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8 on the Billboard 200, becoming certified Platinum. "Fantastic Voyage" would become one of the biggest rap singles of the year, and the album contained a few other minor hits in "County Line" and "I Remember". The lead single " Fantastic Voyage" received heavy rotation on MTV, and peaked at No. In 1994, Coolio signed to Tommy Boy Records and released his debut solo album It Takes a Thief. He was a co-contributor on the group's debut album Ain't a Damn Thang Changed, including on the single "Dress Code". rap scene, and in 1991, ended up joining the group WC and the Maad Circle, led by rapper WC. He also recorded "What Makes You Dance (Force Groove)" with Nu-Skool in 1988. He recorded his first single in 1987, titled "Whatcha Gonna Do?". After attending Compton Community College, he worked in jobs such as volunteer firefighting and security at the Los Angeles International Airport, before becoming a rapper. 2.3 Red Hot Organization and Tommy Boy Records dismissalĪrtis Leon Ivey Jr.2.1 Tommy Boy Records and It Takes a Thief.View the Official Singles Chart Top 100 from this week in 1995 Listen to the Official Singles Chart Top 40 from this week in 1995 on Spotify below.
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View Coolio's Official UK Chart history in full.Įlsewhere in the Official Singles Chart Top 40 that week, Coolio held off competition from Meat Loaf, who was new at 2 with I'd Lie For You (And That's The Truth), and Everything But The Girl's now-signature hit Missing was a new entry at Number 8.įurther down, Cher's Walking In Memphis just missed out on a Top 10 debut, landing at Number 11, and Alanis Morissette Hand In My Pocket was new at 26 - it's UK peak. His follow-up single, Too Hot, became his second of four Top 10 singles. It was Coolio's first UK Top 40 single and remains his only Number 1 single. Since streaming was introduced in 2014, the track has notched up just shy of 80 million plays. Total UK chart sales of Gangsta's Paradise in 2020 stand at just over 2 million. It's global popularity was cemented when, that same year, it was parodied by Weird Al Yankovic and renamed Amish Paradise.Ĭoolio said the song came together quickly in one sitting, having freestyled its opening lines "As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death/ I take a look at my life and realise there's nothing left." To clear the sample of Pastime Paradise - a track from his 1976 album Songs In The Key Of Life - Stevie Wonder insisted Coolio remove any profanities from the song, of which there were originally quite a few. The track went on to win a Grammy in 1996 for Best Rap Performance and was nominated for Record Of The Year, but lost out to Seal's Kiss From A Rose. In America, it was the top selling song that year, shifting 3 million. The song and its memorable video (which heavily featured Pfeiffer) quickly eclipsed the film itself and ultimately broke new ground for hip-hop in the mainstream.ĭebuting at Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart, Gangsta's Paradise went on to become the UK's second best-selling single of 1995 with 882,261 sales, behind Robson & Jerome's million-selling Unchained Melody/White Cliffs Of Dover.
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#Coolio gangsta paradise singer movie#
Released in UK 25 years ago this week (following its August release in America), Gangsta's Paradise was released to tie in with Michelle Pfeiffer movie Dangerous Minds. Its blend of introspective lyrics, a gospel-inspired singalong chorus and its hook - sampled from Stevie Wonder's Pastime Paradise - proved the perfect mix for a global smash. Gangsta's Paradise was one of those songs that, for the second half of 1995, took over the world.