Coolio—widely known for penning "Gangsta's Paradise" and "Fantastic Voyage" in the 1990s—was 59 years old when he died in September 2022. While that's not exactly young, it's not that old either. The results of Coolio's autopsy were finally released on April 7, more than six months after he was found unresponsive at his Los Angeles home. The report lists fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine as the cause of death. Other “significant conditions” listed on the report include “cardiomyopathy unspecified, asthma and recent phencyclidine use.”
It had been an arduous road in terms of Coolio's drug addiction. In 2009, he pleaded guilty to cocaine possession and agreed to enter an 18-month rehabilitation program. During an interview with Sway Calloway in 2016, he opened up about his addiction to coke, saying at the time, "My nemesis was cocaine. I used to do coke in the ’80s, and I stopped doing it for 12 years. And then I started back again.”
But the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coronor's findings illustrate a much bigger problem—fentanyl is in everything. And it's killing everyone. According to the National Institute of Health, drug overdose deaths rose from 2019 to 2021 with more than 106,000 drug overdose deaths reported in 2021. Deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) continued to rise with 70,601 overdose deaths reported in 2021. An estimated 79,117 Americans died from drug overdoses between January and September 2022, fewer than the 81,155 people who died during the first nine months of 2021, but still 50 percent higher than pre-COVID levels.
Coolio's death is another grim reminder of the disastrous consequences of fentanyl abuse. It's the same drug that took Mac Miller's life and it's the same drug that killed Prince, Lil Peep, Digital Underground's Shock G, Tom Petty and Michael K. Williams. It's the same drug that's going to likely affect someone you know. Let Coolio's tragic death be a warning.
