fantastic voyage rap song

The Meaning Behind Coolio’s Funkadelic ‘Fantastic Voyage’

by Alli Patton October 5, 2022, 1:21 pm

If you’re only here for the infectious slide, slide, slippity-slide in the chorus, the “Fantastic Voyage” is leaving without you. A journey through the harsh realities of life on the streets and an escape from them in search of some semblance of an “American Dream,” Coolio’s 1994 hit is a poetic mission statement, a dream of hope for the future dressed up in elastic grooves and funk-fueled rhythms.

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In honor of the late legend , take a trip through the meaning of “Fantastic Voyage” with us.

The Meaning and Origin

Part Lakeside’s 1981 tune of the same name, part The Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There,” “Fantastic Voyage” borrows the funk of the former and the hopeful escapism of the latter to create something wholly Coolio.

Lakeside’s thumping groove carried Coolio’s tune, giving it a cruising laid-back vibe that offered a bright buoyancy to the grim realities painted by the lyrics. When the artist first cut the track, he said in a 1994 interview with The Baltimore Sun “It was cool. I had some catchy phrases in there, and it was funny, too.” His label also thought the single was good, however, with some lyrical tweaking they believed it could be great.

Not knowing where to go from there, the artist explained “One day, we were listening to some oldies, and this Staple Singers song came on … Right away, soon as I heard it, I said, ‘That’s what I can write it like.’ And I wrote it in about two hours.”

I know a place / Ain’t nobody cryin’ / Ain’t nobody worried / Ain’t no smilin’ faces / Lyin’ to the races , opens the gospel-tinged tune. The 1972 soul serenade “I’ll Take You There” is often interpreted as a reference to civil rights. The songstresses describe a world after the movement has succeeded, a world in which there are no more tears or no more need for worry or fear.

“I’ll Take You There” helped take Coolio’s “Fantastic Voyage” to new depths, giving the song the push toward the multi-dimensional musical journey we know it as today.

When “Fantastic Voyage” arrived, it was a welcome change from the commercialized rap that dominated the mainstream during that time. “I been tired for a long time of superficial, fake, made-up rap that ain’t coming from the heart,” Coolio told the Sun . “It’s all for money and shock value. I ain’t with that, man. When I wrote my album, I wasn’t really aiming for anything but making the kind of album I wanted to make. That was what was most important to me, being able to do exactly what I wanted to do.”

His release of the 1994 album, It Takes a Thief , was far more personal than anything else being brought to the genre. “Most rappers, they only talk about one side of their personality,” he explained. “If they’re a gangsta rapper, then that’s all they talk about. Or if they’re a lover, that’s all they talk about … I just tried to show all sides of my personality, that’s all. Just so it could be more real. I just wanted to make it well-rounded.”

“Fantastic Voyage” offered the perfect deep dive into Coolio’s personal side. The song championed coming together. Like The Staples Singers classic from which it took inspiration, the song ventured to a place where differences like race and class weren’t obstacles. Opening with:

Come on y’all let’s take a ride don’t you say shit just get inside It’s time to take your ass on another kind of trip coz you can’t have the hop if you don’t have the hip grab your gat with the extra clip and, close your eyes and hit the switch We’re going to a place where everybody kick it kick it, kick it, yeah… that’s the ticket

Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage, he sings in the chorus, flanked by the catchy slide slide slippity-slide . The song continues with the same dream, imagining a place where Coolio and his family can live without fear, a place where there ain’t no bloodin’, ain’t no crippin’, and where it really don’t matter if you’re white or black .

I’m tryin’ to find a place where I can live my life and maybe eat some steak with my beans and rice, a place where my kids can play outside without livin’ in fear of a drive-by

Coolio raps Life is a bitch and then you die / still tryin’ to get a peace of the apple pie , chronicling a hard life that asks a lot in order to overcome it. He continues:

you gotta have heart son, if you wanna go, watch this sweet chariot swing low ain’t nobody cryin` ain’t nobody dyin ain’t nobody worryin’, everybody’s tryin nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’ if you wanna have something, you better start frontin’ what ya gonna do when the 5 roll by you better be ready, so you can ride

When you’re living in a city it’s do or die , Coolio explains as the song comes to a close with its bouncing chorus.

Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage

The Music Video

The song’s accompanying music video opens with Coolio napping in a recliner on his front porch. A phone call from his friend Spoon wakes him. Asking about a trip to the beach, Spoon is quickly cut off by the rapper who responds annoyed, saying “We ain’t got no car,” looking out at the bicycle in disrepair in his driveway.

Suddenly, a mysterious man straight out of the ’70s appears, draped in a leisure suit and wielding a cane. With the flick of his cane, the man turns the bike into a blue 1965 Chevrolet Impala convertible car with hydraulics. Now with transportation, Coolio picks up his friends on the way to the beach and a “Fantastic Voyage” ensues.

The car is transformed back into the bicycle in the driveway as the video ends. The events of the day were merely a dream as Coolio is again woken up by Spoon calling to ask why he hung up on him, still trying to sell him on a beach trip. Coolio reminds him that they have no car, hanging up once again.

The rapper looks out at the bike to see something surprising hanging from the bike’s front wheel hub.

Coolio is no stranger to being parodied , but this time he joined in. In 2018, Chrysler used “Fantastic Voyage” to promote the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, releasing an ad disguised as a music video. Cringingly called “Vantastic Voyage” and featuring the rapper himself, the video spoofs the original, nearly frame-by-frame.

(Photo by Frans Schellekens/Redferns)

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How Coolio Took the Nineties on a Fantastic Voyage

The West Coast rap legend’s slippity-slide aesthetic was a breath of fresh air — and it holds up incredibly well. Even after the hits, he never stopped hustling

Rapper Coolio performs live onstage at Paradiso in Amsterdam, January 1996. FRANS SCHELLEKENS/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES

Goodbye to the late great  Coolio , one of the Nineties’ top hitmakers, and one of the best-loved voices in West Coast hip-hop or anywhere in Nineties music. The Compton-born MC  died way too young on Wednesday night , at the age of 59. Coolio blew up in the summer of 1994 with his epochal hit “ Fantastic Voyage ,” a total game changer, making him an icon for his deadpan humor, wild braids, and playful beats. It was a blast of West Coast G-funk, but it was a dance-floor call to the party people, who weren’t getting much radio love in the doom and gloom of 1994. Coolio invited everyone to slide-slide-slippity-slide away to a more positive state of mind. Hits like “Fantastic Voyage” and “ 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New) ” made a lot of the negative creeps on the radio sound like they were faking it.

“Fantastic Voyage” stood out from anything else in pop music, which was heading for a downward spiral, from the rap stations to the rock stations. (The song dropped just a few weeks before Kurt Cobain’s death.) Coolio took off from the original “Fantastic Voyage,” a hedonistic 1980 dance-floor classic by the Midwest R&B band Lakeside. It was the breakthrough hit from his excellent debut album,  It Takes a Thief . Like Coolio said, “You can’t have the hop if you don’t have the hip.” “ It Takes a Thief  was the one that made the hood like me,”  he told  Rolling Stone  in 2017.  “‘Gangsta’s Paradise’—that was the one that made white people like me.”

Coolio’s slippity-slide aesthetic was a breath of fresh air at the time, but it holds up incredibly well. His unique niche in Nineties pop culture is summed up perfectly by  Clueless , the 1995 teen classic where Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, and their girl crew party up to his song “Rollin’ With My Homies.” In one of the movie’s most iconic scenes, the misfit skater girl Brittany Murphy mourns a breakup and cries over “Rollin’ With My Homies,” because it was their song.

Coolio never stopped hustling, never stopped grinding. In recent years, he stretched out with projects like his  family reality show  Coolio’s Rules  and his web series  Cookin’ With Coolio , which was also the title of his cookbook, full of recipes for his “Ghetto Gourmet” cuisine. The self-proclaimed “King of the Kitchen Pimps”  introduced recipes like “Bro-Ghetti” and “Chicken Lettuce Blunts.”   As  he told me in 2017 , “I  can  cook, man. I think that’s the one thing I can do as good as I can rap — I cook just as good.”

His most famous hit was  “Gangsta’s Paradise”  in 1995, where he rapped about the ghetto struggle over the track from Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise,” a song released 46 years to the day before Coolio’s death. It came from the soundtrack of the Michelle Pfeiffer movie  Dangerous Minds , with intense vocals from gospel singer L.V. “Gangsta’s Paradise” reached Number One on the  Billboard  Hot 100 and blew up into the year’s bestselling single. He wrote it when he overheard his producer playing the Wonder song. As he told  Rolling Stone  in 2015, “I sat down and I started writing. Hearing the bass line, the chorus line, and the hook, it just opened up my mind. ‘As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death/I take a look at my life and I see there’s nothing left’ — I freestyled that; that came off the top of the dome and I wrote that down.”

He wrote the whole song on the spot. “You know, I like to believe that it was divine intervention,”  he told  Rolling Stone . “’Gangsta’s Paradise’ wanted to be born; it wanted to come to life, and it chose me as the vessel.” (It also turned into one of Weird Al Yankovic’s best Nineties hits, “Amish Paradise.”) Coolio took out the profanity in the original rhyme, when Stevie Wonder objected. But Wonder joined Coolio and L.V. onstage at the Billboard Music Awards, for an excellent performance of both songs with a gospel choir.

His  Gangsta’s Paradise  album had hits like “Too Hot,” a “Waterfalls”-like warning about safer sex (“What started off as a plan ended up in a plot”), with a disco beat from Kool & the Gang. “1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New)” was a call to the dance floor — believe it or not, that was a more commercially risky move at the time than “Gangsta’s Paradise.” It was a tricky balancing act, but Coolio was good enough to pull it off — he could score party-hearty pop jams without sweating his rap cred. He put his keep-ya-head-up tribute to Black women (“For My Sistas”) right next to a song called “Kinda High Kinda Drunk.” He ended  Gangsta’s Paradise  with the one-two punch of “The Revolution” and “Get Up, Get Down.” Nobody did a better job of getting away with combining those mindstates like Coolio. He could show up on kid-friendly TV shows like  Sabrina the Teenage Witch,  and contributed the theme song for the Nickelodeon comedy series  Kenan & Kel , “Aw Here It Goes.”

Coolio kept scoring hits, like his 1997 dead-homies tribute “ C U When U Get There, ” rapping over a loop of Pachelbel’s Canon. And let the record show that he  teamed up with country legend Kenny Rogers  for their duet video “The Hustler,” a damn fine update of “The Gambler,” on an album with the most 2001 title of all time,  Coolio.Com . He also  dueted with Snoop Dogg  on the 2006 comeback “Gangsta Walk,” from his 2006 album  The Return of the Gangsta .

Coolio was always a highlight of Nineties-themed shows and festivals, where he proved he could still kill it live.  I talked to him backstage at the I Love the Nineties Tour in 2017 , at an arena in Bridgeport, Connecticut. As you’d expect, Coolio couldn’t have been a more fun dude to hang with. He was hard at work fixing his favorite custom-built jewel-studded microphone case. “It’s my Mic Saber,” Coolio explained. “It lights up — that looks good onstage.” This man took the details seriously. “They try to get us to use these dinky little fabric ones, but I ain’t having that shit. Snoop paid sixty grand for his.” But he didn’t just hand the job over to some roadie — he got busy repairing it with a power drill and a sledgehammer. As he told me, “Didn’t you know? I’m BlackGyver.”

Coolio had a lot to say about the rap scene and how it’s changed over the years. But unlike many rappers from his era, he wasn’t the least bit bitter about the new-school stars. “Those were the crack days,” he said. “Now it’s the post-crack days — we’re in the meth times. The mumble rappers now are the grown-up crack babies. So if they’re a little bit twisted and off and weird, it’s not really their fault. They do a lot of dumb shit, but they have flashes of brilliance.” Did Coolio have any advice for them? “Get that money. While you can.”

After he fixed his microphone case, he held it up proudly like Excalibur. “Mic-calibur,” he says. Coolio waved the mic around, striking poses like a rock star. His sax player Jarez said, “We call him the black Van Halen, a.k.a. the ghetto Peter Pan.”

“Call me Bang Halen,” Coolio said. “Gang Bang Halen.” R.I.P. Bang Halen, and farewell Coolio — here’s to one of the greats. Slide-slide-slippity-slide forever.

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How Coolio Took the Nineties on a Fantastic Voyage

By Rob Sheffield

Rob Sheffield

Goodbye to the late great Coolio , one of the Nineties’ top hitmakers, and one of the best-loved voices in West Coast hip-hop or anywhere in Nineties music. The Compton-raised MC died way too young on Wednesday night , at the age of 59. Coolio blew up in the summer of 1994 with his epochal hit “ Fantastic Voyage ,” a total game changer, making him an icon for his deadpan humor, wild braids, and playful beats. It was a blast of West Coast G-funk, but it was a dance-floor call to the party people, who weren’t getting much radio love in the doom and gloom of 1994. Coolio invited everyone to slide-slide-slippity-slide away to a more positive state of mind. Hits like “Fantastic Voyage” and “ 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New) ” made a lot of the negative creeps on the radio sound like they were faking it.

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Coolio never stopped hustling, never stopped grinding. In recent years, he stretched out with projects like his family reality show Coolio’s Rules and his web series Cookin’ With Coolio , which was also the title of his cookbook, full of recipes for his “Ghetto Gourmet” cuisine. The self-proclaimed “King of the Kitchen Pimps” introduced recipes like “Bro-Ghetti” and “Chicken Lettuce Blunts.” As he told me in 2017 , “I can cook, man. I think that’s the one thing I can do as good as I can rap — I cook just as good.”

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His Gangsta’s Paradise album had hits like “Too Hot,” a “Waterfalls”-like warning about safer sex (“What started off as a plan ended up in a plot”), with a disco beat from Kool & the Gang. “1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New)” was a call to the dance floor — believe it or not, that was a more commercially risky move at the time than “Gangsta’s Paradise.” It was a tricky balancing act, but Coolio was good enough to pull it off — he could score party-hearty pop jams without sweating his rap cred. He put his keep-ya-head-up tribute to Black women (“For My Sistas”) right next to a song called “Kinda High Kinda Drunk.” He ended Gangsta’s Paradise with the one-two punch of “The Revolution” and “Get Up, Get Down.” Nobody did a better job of getting away with combining those mindstates like Coolio. He could show up on kid-friendly TV shows like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and contributed the theme song for the Nickelodeon comedy series  Kenan & Kel , “Aw Here It Goes.”

Coolio kept scoring hits, like his 1997 dead-homies tribute “ C U When U Get There, ” rapping over a loop of Pachelbel’s Canon. And let the record show that he teamed up with country legend Kenny Rogers for their duet video “The Hustler,” a damn fine update of “The Gambler,” on an album with the most 2001 title of all time, Coolio.Com . He also dueted with Snoop Dogg on the 2006 comeback “Gangsta Walk,” from his 2006 album The Return of the Gangsta .

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After he fixed his microphone case, he held it up proudly like Excalibur. “Mic-calibur,” he says. Coolio waved the mic around, striking poses like a rock star. His sax player Jarez said, “We call him the black Van Halen, a.k.a. the ghetto Peter Pan.”

“Call me Bang Halen,” Coolio said. “Gang Bang Halen.” R.I.P. Bang Halen, and farewell Coolio — here’s to one of the greats. Slide-slide-slippity-slide forever.

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Fantastic Voyage

About Fantastic Voyage

"Fantastic Voyage" is a song by American rapper Coolio. It was released in March 1994 as the third single from his debut album, It Takes a Thief. The song later featured on the album Fantastic Voyage: The Greatest Hits. It heavily samples the 1981 song, "Fantastic Voyage" by Lakeside. In 2018, Chrysler released a music video featuring Coolio called "Vantastic Voyage" to promote the Chrysler Pacifica minivan.

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Artis Leon Ivey Jr. (born August 1, 1963), better known by the stage name Coolio, is an American Grammy Award-winning musician, rapper, actor, and record producer. He is best known for the song "Gangsta's Paradise", and the theme song for Kenan & Kel, a Nickelodeon show from 1996 to 2000. more »

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Written by: Fred Alexander, Fred Lewis, Mark Wood Jr., Marvin Craig, Norman Beavers, Otis Stokes, Stephen Shockley, Thomas Shelby, Tiemeyer Mccain

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Coolio took a ‘Fantastic Voyage’ and invited the whole world along

The song that launched him to fame should not be outshined by the one that defined it.

Whether it was poetry or a fluke, Coolio’s quick trip to the top was right there in the song titles: “ Fantastic Voyage ” to “ Gangsta’s Paradise ” — and if fate decides to perform a poetically fluky encore, the ’90s rap star, who died in Los Angeles on Wednesday at 59, will eventually be remembered for the song that launched his fame instead of the one that defined it.

Everybody knows “Gangsta’s Paradise.” Your parents, Stevie Wonder, Weird Al, Michelle Pfeiffer, misguided wedding DJs, the most-soused White person at karaoke, everybody. In a way, the song’s ubiquity has helped us forget the weirdness of its arc: A melodramatic selection from the soundtrack of an entirely regrettable 1995 White-savior movie, “Dangerous Minds,” lurched “through the shadow of the valley of death” and took a wrong turn onto the very top of the pop charts.

But “Fantastic Voyage,” a breakout single that smothered MTV the summer prior, is the Coolio cut that deserves to bask in its own magic-hour sunshine for perpetuity. Over a backing beat made out of industrial-grade g-funk elastic — an interpolation of Lakeside’s 1980 tune of the same name made somehow bouncier than its source material — Coolio, who had already cut his teeth as a member of Los Angeles troupe WC and the Maad Circle, evangelizes for rap music writ large: “We’re going to a place where everybody kick it, kick it, kick it, yeah that’s the ticket.”

And if rap was still on its way to becoming America’s dominant pop idiom in the summer of ’94, “Fantastic Voyage” definitely helped speed everything along. The song’s mood felt tight and buoyant, but its lyrics underscored rap’s inherent capaciousness, addressing the psychic damage of gun violence, the fraudulence of the American Dream, a couple of nifty lessons in music history via stray references to Motown, the Staple Singers and Parliament-Funkadelic and lots more — a reminder that rap music got big by being big.

Things obviously got even bigger for Coolio within the space of a year. “Gangsta’s Paradise” dropped in August 1995, quickly went multiplatinum in half a dozen countries and eventually became one of the most recognizable rap songs on the planet. That’s an achievement. But “Fantastic Voyage” remains a jam, a journey, a mission statement and, ultimately, an invitation. All aboard.

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Remembering Coolio: 5 Standout Tracks From The Late Rapper’s Discography

With a career spanning three decades, Coolio will be remembered for his upbeat ‘90s jams, sense of humor, and lyricism. While the road to the top was rocky, and Coolio developed a unique sensibility and canon of hits.

GRAMMY-winning rapper Coolio passed away on Sept. 28, at the age of 59. The rapper is best known for his 1995 smash hit "Gangsta’s Paradise," which became the top-selling single of the year thanks to its melodic sample, energetic flow and catchy hook. He is survived by his six children.

Born Artis Leon Ivey Jr., Coolio spent his early years in Monessen, Pennsylvania before relocating with his family to Compton, California — the birthplace of West Coast rap. Coolio's parents introduced him to classic R&B hits from their youth, and those songs became inspiration for his future sound. "My mom and stepfather was listening to Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, the Dramatics, Marvin Gaye , Curtis Mayfield ," Coolio told Rolling Stone in 1995. "Back in those days, people didn’t have big album collections, at least not in the ghetto, but we did."

Before making a full-time commitment to music, the "Fantastic Voyage" rapper worked a range of jobs, including airport security; he credited his work as a volunteer firefighter with helping him kick an addiction to crack cocaine. "I wasn’t looking for a career; I was looking for a way to clean up   a way to escape the drug thing," he told the LA Times in 1994. "It was going to kill me and I knew I had to stop. In firefighting, training was [the] discipline I needed. We ran every day. I wasn’t drinking or smoking or doing the stuff I usually did."

With his life back on track, the rapper was free to focus on his music and never looked back. After the release of his debut album, It Takes A Thief , in 1994, Coolio enjoyed immense success on global music charts, and wins at the GRAMMYs, American Music Awards and MTV Music Awards before his career began to simmer down in the 2000s. 

But Coolio did not stop. In 2008, he created a cooking reality show called " Cookin’ With Coolio " and became a spokesperson for Environmental Justice and Climate Change , helping to start a dialogue with students at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) about global warming. 

As news of his passing made the rounds on social media, fans and peers alike paid tribute to the late rapper, including fellow West Coast rap legend Ice Cube. "This is sad news," he tweeted . "I witness first hand this man’s grind to the top of the industry. Rest In Peace, @Coolio." 

​​Dangerous Minds actor Michelle Pfeiffer took to Instagram to pay her respects. "I remember him being nothing but gracious. 30 years later I still get chills when I hear ["Gangsta’s Paradise"] Sending love and light to his family. Rest in Power, Artis Leon Ivey Jr. ❤️."

In celebration of his life and career, listen to and learn about five standout tracks from the late GRAMMY-winning rapper, who has become a part of pop culture history.

"Gangsta’s Paradise"

Coolio co-wrote this classic hip-hop track for the soundtrack of the 1995 high school drama, Dangerous Minds, starring Michelle Pfeiffer. Featuring a Stevie Wonder sample (" Pastime Paradise ") and a haunting yet catchy chorus sung to perfection by Larry "LV" Sanders, the cinematic theme song erupted on the charts, making Coolio a household name across the globe. (According to the New York Times , Wonder approved the use of the sample with a major stipulation: The song had to be profanity-free. This simple caveat may have inadvertently set the song up for more widespread success.)

"Gangsta's Paradise" set Coolio up for his first nomination at the 38th GRAMMY Awards. The track was only the second rap song to get nominated for Record Of The Year, and won Coolio his first golden gramophone. The rapper was nominated a total of six times.

Sanders played a pivotal role in the song’s success, according to Rolling Stones ’ oral history of the classic track. The singer received the song before Coolio was involved and changed the name from "Pastime Paradise" to "Gangsta’s Paradise." Sanders recorded the singing portion of the track and chose to bring Coolio in to write and perform the rap verses. In March of 1996, Weird Al Yankovic released a parody of the song called " Amish Paradise ," without Coolio’s permission (artist approval is not legally required for a parody song ). Coolio dissed Yankovic and spoke out against the song, though the pair eventually reconciled and Coolio admitted that his ego led to his outburst. 

Yesterday, music writer Dan Ozzi posted an excerpt from an interview with the rapper, in which he addressed the beef and his growth since the incident. "Let me say this: I apologized to Weird Al a long time ago and I was wrong," Coolio said. "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."

"Fantastic Voyage"

Released on his debut studio album, It Takes a Thief , the song features a pulsating beat and an ever-catchy chorus "Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage" pulled from the heavily sampled 1980 R&B-funk song of the same name by the group Lakeside .

The song was a hit and the album was well-received by hip-hop fans and a sign of good things to come for Coolio’s career. 

"Ooh La La"

Like many ‘90s rappers, Coolio utilized samples from artists of the ‘70s and ‘80s but he infused these memorable sounds with his own flavor. "Ooh La La" — the second single from the rapper’s third album, 1997's My Soul — features a sample of " Pull Up to The Bumper " by Grace Jones . The result is a sonic delight designed for cruising or a throwback party jam. 

While the single did not achieve the same success as his other smash hits, the lesser-known summertime bop holds its own and showcases the rapper's breezier side.

"Aw, Here It Goes"

In the ‘90s, at the height of his fame, Coolio brought his signature swagger and flow to the theme for "Kenan and Kel," a beloved Nickelodeon sitcom starring "SNL’s" Kenan Thompson and Good Burger ’s Kel Mitchell. The duo paid tribute to the late rapper on their Instagram pages: Thompson offered his condolences with a few slides on his Instagram story, while Mitchell shared a heartfelt message and memory.

​​"Rest in Heaven @coolio ! We recently spoke a few months ago laughing and having such a good time. So many great memories with you, bro!," Mitchell wrote . "That time first meeting you on 'All That' cracking up in a Good Burger Sketch then you bringing me on stage after your performance to freestyle. Then later creating the legendary 'Kenan and Kel' theme song for @kenanthompson and I. You did an interview the day of filming the intro on Big Boys Neighborhood and all of Los Angeles was at Universal Studios city walk it was a party!!"

"1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New)"

Coolio had major skills on the mic and beyond, but he also had a great ear for danceable tracks that could jumpstart any dancefloor. The upbeat 1996 single, "Sumpin’ New" featured three different samples — "Thighs High (Grip Your Hips and Move)" by jazz trumpeter Tom Browne; a vocal sample from "Wikka Wrap" by the Evasions, and its main riff comes from "Good Times" by Chic.

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25 Years Later, 'No Exit' Shows Blondie Galvanizing Its Identity

Released in 1999 after a 15-year hiatus, Blondie's 'No Exit' was more than a reunion album. The edgy, eclectic and innovative album pulled Blondie back from the brink of history and into a new millennium.

"We felt there was no exit from Blondie," Clem Burke, long-standing drummer of Blondie , said in 1999. 

Burke was speaking on the occasion of Blondie's new record, aptly titled No Exit . At the time, the band had reunited after a 15-year absence and, according to Burke, "reared its head again, a four-headed monster." 

Although Burke jested about being unable to shake the pull of the band, No Exit was an edgy, eclectic and innovative record that pulled Blondie back from the brink of history and into a new millennium. The 17-track album saw the band restart their musical mission, delivering genre-blending punk music that brought experimental sounds to the mainstream while also parodying Americana. The reckless abandon shown with No Exit — from music genres to public image — proved a direct through-line to their peak new wave output.

No Exit was certainly a long time coming. The idea of a "reunion" for the famed band was never in the cards; even the idea of a greatest hits record was a no-go.After the release of 1982’s The Hunter — an album that fared poorly with critics and achieved little impact on the charts — the group chose to disband. Co-founder Chris Stein was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and took time away from music; lead singer Debbie Harry began caring for partner Stein while also pursuing a solo music career and acting opportunities (including John Waters ’ Hairspray ); Burke went on to play drums for the likes of the Romantics and Iggy Pop ; keyboardist Jimmy Destri began producing music for Prince and INXS . 

A true reunion had to involve new music and a relaunch too. Stein recalled watching Jerry Maguire for the first time while recording No Exit in 1998. "I got all teary-eyed because the movie’s all about getting a second chance," he told the L.A. Times . "And that’s what this is about, you know? We’re getting a second chance."

Released on Feb. 23, 1999, No Exit was an energetic and eclectic mix of classic Blondie genres — pop and rock, reggae and rap — that pitched the band to a generation. No Exit eased the band back into a musical landscape dominated by rhythmic hip-hop tracks, velvet R&B anthems and thumping heavy metal.

Audiences at the dawn of the new millennium were already enjoying the success of other girl-fronted rock ensembles; groups like No Doubt , Garbage , and the Cranberries owed Blondie and Harry some credit for trailblazing. (Even if being a female-fronted band became a thorn in Blondie’s side, as seen by their 1978 "campaign" to correct the record with "Blondie is a group!" buttons .) 

Now returning to the charts with such peers, Blondie signaled to the world their assignment was never over — even aging rockers could challenge music conventions and be punk again. Harry was center stage once more, reviving the band’s famed part-parody and part-femme fatale blond bombshell image for a new audience (and Blondie diehards). 

Lead track "Maria" — a spirited song about romantic desire that also plays on religious idol worship — wasn’t quite classic Blondie but a sweet pop treat  The song 

hit No. 1 on the U.K. charts and also topped charts in Spain and Poland. Blondie were officially back in action, but their status left Stein a bit uneasy. "Now we were on the receiving end of a lot of accolades. At times it felt odd being hit with all the ‘legendary’ labels," Stein writes in his upcoming memoir, Under a Rock .

But it was no small feat to get Blondie back together. When they disbanded in 1982, they acknowledged that it was a " madhouse ," with endless fighting and arguments all while Stein began to deteriorate from his chronic illness. While the band had sold more than 40 million albums in their decade-plus together and cemented themselves in the cultural lexicon, a new question emerged: Would their formerly edgy and eclectic sound resonate again?

Part of the band’s advantage in 1999 was also their original musical hallmark: a lack of a loyalty to any singular genre. 

No Exit embraced Blondie’s classic musical eclecticism — a quality that saw some critics deride the record. An "album of hollow new-wave, ska, and rap retreads," Entertainment Weekly opined while Rolling Stone argued it "indulge[d] in the kind of dilettantish genre dabbling that preceded their 1982 demise." But Blondie’s uniqueness was always that their music output resisted easy classification; it wouldn’t be Blondie without any genre experimentation. 

While looking back was important for the band when recording No Exit , it was also key to finding ways to appeal to a new generation of listeners. "We’re part of the future as well as the past," Harry said in 1999 . "One of the stipulations I had was that it not be just a revue of Blondie’s greatest hits. I really felt convinced of and dedicated to the idea that we had to move ahead and do new music." That also extended to playfully redoing tracks they had originally recorded in the 1970s, including the Sangri-Las’ "Out in the Street."

Other songs on No Exit showed a playful and wry tenor, as the four original members were seemingly having fun reconnecting with each other. "Forgive and Forget (Pull Down the Night)" is a smooth and synthy dance track that recalls the Pet Shop Boys and gestures at forgiving past transgressions. Blondie cosplays as a country ensemble on "The Dream’s Lost on Me" with a structured and rhythmic country ballad that elevates Harry’s vocals. "Screaming Skin" takes their past reggae influences  and recasts them in a rapid-fire rock song about breaking the betrayal of one’s body (likely a reference to Stein’s pemphigus condition attacking his skin).

Touring No Exit also fermented worries about Blondie’s legacy. "I don’t wanna appear preposterous on stage," Harry said at the time . In an attempt to defy such expectations, Blondie chose to perform the album’s hip-hop influenced title track during the American Music Awards , even bringing Coolio onstage.

The performance was true Blondie, which had long collaborated with artists of other genres to appeal to new audiences (their "Rapture" featuring Fab Five Freddy being case in point). "I was pleased with the mixed reaction," Stein said after the AMAs. "I’d much rather have us do something controversial than safe."

Today, "No Exit" might sound like a jarring marriage between classical music — with its use of Bach’s "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" — and thumping modern rap, but it isn’t a serious sonic exercise. Blondie instead impishly reminds us of the endless loop ("no exit") of their past music and the music industry, as their famed tunes might as well be as dated as those of the baroque era. The band goes philosophical with the reboot — even nodding to Jean-Paul Sartre’s bleak existential play No Exit — but conversely finds freedom adopting this adage. 

The 1999 regrouping netted Blondie chart success, new fandom, and a world tour. Yet it also brought up some personal problems. In Under a Rock , Stein admitted he was trying to gradually decrease his use of methadone, but touring demands made recovery difficult.

Still, Blondie’s return helped galvanize their popular image as enduring punk and new wave pioneers. (It might not be surprising that no Blondie album since has charted as high as No Exit at No. 18 in the U.S. and No. 3 in the U.K.) The band hasn’t pumped the brakes either, riding the renewed popularity for decades since with new music and tours of the world over.

But No Exit offered audiences something that their four following albums haven't achieved: a cutting and experimental sound that also acknowledged the artifice of the pop rock music they were making. Even recent successes like 2017’s Pollinator sounded fun and youthful, but were a largely series of songs written or co-written by other artists that aimed to appease current pop music tastes. 

The album title might sound suffocating or even nihilistic, but to Blondie No Exit was a belated self-acceptance. "I mean, there is no exit," Harry commented to journalist Michael Hill in 2013 . "You work so hard to establish something, and then that’s it, there you are." 

Twenty-five years on, Blondie showed a dawning new millennium who they were: A punk band who embraced sounds with abandon while celebrating the fantasy of being dissent rock stars. Like reading a sign "last exit before freeway," Blondie saw No Exit as a moment to hit the gas and drive straight on through.    

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Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016

Upon winning the GRAMMY for Best Rap Album for 'To Pimp a Butterfly,' Kendrick Lamar thanked those that helped him get to the stage, and the artists that blazed the trail for him.

Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly . Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

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He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly .

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube . This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg , Doggystyle . This is for Illmatic , this is for Nas . We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal , Anna Wise and Thundercat ). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift 's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN ., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers .

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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GRAMMY Rewind: Coolio Calls For A United "Hip-Hop Nation" After "Gangsta's Paradise" Wins In 1996

The East Coast rapper took home the GRAMMY for Best Rap Solo Performance for his No. 1 hit "Gangsta's Paradise."

Coolio was living in the "Gangsta's Paradise" of his own creation when the 1996 GRAMMY Awards rolled around. The year before, the ode to hip-hop culture had not only become a global No. 1 hit for the rapper, but also the best-selling song of 1995 in the U.S. And that February night in Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium, the track won Coolio his first GRAMMY, for Best Rap Solo Performance.

Receiving the trophy from Salt-N-Pepa and Mary J. Blige (clad in head-to-toe leopard print), the rapper emerged from backstage with his overjoyed entourage in tow, and started out his acceptance speech by claiming his GRAMMY "for the whole hip-hop nation."

"West Coast, East Coast, worldwide — united we stand, divided we fall. Recognize," he continued before going on to thank God, his then-fiancée Josefa Salinas and his kids, as well as Stevie Wonder , Quincy Jones , his collaborator L.V. , Michelle Pfeiffer (who starred in the song's music video) and others.

Coolio then ended his remarks on a serious note, acknowledging, "We've had a lil' problem lately in high schools and I only got one ting to say to all my Black and Latino brothers out there fightin': Ain't no gangsters living in paradise."  

During the telecast, Coolio also took to the stage to perform "Gangsta's Paradise," which had earned a second nomination for Record of the Year. (That major award ultimately went to Seal 's "Kiss From a Rose," along with Song of the Year.)

Sadly, the gangsta rap pioneer died in September 2022 at age 59 after suffering an accidental overdose laced with fentanyl. Press play on the video above to revisit Coolio's GRAMMYs win and check GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of GRAMMY Rewind .

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A Guide To Modern Funk For The Dance Floor: L'Imperatrice, Shiro Schwarz, Franc Moody, Say She She & Moniquea

James Brown changed the sound of popular music when he found the power of the one and unleashed the funk with "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag." Today, funk lives on in many forms, including these exciting bands from across the world.

It's rare that a genre can be traced back to a single artist or group, but for funk, that was James Brown . The Godfather of Soul coined the phrase and style of playing known as "on the one," where the first downbeat is emphasized, instead of the typical second and fourth beats in pop, soul and other styles. As David Cheal eloquently explains, playing on the one "left space for phrases and riffs, often syncopated around the beat, creating an intricate, interlocking grid which could go on and on." You know a funky bassline when you hear it; its fat chords beg your body to get up and groove.

Brown's 1965 classic, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," became one of the first funk hits, and has been endlessly sampled and covered over the years, along with his other groovy tracks. Of course, many other funk acts followed in the '60s, and the genre thrived in the '70s and '80s as the disco craze came and went, and the originators of hip-hop and house music created new music from funk and disco's strong, flexible bones built for dancing.

Legendary funk bassist Bootsy Collins learned the power of the one from playing in Brown's band, and brought it to George Clinton , who created P-funk, an expansive, Afrofuturistic , psychedelic exploration of funk with his various bands and projects, including Parliament-Funkadelic . Both Collins and Clinton remain active and funkin', and have offered their timeless grooves to collabs with younger artists, including Kali Uchis , Silk Sonic , and Omar Apollo; and Kendrick Lamar , Flying Lotus , and Thundercat , respectively.

In the 1980s, electro-funk was born when artists like Afrika Bambaataa, Man Parrish, and Egyptian Lover began making futuristic beats with the Roland TR-808 drum machine — often with robotic vocals distorted through a talk box. A key distinguishing factor of electro-funk is a de-emphasis on vocals, with more phrases than choruses and verses. The sound influenced contemporaneous hip-hop, funk and electronica, along with acts around the globe, while current acts like Chromeo, DJ Stingray, and even Egyptian Lover himself keep electro-funk alive and well.

Today, funk lives in many places, with its heavy bass and syncopated grooves finding way into many nooks and crannies of music. There's nu-disco and boogie funk, nodding back to disco bands with soaring vocals and dance floor-designed instrumentation. G-funk continues to influence Los Angeles hip-hop, with innovative artists like Dam-Funk and Channel Tres bringing the funk and G-funk, into electro territory. Funk and disco-centered '70s revival is definitely having a moment, with acts like Ghost Funk Orchestra and Parcels , while its sparkly sprinklings can be heard in pop from Dua Lipa , Doja Cat , and, in full "Soul Train" character, Silk Sonic . There are also acts making dreamy, atmospheric music with a solid dose of funk, such as Khruangbin ’s global sonic collage.

There are many bands that play heavily with funk, creating lush grooves designed to get you moving. Read on for a taste of five current modern funk and nu-disco artists making band-led uptempo funk built for the dance floor. Be sure to press play on the Spotify playlist above, and check out GRAMMY.com's playlist on Apple Music , Amazon Music and Pandora .

Say She She

Aptly self-described as "discodelic soul," Brooklyn-based seven-piece Say She She make dreamy, operatic funk, led by singer-songwriters Nya Gazelle Brown, Piya Malik and Sabrina Mileo Cunningham. Their '70s girl group-inspired vocal harmonies echo, sooth and enchant as they cover poignant topics with feminist flair.

While they’ve been active in the New York scene for a few years, they’ve gained wider acclaim for the irresistible music they began releasing this year, including their debut album, Prism . Their 2022 debut single "Forget Me Not" is an ode to ground-breaking New York art collective Guerilla Girls, and " Norma " is their protest anthem in response to the news that Roe vs. Wade could be (and was) overturned. The band name is a nod to funk legend Nile Rodgers , from the "Le freak, c'est chi" exclamation in Chic's legendary tune "Le Freak."

Moniquea 's unique voice oozes confidence, yet invites you in to dance with her to the super funky boogie rhythms. The Pasadena, California artist was raised on funk music; her mom was in a cover band that would play classics like Aretha Franklin’ s "Get It Right" and Gladys Knight ’s "Love Overboard." Moniquea released her first boogie funk track at 20 and, in 2011, met local producer XL Middelton — a bonafide purveyor of funk. She's been a star artist on his MoFunk Records ever since, and they've collabed on countless tracks, channeling West Coast energy with a heavy dose of G-funk, sunny lyrics and upbeat, roller disco-ready rhythms.

Her latest release is an upbeat nod to classic West Coast funk, produced by Middleton, and follows her February 2022 groovy, collab-filled album, On Repeat .

Shiro Schwarz

Shiro Schwarz is a Mexico City-based duo, consisting of Pammela Rojas and Rafael Marfil, who helped establish a modern funk scene in the richly creative Mexican metropolis. On "Electrify" — originally released in 2016 on Fat Beats Records and reissued in 2021 by MoFunk — Shiro Schwarz's vocals playfully contrast each other, floating over an insistent, upbeat bassline and an '80s throwback electro-funk rhythm with synth flourishes.

Their music manages to be both nostalgic and futuristic — and impossible to sit still to. 2021 single "Be Kind" is sweet, mellow and groovy, perfect chic lounge funk. Shiro Schwarz’s latest track, the joyfully nostalgic "Hey DJ," is a collab with funkstress Saucy Lady and U-Key.

L'Impératrice

L'Impératrice (the empress in French) are a six-piece Parisian group serving an infectiously joyful blend of French pop, nu-disco, funk and psychedelia. Flore Benguigui's vocals are light and dreamy, yet commanding of your attention, while lyrics have a feminist touch.

During their energetic live sets, L'Impératrice members Charles de Boisseguin and Hagni Gwon (keys), David Gaugué (bass), Achille Trocellier (guitar), and Tom Daveau (drums) deliver extended instrumental jam sessions to expand and connect their music. Gaugué emphasizes the thick funky bass, and Benguigui jumps around the stage while sounding like an angel. L’Impératrice’s latest album, 2021’s Tako Tsubo , is a sunny, playful French disco journey.

Franc Moody

Franc Moody 's bio fittingly describes their music as "a soul funk and cosmic disco sound." The London outfit was birthed by friends Ned Franc and Jon Moody in the early 2010s, when they were living together and throwing parties in North London's warehouse scene. In 2017, the group grew to six members, including singer and multi-instrumentalist Amber-Simone.

Their music feels at home with other electro-pop bands like fellow Londoners Jungle and Aussie act Parcels. While much of it is upbeat and euphoric, Franc Moody also dips into the more chilled, dreamy realm, such as the vibey, sultry title track from their recently released Into the Ether .

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• 1 Remembering Coolio: 5 Standout Tracks From The Late Rapper’s Discography
• 2 25 Years Later, 'No Exit' Shows Blondie Galvanizing Its Identity
• 3 GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016
• 4 GRAMMY Rewind: Coolio Calls For A United "Hip-Hop Nation" After "Gangsta's Paradise" Wins In 1996
• 5 A Guide To Modern Funk For The Dance Floor: L'Imperatrice, Shiro Schwarz, Franc Moody, Say She She & Moniquea

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‘Kneecap,’ ‘Dìdi’ to Bookend Sundance London (EXCLUSIVE)

By Naman Ramachandran

Naman Ramachandran

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The U.K. premieres of Rich Peppiatt’s “ Kneecap ” and Sean Wang’s “ Dìdi ” will open and close the 11th edition of Sundance Film Festival: London. Both films won awards at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah in January.

“Kneecap” was produced by Mother Tongues Films and Fine Point Films, in collaboration with Northern Ireland Screen, Screen Ireland and the BFI. The film was co-produced by Curzon and Wildcard and will be released in the U.K. and Ireland in August.

Set in 2008 in California’s Bay Area, “Dìdi” is an ode to first-generation teenagers navigating the joy and chaos of adolescence as seen through the lens of a 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy, played by Izaac Wang (Disney’s “Raya and the Last Dragon”). At its premiere in competition at Sundance, it won both the U.S. dramatic audience award and the U.S. dramatic special jury award for best ensemble cast. The Variety review described the film as “a fresh and funny summer-before-freshman-year flashback that provides an Asian American angle on that Sundanciest of indie-film genres: the semi-autobiographical coming-of-age movie.” Wang was recently Oscar-nominated for his documentary short “Nai Nai & Wai Pó.”

“Dìdi” is an Antigravity Academy, Spark Features presentation of an Unapologetic Projects, Maiden Voyage production.

Eugene Hernandez, director of Sundance Film Festival and public programming, said: “Having ‘Kneecap’ and ‘Dìdi’ bookend the upcoming Sundance Film Festival: London 2024 sets the stage for a rousing edition celebrating new cinema. These two debut films, by breakthrough directors Rich Peppiatt and Sean Wang, offer irresistible storytelling and bold filmmaking that resonated deeply with our audiences at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It’s been an honor to welcome these filmmakers into the Sundance community. We look forward to bringing these exciting discoveries to London audiences and to sharing their energy and passion for independent cinema.”

Clare Binns, managing director of Picturehouse Cinemas, added: “This 11th edition brings a selection of the finest independent films to the heart of London for their U.K. premieres, coming directly from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Audiences will be able to hear from the filmmakers, take part in Q&As, watch inspiring talks and enjoy the best new voices in filmmaking at the jewel in London’s cinema crown.”

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