Coolio's passing left a hole in the hearts of many fans of 90s Hip-hop. The late rapper's smash hit Gangsta's Paradise was one of the era's biggest songs and even earned an almost equally popular parody from Weird Al Yankovic. However, since the song transcended the film it was associated with in 1995's Dangerous Minds, tons of people forget the song was created as a media tie-in. Similar to many rappers of the mid to late 90s, Coolio always bordered the periphery of film and television with charming cameos. Coolio's unironically ill theme song for Kenan and Kel is probably the rapper's most famous television appearance, but he also provided his voice to the character of Kwanzabot in Futurama.
With a new season of Futurama in the works, fans began to speculate which beloved characters would make their return for the nostalgia trip. According to AV Club, Coolio's last fantastic voyage was reprising his role as Kwanzabot in the upcoming new season.
In addition to his considerable merits as a rapper, Coolio—who died yesterday, at the age of 59—was also a prolific actor, appearing, either in-character, or as himself, in more than 100 movies and TV shows across a long career. Now, we're hearing that one of those roles is set to have one more posthumous outing, with series producer David X. Cohen confirming to TMZ today that Coolio had recorded new dialogue and music for the upcoming Futurama reboot. Coolio appeared in three episodes of the original series (including the direct-to-DVD movie Bender's Big Score) as Kwanzaabot, the robotic patron saint of the celebration of African-American culture in the show's far-future world. It was, like many of the projects Coolio took on over the years, a role that blended his well-known sense of humor with his musical talents, rapping such memorable lines as "I'm fighting back for Kwanzaa so the children won't miss it. I'm confused about its meaning, but I know it when they diss it."
