Coolio was an American rapper whose name is forever tied to one towering, era-defining hit. "Gangsta's Paradise", recorded for the 1995 film Dangerous Minds and built on a sample of Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise", became one of the biggest songs of the decade, a brooding, gospel-tinged meditation that crossed far beyond hip-hop and won a Grammy.
Coolio had other charting songs in his day, including "Fantastic Voyage" and "1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New)", and he remained a recognisable cultural figure until his death in 2022. But nothing he made came anywhere near the reach of his signature hit.
On streaming, "Gangsta's Paradise" sits near 2.5 billion plays, while his next most-streamed track has only around 54 million. That sends the ratio above 45, many times our 5.0 line.
By our measure Coolio is a certified one-hit wonder. It is no small thing to be defined by a song this enormous: "Gangsta's Paradise" is one of the most recognisable records of the 1990s, and decades on it remains, by a vast margin, the track the world associates with his name.