R.I.P. Coolio

May you experience Paradise on your Fantastic Voyage

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Damn.

I’d literally just finished viewing a live concert replay from the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert that happened on Sept. 27 in Los Angeles at the Kia Forum.

I watched as Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee from Rush performed three of their classic songs — (“2112: Pt. 1 Overture”, “Working Man” and YYZ”) with Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Danny Carey (Tool) filling in for legendary drummer Neil Peart, who died in early 2020. Taylor Hawkins was a huge Rush fan and got to perform with his heroes a couple of times before his passing.

I was watching this concert, feeling all the love for Taylor Hawkins (especially Jack Black’s inspired introduction) and remembered how unexpectedly wrecked I felt back in March when I heard of Hawkins’ death. I wrote a post about that day on my previous blog here. Check it out if you have time.

It was the last piece I’d written for the blog before switching over to Substack.

There were other heartfelt tributes to Taylor in the concert, most of which you can find on YouTube. They are all worth watching. I particularly liked this pairing of Joe Elliott (Def Leppard) and Miley Cyrus on a couple of Def(inate) classics from the 80s.

As I watched this moving and rocking concert honoring Taylor’s joie de vivre, generous spirit and contribution to so many rock bands as well as with Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders, I could feel the love that all of these musicians had for him. But more than that, I could feel the love these artists have for each other.

The concert was, above all else, a celebration of life. Of the healing power of music. But at the same time, watching this concert reminded of how fleeting our time is on this earth. How short, in the grand scheme of things, our physical, bodily existence is.

When I look at the hundreds of record albums I have in my collection, a majority of the artists and bands are no longer with us. It’s easy to forget this sometimes, as they get immortalized in their songs. When I put on an album by Aretha Franklin, I don’t think: “I can’t believe she’s dead.” As soon as her incomparable, powerful voice emanates from my stereo speakers, Aretha is as alive as the day she recorded the song.

Maybe with someone like Taylor, who was only 50 when he died, listening to his music might evoke deep sadness and sorrow. I wasn’t even a big fan of Taylor’s music, but after spending time listening to his solo albums after his death, several of them hit me hard. Often music is what allows us to grieve. It doesn’t let us avoid the pain, it offers us a pathway to follow so we can move through it.

I was all set to write about the earworm song that had been repeating on me the last few days — Night Ranger’s “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me.” I had planned out how I would talk about how much I love the tandem guitar solos in the middle of the song, how rare it is nowadays to hear a perfectly placed guitar solo in rock music, let alone two solos.

And then, after finding my way out from the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert YouTube vortex, after clicking to a new browser tab, there it was in big bold letters at the top of the Yahoo News feed:

“Rapper Coolio, dead at the age of 59.”

Holy shit.

Night Ranger would have to wait for another day.

Similar to Taylor Hawkins (and Foo Fighters), I was never much of a Coolio fan.

I did like his big hit, “Gangsta’s Paradise,” as well as the Weird Al Yankovic version “Amish Paradise.” And I might have liked his P-Funk inspired song “Fantastic Voyage” even more than “Gangsta’s Paradise.”

But I didn’t know his other songs and kind of chalked him up to a lesser version of other Hip-Hop artists of the 90s that I did love, like OutKast, EPMD and A Tribe Called Quest. It seemed like he was more along the lines of Sean “Puffy” Combs or MC Hammer, rappers who took a known song, like The Police’ “Every Breath You Take” and rapped new verses over it. That kind of sampling felt lazy to me.

In my view, if you’re going to borrow from the best, you gotta be smart about it and use it like a spice, not as the main protein.

Coolio’s interpolation of Stevie Wonder's 1976 song "Pastime Paradise" might have seemed more of a main protein usage to me at the time, but, especially after seeing the above live performance on Conan O’Brien, it’s clear Coolio made the song his own. It took a lot for Stevie Wonder to agree to let Coolio use it, including asking Coolio to take out all profanities and asking for 95 percent of the royalties, but he did finally give “Gangsta’s Paradise” his blessing and even performed the song with Coolio at the 1995 Billboard Awards.

In an eerie twist of fate, Coolio died on the 46th anniversary of the release of Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life.

That’s as far as I got when starting this piece yesterday. I felt like I had to Coolio off for a few hours and let this tragic news sit with me a bit. (Coolio would approve of that bad pun.)

When I woke up this morning, I downloaded the “This is Coolio” playlist on Spotify, stuck in my bluetooth earbuds and took my dog Bernie on his morning walk.

After the two songs that I already knew, “Gangsta’s Paradise” and “Fantastic Voyage,” was a gospel-tinged song called “C U When U Get There” from his 1997 My Soul album. Hearing this song for the first time after his death, a song about living life to the fullest and telling your loved ones that you love them, felt prophetic. I loved the use of the chorus and if it’s taking big bites from another song, I’m not familiar with it.

The next song, “Too Hot,” borrows liberally from the Kool & The Gang song by the same name, and although funky and fun, reinforced the idea that Coolio takes known popular songs, samples the choruses and raps new verses. There’s a way to do this sort of sampling, taking a famous melody and giving it a new context. A Tribe Called Quest’s use of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” in their song “Can I Kick It?” for example.

I listened to a dozen more of Coolio’s more popular songs on the rest of the walk and I truly liked most of them. A few, including “1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New)” were so funky, I was often involuntarily shaking my booty as Bernie and I strutted down MacArthur Blvd. I’m kind of surprised it didn’t induce any car honks. I am known for my bubble butt. It was pretty early though.

I suppose I wanted to listen to Coolio’s music, not out of guilt, not to cram for a test or for this earworm writing, but to see if I might better understand Coolio the person. To see if I could tap into his creative essence.

Music has that kind of power. It communicates beyond words, beyond notes and chords, beyond space and time.

Was it a coincidence that I learned of Coolio’s death seconds after watching the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert? Maybe. But maybe not. Who knows. Understanding moves in mysterious ways.

What I do know is that I felt a deep sadness when I read of Coolio’s death. Even if he didn’t make the music I listened to personally, I know he made the music millions of people did listen to, that made millions of people happy, that made them dance, sing, cry and feel understood.

And this is why I still own over 1000 record albums.

Though I may never set most of the slabs of vinyl to turntable again, when I glance at their weathered spines, pull a record from the shelf and stare at the artwork and the song list, I’m hearing every track playing for the first time, for the tenth time, for the hundredth time, new and familiar and alive.