Famed parody songwriter Weird Al Yankovic tweeted a touching photo of him with the late rapper Coolio, shortly after the ’90s hip-hop sensation died on Wednesday at 59 from cardiac arrest in Los Angeles.
But it wasn’t so long ago that the two artists had beef over the funnyman’s successful spoof of the rapper’s 1995 Grammy-winning song “Gangsta’s Paradise,” featured on the triple-platinum soundtrack to the film “Dangerous Minds.”
Yankovic’s chart-topping cult favorite “Amish Paradise” sarcastically depicts the plain people as hardened street folk. Coolio had expressed disapproval ahead of the track’s release.
“They asked me if they could do it and I said no and they did it anyway,” the rapper said last year on “Hip Hop Uncensored Podcast.” “That was the only reason I had anything to say.”
In response, Coolio said he “dissed Weird Al on a song and the whole bulls–t,” referencing his lyrics “uppercuts and fight kicks with Weird Al Yankovic” on 1997’s “Throwdown 2000.”
Eventually, the West Coast rapper realized he had gone too far over the crank song.
“We talked, we hung out and s–t,” Coolio said, admitting that going after Yankovic, “in hindsight, was stupid.”
“It was one of the less smart things I’ve done in my career. S–t, he parodied Michael Jackson, he parodied Prince, he parodied all kind of cats that are much more of an artist than I’ll ever be and they didn’t say s–t,” Coolio said.
“I shouldn’t have said s–t. 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.”
As an act of contrition, Weird Al asked Coolio to appear in his 2006 film, “Al’s Brain” — though Coolio declined.
“Basically, I would have,” Coolio said in a 2011 interview. “But, you know, the zeros wasn’t right.”
Since the duo’s reconciliation, Coolio eventually found comedic stock in Weird Al’s tune, he told Vice in 2014.
Coolio was initially outraged when Weird Al parodied him. Getty Images
“Amish Paradise” is Weird Al’s biggest hit on Spotify. “I listened to it a couple years after that and it’s actually funny as s–t. It’s one of those things where I made a wrong call and nobody stopped me.”
“Amish Paradise” sits as Weird Al’s top streamed tune on Spotify, with nearly 31 million plays.
