Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" celebrates its milestone anniversary in 2025, marking 30 years since producer Doug Rasheed made the haunting beat. He'd been competing against his friend Paul Stewart to find the dopest sample in their respective catalogs and intentionally pulled out Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise."
"That album (Songs in the Key of Life) was already one of my favorite albums, so I was very familiar with what was on it," Rasheed tells ABC Audio. "I didn't stumble on that sample. I just went and got it."
"I would always try to dig deep and find something ... because Paul is a DJ, so he knows how to get the crowd going," he continued. "I had to come with something strong."
Rasheed eventually played around with the beat, with no goal other than "to make it sound good" and "make it presentable."
"I thought it was a dope sample already. So I just really just didn't want to mess it up," he explains.
By the time L.V. hopped on the beat, Rasheed had decided he wanted the haunting vibe that is currently heard on the record.
Coolio would later hear the beat with L.V.'s vocals and express his interest in collaborating on the record, which Rasheed says "was a no-brainer."
"I think he brought something to the record that ... allowed it to reach everyone, whether you were young, old, Black, white," Rasheed says. "He brought that quality to it, even though he's very street. I think he brought something that was accessible to the whole world."
Rasheed says he's proud to be part of a song that "stands on its own as a great achievement."
"I think that it's one of those things that's everlasting, like some of the classic songs that my parents and my grandparents listen to that are still around," he says. "I think that's the legacy."