The rap star reportedly suffered cardiac arrest at a friend's home, and his death completely stunned fans, peers and the general public. Coolio leaves behind one of his generation's most unique musical legacies, a Compton kid who broke through by representing what was real, but also what was fun, about his city.

When the West Coast's commercial takeover of the early-to-mid-1990s is discussed, commentators often focus on the rise of Death Row Records, along with icons like 2Pac and Ice Cube, who helped wrest Hip-Hop's national spotlight away from New York City after the success of Dr. Dre's The Chronic in 1992. But Coolio's role in Cali rap's domination is just as significant, both in terms of just how big he became and why his particular approach was singularly important.

He'd been a self-described nerd as a child, but following his parents' divorce at age 11, young Artis Leon Ivey had gotten a reputation as a wild, tough guy in his neighborhood. He joined the Crips, and got expelled from school for bringing weapons on campus. But he righted himself via music; winning a local rap contest at a community college as "Coolio Iglesias" before shortening his eventually famous moniker to simply "Coolio." After seeing his first bit of fame with "Watcha Gonna Do" in the late 1980s, he battled substance abuse and addiction.

But Coolio got sober and worked odd jobs, while recording another single "You're Gonna Miss Me," before eventually joining W.C. and The Maad Circle; alongside DJ Crazy Toones, Big Gee and frontman W.C., they made a name for themselves with hardcore L.A. raps and popular singles like "Dress Code." The group dropped Ain't A Damn Thing Changed in 1991 and Coolio made an appearance on Ice Cube's landmark Death Certificate album that same year (on the anti-banging posse cut "Color Blind"). He would subsequently leave the Maad Circle and land a deal with Tommy Boy as a solo artist, setting the stage for a multiplatinum solo career.

Though known for humor, Coolio's subject matter was often grittier than he was given credit for. His Compton background was evident even in his hookiest material. After all, his breakout hit, 1994's inescapable "Fantastic Voyage," may have seemed like a sunny party anthem, but the lyrics painted the fun time as simply an escape from bangers and jackers. That song shot all the way to No. 1 summer, and put the spotlight squarely on the affable guy with the hardscrabble background. His debut album It Takes A Thief was suddenly a platinum-seller, and Coolio was part of the West Coast vanguard now ubiquitous on MTV.

Coolio's appeal put him in the most visible of pop culture spaces throughout the 1990s. He became a fixture on sitcoms and famously recorded the theme song for Nickelodeon's hit The Kenan & Kel Show and made a cameo appearance in kitschy fare like 1997's Batman & Robin.

The conventional wisdom typically positions the rise of Death Row and Bad Boy Records as the death knell for pop rap such as Heavy D & The Boyz, MC Hammer and DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. On top of that take being reductive to the point of fallacy (Heavy D, Salt-N-Pepa and solo Will Smith were all enjoying multiplatinum success in the years post-The Chronic), it also ignores the unique appeal that Coolio sustained during those same years. If the emergence of Bad Boy and Death Row signified anything, it was that street rappers had figured out how to score pop hits. And if that was a formula for success in the 1990s, Coolio had mastered it completely.

That same year, he would release one of the decade's biggest hits. "Gangsta's Paradise' wouldn't be the kind of song that Coolio had become known for: there was no humor, no playful hook. The track, produced by Doug Rasheed, featured an interpolation of Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise," sung by vocalist L.V. And the lyrics were bleak; detailing the harrowing reality of growing up in the streets.

"I wasn’t really familiar with 'Pastime Paradise,'” Coolio admitted to Rolling Stone in 2015. "As much of a Stevie Wonder fan as I was. My very first album I ever bought was the one with “Superwoman” on it. [1972’s Music of My Mind.] I got that for my 12th birthday, that one and Fight the Power by the Isley Brothers. Songs in the Key of Life, my mother had that album at the house, so it was kind of weird that I didn’t know the song." 

And when it came time to clear the Stevie Wonder sample, the legendary musician balked at the song's subject matter.

"When Stevie heard it, he was like, 'No, no way. I’m not letting my song be used in some gangster song,'" Coolio recalled. "So that was a problem. And it just so happened that my wife, she knew Stevie’s brother — I guess he had been trying to tap that for years [laughs]. She made a call to him, got a meeting with Stevie and talked him into it. His only stipulation was that I had to take the curse words out." Wonder required that the track be cleaned up, and gave his blessing for Coolio to proceed.

"Unbeknownst to me, the other condition was that he wanted 95 percent of the publishing! Had I known that, I’m not sure I would have went ahead with that — but I don’t know, maybe I would have [laughs]. So that’s how we ended up clearing it."

Featured in the hit Michelle Pfeiffer-starring drama Dangerous Minds, "Gangsta's Paradise" became Coolio's biggest single and a decade-defining track. It shot all the way to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and stayed there for three weeks. It also topped the charts in eight other countries; and in 1996, Coolio took home the Grammy for Best Solo Rap Performance. The song's video won Best Rap Video that same year at the MTV Video Music Awards, as the song became a prime target for covers and parodies. Most famously, "Weird" Al Yankovic spoofed the hit as "Amish Paradise," which drew criticism from Coolio at the time.

"I have to say, that was probably one of the least smart things I’ve done over the years," Coolio told Rolling Stone. "I should have never been upset about that; I should have embraced it like everybody else did. Michael Jackson never got mad at him; Prince never got mad at him. Who the fuck wasIto take the position that I took? It was actually years later before I realized how stupid that was of me [laughs]. But hey, you live and you learn. Me and Al, we’ve been good for a long time now."

Coolio dropped the Gangster's Paradise album in late 1995, and the album would be a double-platinum success.

"1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New)" and "Too Hot" would also be subsequent hit singles from Gangster's Paradise, and Coolio would score major hits with "It's All the Way Live (Now)" from the Eddie soundtrack and "Hit 'em High" (alongside B-Real, Method Man, Busta Rhymes and LL COOL J) from the soundtrack to the 1996 smash Space Jam. He'd become one of the biggest rappers of the 1990s with his own distinct mix of good vibes and gritty realness. He truly carved his own lane.

As news broke of Coolio's death at the age of 59, friends and colleagues across the entertainment world paid tribute to the funny guy from Compton. In the 2000s, he'd pushed forward as an actor; appearing in everything from to Adult Swim's cult hit Black Jesus. He starred in the 2003 thriller Red Water alongside Lou Diamond Philips, who mourned Coolio's passing. “I am absolutely stunned. Coolio was a friend and one of the warmest, funniest people I’ve ever met. We spent an amazing time together making Red Water in Capetown and we loved going head to head in the kitchen. He was one of a kind. Epic, legendary and I’ll miss him,” Phillips said in a tweet. Stars from Martin Lawrence to Ice Cube showed respect and love to the rapper who broke big by just being himself.

Subgenres and styles can be a tricky thing in rap. Oftentimes, they're used to put artists in a box, and they never tell the whole story of who any one artist actually is, creatively. Coolio existed in his own lane; he was giving you gangsta with pop appeal. Or maybe he was giving you poppy songs with gangsta realness. Whichever way you see it, it's obvious that he was one of one. And in an era when the rap game seemed to be getting darker by the day, we absolutely needed it.