Here we have the award-winning music video for the song "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio Feat. L.V. It is as short as most other music videos at 4 minutes and was directed by Antoine Fuqua, a filmmaker who certainly made it big afterward. This one's from 1995 and Fuqua wasn't even in his 30s at that point. Another inclusion is Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer as she played the main part in the film Dangerous Minds that this music video was made for in fact. I see the film has not received particularly good reviews mostly, but I haven't seen it and still I believe the music video here is perhaps the best thing associated with it. Or I should maybe say the song. We have all these known names here: Fuqua, Coolio, Pfeiffer, but to me the MVP is clearly L.V. and it is a shame hardly anybody knows him today still as his parts, such as the chorus, are by far the best component here from both the visual and audible perspective and it fit nicely that we see him sweating while he is hitting all the right notes. This certainly is by far the most known effort of his career and he has his 60th birthday this year (to other sources his 57th), so my review is a bit of a present to him, even if I doubt he'll ever read it. Perhaps I am a bit biased as I like soul a lot more than rap music, but still. And admittedly I thought Coolio was pretty good too. It's a close call for me, but between 3 and 4 stars out of 5, I still need to go for the former because the visual side is just not good enough for it to be one of the best short films of the year and simply listening to the record may just be as good as watching the music video. Nonetheless, I give this one obviously a thumbs-up and recommend checking it out. Shame the Oscars did not recognize it in one way or the other. Happy birthday Mr. Sanders, regardless of which birthday it is.
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