Coolio wants to take his chef career to the next level, and he’s auctioning off the rights to his music catalog to help pay for it. The rapper is putting 123 songs, including his Grammy-winning single “Gangsta’s Paradise,” up for auction at the Royalty Exchange, according to The Guardian. Coolio’s catalogue includes eight albums over 19 years, and is expected to fetch between $134,000 and $225,000. The 50-year-old hasn’t had an album on the charts in well over a decade, but his hits reportedly pull in $23,227 every year in royalties.
With some new money, Coolio – who made a splash with his 2009 book Cookin’ With Coolio – is looking to “invest the funds from the song catalogue sale to expand his cookbook series and his online cooking show of the same name,” according to a press release.
The rapper is also dealing with some legal issues, having appeared in court last week on a domestic assault charge. Coolio is accused to striking his girlfriend last April while arguing in their Las Vegas home. Though he has admitted there was an altercation, he denied being the aggressor. According to the Las Vegas Sun, he also asked to defend himself in the case, and later told the judge he had hired a lawyer – but simply didn’t remember her name.
