After hearing it, Coolio freestyled the unforgettable first line, ”As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death / I take a look at my life, and realize there’s nothing left.” From there,

After hearing it, Coolio freestyled the unforgettable first line, "As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death / I take a look at my life, and realize there's nothing left." From there, the song practically wrote itself. "I never picked up my pen. I wrote 'Gangsta's Paradise' out like I already knew it. It was divine intervention," Coolio told Rolling Stone. "I didn't even write 'Gangsta's Paradise.' 'Gangsta's Paradise' wrote to me. I was the instrument. The song was the entity."