Coolio

Released on August 8, 1995, “Gangsta’s Paradise” arrived at a moment when rap’s relationship with mainstream pop was still being negotiated. The track appeared on the soundtrack to Dangerous Minds, the Michelle Pfeiffer film, and later on Coolio’s album of the same name. That placement mattered: the song did not enter popular culture as a detached rap single, but as music attached to a widely distributed film and its social-drama framing. CBS News identifies it as a 1995 soundtrack hit and notes that it sampled Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise.” CBS News