Coolio Got Arrested With Loaded, Stolen Gun on Way to Vanilla Ice's Dallas Show

Vanilla Ice's hometown show at The Bomb Factory on Saturday night was as '90s as it could get. Dallas' loved and loathed one-hit-wonder, and still best-selling local hip-hop exponent, pulled out all the nostalgia stops in Deep Ellum. (The review is here.) But one thing was missing from the night:...

By Jeff Gage

September 19, 2016

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Vanilla Ice's hometown show at The Bomb Factory on Saturday night was as '90s as it could get. Dallas' loved and loathed one-hit-wonder, and still best-selling local hip-hop exponent, pulled out all the nostalgia stops in Deep Ellum. (The review is here.)

But one thing was missing from the night: Coolio, who was scheduled to be one of the openers for Ice's descriptively named YO! '90s Hip-Hop Party. Turns out there was a good reason for that: He'd been arrested before he could get to Dallas.

The 53-year-old Compton rapper, famous for such '90s hits as "Fantastic Voyage," "1 2 3 4 (Sumpin' New)" and "Gangsta's Paradise," was attempting to fly out of Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday morning when he was arrested at security for carrying a loaded gun in his bag. That would be bad enough, but authorities soon discovered the firearm had been reported stolen.

That meant Coolio was charged with possession of a firearm by a felon and suspicion of possessing a stolen loaded firearm.
That same night, however, he took to social media with a video to downplay the situation and reassure his fans that everything was OK — from the friendly environs of a P.F. Chang restaurant. "Just wanted to say something about the little misunderstanding at the airport today," Coolio said, with deft understatement, in the video. "Everything's fine, I'm fine. ... I don't know what's going to be the result of this in the future, but for now I'm fine."

Coolio went on to reassure his fans that he'd be at his next gig, scheduled for Sunday night in Indio, California: the I Love the '90s Tour, which also features Ice and which brought Coolio to DFW back in June for a stop at Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie. (These '90s-themed tours have become quiet the cottage industry, apparently.)

Coolio's no-show was cause for a bit of confusion for some fans on Saturday night, as his name was quietly removed from the event page on Facebook. It didn't phase Ice, even though Coolio riding a big wheel would've fit right in with the dance party (if there'd been room onstage). Then again, Mr. Van Winkle knows a thing or two himself about "misunderstandings."

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