Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise

Gangsta's Paradise is a single by American rapper Coolio, released on August 1, 1995, by Tommy Boy, Warner Bros. and MCA. Interpolating Stevie Wonder's song "Pastime Paradise" (1976), "Gangsta's Paradise" features vocals from American singer L.V. who served as a co-composer and co-lyricist with Coolio and Doug Rasheed, with Wonder also being credited for the composition and lyrics. Certified Platinum in October, the song was included on Coolio's second album, Gangsta's Paradise, in November 1995. Its music video was directed by Antoine Fuqua and featured Michelle Pfeiffer. The song is taken from Pfeiffer's movie Dangerous Minds, and the music video is also themed around the movie.
The song was the top-selling single of 1995 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the first rap single ever to go straight to number one in Britain.[5] In 2008, it was ranked number 38 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop". NME listed the song at number 100 in their ranking of "100 Best Songs of the 1990s" in 2012 and Billboard magazine ranked it among the "500 Best Pop Songs of All Time" in 2023. Coolio was awarded a Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance, two MTV Video Music Awards for Best Rap Video and Best Video from a Film and a Billboard Music Award for the song. The song was voted as the best single of the year in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll.

Lyrics:
As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I take a look at my life
and realise there's nothing left
cause I have been blasting and laughing
So long that even
My mama thinks that my mind is gone
But I never crossed a man that didn't deserve it
Me be' treated like a punk you that's unheard of
You better watch how you talking or you and your homies might be lying chopped i really hate the
The trip but I gotta go as they go I see my self at the piston smoke
Fool am the kind of G that the homies wanna be like on my knees at night sayings prayers at the street light

Chorus:(l.v.music) x4
Been spending most their lives
Living In the gangster's paradise

Verse 2 (Coolio)

Look at the situation they got me facing
I can live a normal life I was raised by the streets
I gotta be down with the hood things
To much television they got me chasing dreams
Am a educated fool with money on my mind
Got my tin in my hand with the green in my eye