Known for songs like “Gangsta’s Paradise” and “Fantastic Voyage,” the rapper Coolio, born in 1963 in Monessen, Pennsylvania, became one of the most beloved hip-hop artists of his generation. That’s why his passing in late 2022 sent shock waves throughout the music community.
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The Grammy Award-winning Coolio, though, did share his thoughts both inside and outside of his songs about the world at large, his craft and more. That is the subject of today’s inquiry. Indeed, here are the best 15 Coolio quotes.
So, without further ado, let’s dive into Coolio’s thoughts below.
1. “Let me tell you the truth: I’m 45 years old. I never thought that I would live to see a black president.”
2. “‘Gangsta rap’ is a derogatory label.”
3. “Life is too short to not have fun; we are only here for a short time compared to the sun and the moon and all that.”
4. “I perform for soldiers because they are important.”
5. “I know I’m just one man trying to do one thing, and the next day is not promised to any man. I’m very humble.”
6. “I’m a winner; I win most of the time. But in order to be a winner, you have to lose some of the time. I’m a terrible loser.”
7. “But when I really look back on my life, being really honest about it and now that I’ve got the chance to travel the world, seeing how a lot of little kids grow up—my life wasn’t so bad.”
8. “When my mother first passed away some time ago, I didn’t enjoy food anymore. I just ate to live. My mother had always cooked so well that I didn’t think I could follow her.”
9. “I came to Baku the same way I would go to Texas—because they asked me to come and play hip hop.”
10. “I’m never doing a new album. I’ll probably do nothing but singles. I’m as good as anybody out there lyrically and conceptually and can go toe to toe with the best of them throughout history. But I don’t know how much longer I’ll be doing it. It’s not really fun anymore.”
11. “Because I’m a young black man driving a really nice, expensive car, I sometimes get harassed when I’m rolling through a ghetto neighborhood.”
12. “I don’t consider myself a gangsta rapper. But I’m probably more qualified to be a gangsta rapper than people who call themselves that. I’ve been through that life.”
13. “Throughout my rapping career, I always cooked for myself and anyone I worked with. It’s what actually kept me grounded through those crazy years.”
14. “As much as I would like to be the one who saved hip-hop culture, it’s pretty much nigh-on impossible.”
15. “I come from the golden age of hip hop when all the greats came on the scene.”
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