Coolio, the American rapper known for his 1995 song Gangsta's Paradise and who died in 2022, succumbed to an accidental fentanyl overdose, a medical source said Thursday. The Grammy-winning musician, whose real name was Artis Leon Ivey Jr., died last September at the age of 59 at a friend's home in Los Angeles.
The medical examiner's report released Thursday by Los Angeles County says the rapper died of a fentanyl overdose and adds that the musician suffered from heart disease and asthma. He had also taken phencyclidine, or PCP, a psychedelic drug that can cause serious mental or emotional disorders, according to the same source.
Jarez Posey, Coolio's longtime friend and manager, told celebrity news site TMZ at the time that Coolio was found unconscious in a friend's bathroom and pronounced dead at the scene.
More than 100,000 fentanyl-related deaths in one year
Coolio began his rap career in California in the late '80s, but gained worldwide fame in 1995 when he released Gangsta's Paradise for the soundtrack to the movie Dangerous Minds. He received the award for Best Rap Solo Performance for the song at the following year's Grammy Awards. The song sold millions of copies worldwide, becoming Billboard's number one song in 1995.
The United States has crossed a record of more than 100,000 deaths over one year (April 2020 - April 2021). Fentanyl is often involved: it is a powerful and dangerous synthetic opioid, sometimes mixed with heroin or cocaine, a cocktail that killed the star of the cult series The Wire, Michael K. Williams, on September 6, 2021.
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