality show Celebrity Wife Swap, which is exactly what
the name says it is.
Unfortunately, the show ended up having disastrous effects on the couple's relationship.
Coolio and Mimi switched partners with musician Mark McGrath and his wife Carin, who turned
out to be less than impressed with the swap.
As Mrs. McGrath took over Mimi's household tasks, she soon found out that Mimi was handling
virtually every single thing in the house, while Coolio did very little.
Meanwhile, at the McGrath household, Mimi discovered that the Sugar Ray vocalist took
a very positive and hands-on approach to family life, and realized the chore imbalance in
her own relationship.
Disillusioned with the amount of work and household duties Coolio had piled on her,
Mimi ended up breaking up with the rapper shortly after their appearance on the show.
She told Coolio:
"Our relationship really sucks."
Coolio later contested the events of the episode, claiming that Celebrity Wife Swap deliberately
presented him in an awful light, and even stating that he and Mimi never dated in the
first place.
Coolio told the Razz:
"Listen.
It was all set up.
I'm nothing like that.
I'm not even with Mimi.
I never was.
She's a friend of mine.
They tried to make me look bad.
I don't want to do that stuff again."
Whenever someone dies at just 59 years old, it qualifies as a tragic event.
Coolio's death on September 28, 2022, certainly fits the bill.
The artist died at a friend's house in Los Angeles, CA, according to TMZ.
The paramedics were called in, but Coolio was ultimately pronounced dead on the scene.
According to Coolio's manager Jarez Posey, the cause of death was a heart attack.
The rapper's talent manager Sheila Finegan stated:
"We are saddened by the loss of our dear friend and client, Coolio, who passed away Wednesday
afternoon.
He touched the world with the gift of his talent and will be missed profoundly.
Please have Coolio's loved ones in your thoughts and prayers."
At the time of his death, Coolio was far from a retired superstar, and was touring with
Young MC and Vanilla Ice.
He was also far from forgotten.
Though his highest-charting hits came in the 1990s, his influence was evident in the way
numerous peers and famous acquaintances were quick to pay tribute to the fallen star after
the news of his passing came public.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available.
Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact
SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).