Today in Hip-Hop — July 19: Coolio’s Debut LP Turns 32 and the West Coast Triple Drop of ’94

On July 19, 1994, three West Coast solo records landed on the same day — but Coolio’s It Takes a Thief is the one that changed his life. His debut on Tommy Boy Records opened at #8 on the Billboard 200, hit #5 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, and eventually went platinum, dragging Lakeside’s 1980 disco cut “Fantastic Voyage” back into rotation as a Billboard Hot 100 top-3 hit. Thirty-two years later, the record still sounds like Compton on a good day: laid-back, funk-fed, and dangerous only when it wants to be.

From the M.A.A.D. Circle to Tommy Boy

Coolio (Artis Ivey Jr.) came up in the M.A.A.D. Circle — WC’s Priority Records collective that dropped Ain’t a Damn Thang Changed in 1991 under Ice Cube’s executive-producer eye. He was already the crew’s most magnetic voice, so when he split for a solo deal at Tommy Boy, everybody in the neighborhood knew he had a hit in him. Nobody expected it to be this hit.

Producer Bryan “Wino” Dobbs handled the bulk of It Takes a Thief, with DJ Crazy Toones — WC’s cousin, straight from the Circle — cutting on multiple tracks. The record leans hard on the West Coast sample well: Lakeside, Roy Ayers, Isley Brothers, BT Express, Rufus, Al Green, Marvin Gaye. Nothing about Wino’s production is neck-snap boom bap. It’s slow-cooked funk — uncle-and-nephew barbecue music with a rap over the top.

That’s what makes “Fantastic Voyage” hit different in ’94. Everybody else was chasing G-funk menace and Death Row moodiness. Coolio dropped a hook about a party bus rolling out of a war zone: “Now here’s the plan / take a load off your feet, kick back / and get on the ride.” It peaked at #3 on the Hot 100 — behind only Ace of Base and All-4-One that summer — and turned Coolio into the first Tommy Boy artist to cross fully mainstream since De La Soul. A year later, “Gangsta’s Paradise” would eat the Grammy. But this July 19 debut is where the voice was built. He never sold it back cheap.

A Compton lineage receipt

Coolio was raised in Compton, and the record’s DNA is Compton — same neighborhood that gave the culture N.W.A., MC Eiht and Compton’s Most Wanted, DJ Quik, The Game. We made an N.W.A. Straight Outta Compton Hoodie that reads like a neighborhood receipt — the CPT area code stitched into the same lineage that produced the debut you’re reading about today.

Also today in hip-hop

• MC Eiht — We Come Strapped (1994). Dropped the same July 19 as Coolio, on Epic Street. Debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200 and #1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. RIAA-certified gold by September 29, 1994. The CMW frontman going solo without stepping out of the neighborhood.
• Sir Mix-a-Lot — Chief Boot Knocka (1994). His American Recordings follow-up to Mack Daddy. Peaked at #69 on the Billboard 200 and #28 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Same day as Coolio and Eiht — a West Coast triple release date heads still talk about.
• The week before (July 12, 1994): Above The Law dropped Uncle Sam’s Curse on Ruthless — Pomona’s conscious-gangsta record that turned the political anger of the L.A. riots into an entire LP. Whole month of ’94 was West Coast supremacy.
• Coolio (1963–2022). He was 30 years old when this album dropped. Would have been 63 in August. The debut still plays.

Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team