American musicians Michelle Pfeiffer and Snoop Dogg have been paying tribute to the US rapper Coolio who died at the age of 59.
He was found unresponsive on the bathroom floor of a friend’s LA house, his manager Jarez Posey told US media.
Coolio, whose real name is Artis Leon Ivey Jr, won a Grammy for the 1995 track Gangsta’s Paradise, which led the soundtrack for Dangerous Minds.
The exact cause of his death on Wednesday has not yet been revealed.
However, Mr. Posey told TMZ, which first reported the news, that paramedics believed he may have had a cardiac arrest.
Coolio’s manager at Trinity Artists International, Sheila Finegan, said they were “saddened… he touched the world with the gift of his talent and will be missed profoundly”.
Pfeiffer said she thought Coolio’s track was the “reason our film saw so much success” and that she still gets “chills” whenever she hears it.
“Heartbroken to hear of the passing of the gifted artist Coolio,” she wrote on Instagram, sharing a clip from the famous music video, which sees her sitting across the table from Coolio as he raps.
“A life cut entirely too short,” she continued. “I remember him being nothing but gracious.”
Dangerous Minds saw Pfeiffer play an ex-Marine who becomes a teacher working on a pilot program for teenagers who are bright but underachieving, in a tough, inner-city school.
Coolio’s haunting track from it, which samples the Stevie Wonder song Pastime Paradise for its chorus, went on to become one of the most successful rap songs of all time, helping to bring the genre into the mainstream.
It continues to be widely listened to and has just passed a billion streams on Spotify, according to his official website.
Source: BBC
Story by Obaapa Janee
