Violins taken from Stevie Wonder’s repertoire and a text, which begins with an excerpt from the Bible. In August 1995, the music world discovered the piece gangster paradise.
While its author, the American rapper Coolio passed away this Thursday, September 29 at the age of 59, a review of the history of a hit that has established itself as a hip-hop classic in the United States.
A new piece for the time.
In the early ’90s, hip-hop was preparing to explode in America. On the radio, listeners discover the beginnings of rap called conventional used in particular by artists like Public Enemy, Nas or The Notorious BIG, but the musical genre is still far from popular recognition.
It is in this context that Coolio imagines Gangster’s paradise. The title borrows its melody from the song. hobby paradise by Stevie Wonder (1976) and narrates the tragic life of the street.
By mixing hip-hop and trendy pop, gangster paradise revolutionized the world of American rap at the time and offered listeners new sounds hitherto little explored in the musical genre.
The only problem, after hearing the words of the title, which he qualifies as “gangster song”, Stevie Wonder rejects Coolio’s use of his piece. Forced to make concessions, the rapper rewrites certain passages to give gangster paradise a more lyrical message.
“His only instruction was that I had to remove the swear words. I had two places where it had the N-word, and two places where it said something like, ‘F**ked in the ass’ or something. Stevie said if I took that off, he would sign. Unbeknownst to me, the other condition was that he wanted to get 95% of the rights to the title,” Coolio told the magazine. Rolling Stone in a 2017 interview.
This consonance, reinforced by the presence of excerpts from the psalms in the text and singer LV’s gospel interpretation in the title chorus, will allow the particular piece to reach a wide audience.
Awarded with a Grammy Award
Released on the movie soundtrack. rebellious spirits with michelle pfeiffer, gangster paradise quickly became the best-selling single of 1995. It reached the top of the music charts in more than fifteen countries and notably dethroned You are not alone by Michael Jackson USA and God gave me faith by Ophelie Winter in France.
The song’s music video, directed by Antoine Fuqua, features scenes fromrebellious spirits with the actress, then at the height of her fame. The video, which hit 1 billion views by July 2022, went on to win MTV’s Best Rap Video award and the Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance in 1996, propelling the track to an even higher place. outstanding.
A timeless title
Considered by many to be a one-hit wonder (artist who became famous for a single song), Coolio never managed, in the rest of his career, to match the scope of success of Gangster’s paradise.
Reinterpreted and sampled by many artists of different generations but also used in pop culture (sonic the movie, Bojack Horseman, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Need For Speed 2015…) gangster paradise has crossed the history of music, becoming a staple of hip-hop.
However, in an interview with the British program The voice More than ten years after the title’s release, Coolio confesses that he had no idea his song would have survived for so many years.
“I have not wrote gangster paradise. C’est elle qui m’a écrit … C’était sa propre entité of her, là-bas dans le monde des esprits, qui essayait de se frayer un chemin vers le monde, et elle m’a choisi comme vaisseau ” , assurait-He.
Source: BFM TV
