‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ at 25: Coolio talks ‘great white hope’ movie clichés, Weird Al feud, and performing with Michelle Pfeiffer, Stevie Wonder and Howard Stern

Lyndsey Parker — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 02:24:45 +0000

Twenty-five years ago, the Michelle Pfeiffer movie Dangerous Minds was released — and while it was a hit at the box office, the real success story was its theme song, “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Compton rapper Coolio. It became the top-selling single of 1995 (and one of the top-selling singles of all time, with 6 million copies worldwide); it was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards and won the Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance; and it was voted as best single of the year in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics’ poll.

The dark, dramatic, orchestral track remains a bona fide hip-hop classic, and it has held up better than Dangerous Minds itself, a film whose “white savior” trope seems antiquated and actually tone-deaf in 2020. Even Coolio points out t that “those kinds of movies” — like Dangerous Minds, The Blind Side, and The Help — are “cliché as hell.”

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‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ at 25: Coolio talks ‘great white hope’ movie clichés, Weird Al feud, and performing with Michelle Pfeiffer, Stevie Wonder and Howard Stern