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Anorak News | Coolio sings Gangster’s Paradise in a Preston student flat

Coolio sings Gangster’s Paradise in a Preston student flat

by | 9th, October 2013

coolio flat

WHAT’S the saddest thing you’ve seen? How about Coolio sat in a flat of  Media Tech College, Preston, students and singing Gangster’s Paradise?

Singing the song when you’re young and lean is cool-io. See the lyrics:

Death ain’t nothing but a heartbeat away,
I’m living life, do or die, what can I say
I’m 23 now, but will I live to see 24
The way things are going I don’t know

But, like Cliff Richard singing The Young Ones it dates.

Laughing at death in your fit 20s is cool. Laughing at death in your 50s is tempting fate.

It;s not easy being a pop star. Other artists – painters and writers, for instance – get to look at their younger work with a nostalgic, critical eye. The pop star just repeats the old phrases and assurances of carefree youth on yet another tour of diminishing venues, or in a bedroom.

Coolio’s tough and dangerous Gangster’s Paradise is as incongruous to his setting as Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten flogging butter and telling us, “Younger people at the moment are very mouthy and aggressive.”

Or maybe it is uplifting seeing the 50-year-old sat amongst the keen minds at the University of Central Lancashire. And he did make them dinner, a caprese salad, chicken á la daaaamn, and peach crumble.

(The bonsai tree on his head is fascinating.)



Posted: 9th, October 2013 | In: Celebrities, Music Comment | TrackBack | Permalink