New music from rapper Coolio released posthumously, album coming later this year
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The estate of Grammy Award winner Coolio released new music from the late rapper on Friday.
“TAG ‘You It’,” featuring Too $hort and DJ Wino, is the first single from the “Gangsta’s Paradise” star’s posthumous album, ”Long Live Coolio.”
A Ken Francis and Kniknotti- directed music video, in which Coolio appears, also debuted on YouTube.
The sexually-explicit track was originally intended for release while Coolio was still alive, according to a statement.
The Pennsylvania-born rapper rose to fame in the 1990s and scored a huge hit in 1995 with “Gangsta’s Paradise” featuring L.V. The Stevie Wonder classic-sampled single was featured in the Michelle Pfeiffer film “Dangerous Minds” and spent three weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The Grammy-winning song was ranked No. 98 on Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs in 2021.
A former crack addict, Coolio, whose real name is Artis Leon Ivey Jr., gained his first taste of mainstream success with 1994′s “Fantastic Voyage,” which hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
After the success of “Gangsta’s Paradise,” the Tommy Boy Records superstar scored other Top 40 hits including “1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New),” “It’s All the Way Live (Now)” and “C U When U Get There.”
His television work includes composing the theme for the popular Nickelodeon sitcom “Kenan & Kel,” starring Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell and voicing the character Kwanzaa-bot on Cartoon Network’s “Futurama.”
On the big screen, the father of 10 appeared in the movies “Dear God,” “Batman & Robin” and co-starred in the 2012 indie comedy “Two Hundred Thousand Dirty.”
Coolio died at 59 in September 2022 of suspected cardiac arrest.
