The Grammy-winning musician, whose full name was Artis Leon Ivey Jr., passed away in Los Angeles in September 2022 while visiting a friend.
The US rapper Coolio, best known for the 1995 single “Gangsta’s Paradise,” died last year from an unintentional fentanyl overdose, the Los Angeles County Coroner announced on Thursday.
The Grammy-winning musician, whose full name was Artis Leon Ivey Jr., passed away in Los Angeles in September 2022 while visiting a friend.
The rapper, who passed away at the age of 59 from heart problems and asthma, had lately started taking phencyclidine.
According to a report by the Los Angeles County Coroner, phencyclidine, also known as PCP, is a hallucinogenic substance that can cause serious mental or emotional issues.
At the time, Coolio’s buddy and longtime manager Jarez Posey revealed to the celebrity news website TMZ that the musician had been discovered unconscious in a friend’s restroom and had been declared dead on the spot.
The rapper started out in California in the late 1980s, but in 1995, for the “Dangerous Minds” soundtrack, he recorded “Gangsta’s Paradise,” catapulting him to international fame.
At the Grammy Awards event the following year, he won Best Rap Solo Performance for the song.
Millions of copies of the song were sold globally, making it the number-one pop single in 16 different nations and Billboard’s most popular song of 1995.