★★★★★
Coolio managed to straddle the line between pop success and rap legitimacy as well as anyone who preceded or succeeded him. The pop culture lexicon is likely to recall him as somewhat of a West Coast Fresh Prince?a squeaky-clean rapper with mega-hits and a massive television presence...
- rapreviews.com
2011-08-15
★★★★★
On his fourth record, rapper/actor/ game-show contestant Coolio rhymes about street life rather than backstage life. And that's a shame, because at this point, another track about Glocks on the block is far less original than the real dirt on his Celebrity Fear Factor and Weakest Link appearances. Coolio's great hits ? "Gangster's Paradise," "Fantastic Voyage" ? mixed hot samples with tales of his reformation from thug life. Now he's 39, and his music recycles familiar ideas...
- www.blender.com
2010-08-22
★★★★★
Voice of reason ("C U When U Get There," "Homeboy").
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
He drops ghetto social consciousness
on one track and gets spiritual on another, but this
crazy-coiffed rapper mostly sticks to his crowd-pleasing pop-rap
guns in My Soul. That's okay, because when it comes to commercial hip-hop,
Coolio's rhymes flow around the beats with authority, and his
elastic funk hooks are sure dance-floor fillers. B+
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
Like an irrepressible bouncing ball, Coolio bobs through this forgettable feel-good jam, dug out of the vaults for the Eddie soundtrack. His charm, as usual, lies in his heavy-lidded delivery, slacker-than-thou attitude, and the sense that he recorded this, bong in hand, while still in his pajamas. Unfortunately, It's All the Way Live (Now) lacks the sharp humor and social consciousness that make his best work stand out.
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
The title song of Coolio's second album, Gangsta's Paradise(''Tommy Boy''), may be the bleakest tune ever to top the pop
singles chart. With its ghostly choir and lyrics about a
gun-toting 23-year-old who kneels in the streetlight wondering
if he'll live to see 24, it examines the abyss with journalistic
coolness. Much of the rest of Gangsta's Paradise doesn't flinch
from these scenarios either but goes one step further by
offering ideas and solutions to these problems...
- ew.com
2009-06-04
★★★★★
Hip hop intellectuals hype the aesthetic of the new like Harold Rosenberg gone funky, so of course they snort at this dumb loser. It's not that he was sent up for check passing rather than some manly crime like assault (I hope), but that he favors samples everyone recognizes--especially everyone who's memorized the complete works of Tom Browne, either back in the day or by ingesting every rap record in the universe. Me, I'm glad Coolio did that job for me...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-03-21