Coolio

Biography

Artis Leon Ivey Jr. (August 1, 1963 – September 28, 2022), known professionally as Coolio, was an American rapper. First rising to fame as a member of the gangsta rap group WC and the Maad Circle, Coolio achieved mainstream success as a solo artist in the mid-to-late 1990s with his albums It Takes a Thief (1994), Gangstas Paradise (1995), and My Soul (1997). He is best known for his 1995 Grammy Award-winning hit single "Gangstas Paradise", as well as other singles "Fantastic Voyage" (1994), "1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin New)" (1996), and "C U When U Get There" (1997). From 1996 on, Coolio released albums independently, and provided the opening track "Aw, Here It Goes!" for the 1996 Nickelodeon television series Kenan and Kel. He created the web series Cookin with Coolio and released a cookbook. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.