The Truth About Weird Al Yankovic And Coolio's Feud
Not all professional musicians can get behind what Weird Al Yankovic does for a living. According to Showbiz CheatSheet, Prince flagrantly refused to be parodied, and his management even sent Yankovic a telegram before an awards event they were both set to attend demanding that he not look the "Batdance" singer in the eye. Yankovic cheekily responded with the same demand. Those who know the importance of a good belly laugh pretty much all agree that a parody by Yankovic is a badge of honor revealing you've made it in the music biz. But one '90s rapper just couldn't take a joke.
Weird Al continued his streak of hilarious hit parodies in 1996 with "Amish Paradise," a spoof of Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise," a popular single that had been released the previous year. The New York Post reports that the song was featured on the hit soundtrack for the film "Dangerous Minds," and the song made Coolio a household name (via The New York Times). When Yankovic approached Coolio, he refused to allow him to spoof the song. But due to fair use laws, Yankovic technically did not need his permission (via UPROXX). Knowing this, The Irish Times notes that the song's producer, Doug Rasheed, told Weird Al he was free to spoof "Gangsta's Paradise." Showbiz CheatSheet reports that Coolio did not think Weird Al's song was funny. He issued a public statement calling out the professional leg puller for using his song without his blessing.
Coolio regretted denouncing Weird Al's Amish Paradise
Per the New York Post, Coolio later took a jab at Yankovic in his 1997 song "Throwdown 2000." In an interview with Viral Hip Hop News (as seen on YouTube), Coolio explained that he was peeved that Yankovic had spoofed "Gangsta's Paradise," even though he had told him not to. As a result, he stated that he "dissed Weird Al on a song and the whole b*******." In verse three, Coolio raps (via Genius), "Uppercuts and fight kicks with Weird Al Yankovic." Coolio eventually cooled off, and after giving it some thought, he realized that he'd probably overreacted (per Showbiz CheatSheet).
But this was no light, casual remorse. According to Yahoo!, Coolio considered it "one of the dumbest" things he had done in his whole career. "I sat down, and I really thought it out," he said. "I was like, 'Wait a minute.' I was like, 'Coolio, who the f*** do you think you are? He did Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson didn't get mad." If the moonwalker didn't get upset about a Weird Al spoof, who was he to get upset? "I was being too magnificent and too terrific about myself and that's not what you want to do," he said.
Coolio went on to say (via The New York Post), "I shouldn't have said s***. It actually made me look kind of stupid and small. I'm not going to say I regret it, but I kind of do, I regret that s**t. I should have just let it go."
He acknowledged his mistakes
Since his epiphany, Coolio has made amends with Weird Al Yankovic for his outburst. In a 2014 interview with Vice, he said, "Let me say this: I apologized to Weird Al a long time ago and I was wrong. Y'all remember that, everybody out there who reads this s***. Real men and real people should be able to admit when they're wrong and I was wrong, bro." Coolio added, "I listened to it a couple years after that and it's actually funny as s***. It's one of those things where I made a wrong call and nobody stopped me. That's one thing I'm still upset about—my management at the time."
He went on to say, "Somebody should've stopped me from making that statement because it was dumb." The New York Post reported that Coolio also admitted, "We talked, we hung out and s***." And as you might guess, Weird Al isn't the kind of guy to hold a grudge. So what did he do? Per Yahoo!, he asked Coolio to appear in a movie he released in 2009 titled "Al's Brain in 3-D." Instead of doing it, though, Coolio turned down the offer, because in his words, "the zeros wasn't right."
According to the New York Post, "Amish Paradise" is Yankovic's top-streamed single on Spotify. The New York Times states that in September 2022, Coolio died at the age of 59. Shortly after, Yankovic tweeted a photo of him and Coolio embracing with a simple caption that read, "RIP Coolio."