Culture

What You Get When You Purchase the Rights to Coolio's Catalog

Those with a strong affinity for mid-1990s hip hop and several hundred thousand dollars to spare could do worse than purchase the rights to the catalog of spiky-haired has-been rapper Coolio, who is apparently seeking to finance a second career as a chef.

By Zach Schonfeld
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Those with a strong affinity for mid-1990s hip hop and several hundred thousand dollars to spare could do worse than purchase the rights to the full musical catalog of spiky-haired has-been rapper Coolio, who is apparently seeking to finance a second career as a chef.

The rapper will be auctioning off 123 songs—which spans eight studio albums—at the Royalty Exchange, The Guardian reports. Their estimated value is between $134,000 and $225,000. Sound enticing? Here's a look at the highlights of what you get when you purchase the rights to the entirety of one Artis "Coolio" Leon Ivey Jr.'s musical oeuvre:

  • "Gangsta's Paradise," of course, the rapper's smash 1995 account of being a "loc'd out gangsta set trippin' banger," known for its dramatic video and instantly quotable Weird Al parody, "Amish Paradise";
  • "C U When U Get There," Coolio's lushly orchestrated 1997 reinterpretation of Pachelbel's Canon (though its title is more reminiscent of Prince than the 17th century Baroque composer);
  • "Fantastic Voyage," the breakout single from Coolio's debut album, known for its sultry wah-wah sample, "Slide, slide, slippity slide" chorus, and delightfully goofy video;
  • "Aw Here it Goes," which millennials may faintly recognize as the bass-driven theme song to Kenan & Kel (and which features the unmatchable rhyme "Kenan and Kel, or should I say Kel and Kenan / But you gotta watch Kenan cuz Kenan be scheming");
  • The entirety of 2001's Coolio.com, which may or may not be the rapper's tribute to the world wide web and contains such deep cuts as "Yo-Ho-Ho," "I Like Girls," and "Skirrrrrrrt."

Coolio, meanwhile, will be using your hard-earned money to let his culinary skill take flight; so far he has a 2009 cook book, Cookin' with Coolio, and an online cooking show of the same name.

In case you're not sure if Coolio's catalog is worth exhausting your life savings for, here is "Gangsta's Paradise" to further convince you:

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.