Oxygen Taps Coolio For Reality Show
Women’s Network to Premiere ‘Coolio & The Gang’ in 2008
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 10/30/2007 9:25:00 AM
Rap performer Coolio will star in the new Oxygen series Coolio & The Gang, which will follow the trials and tribulations of the singer as he tries to raise six teenaged kids while juggling his musical career and entrepreneurial projects.
Six 30-minute episodes of the show will air in the second quarter next year. The series will be produced by Oxygen and RDF USA (Wife Swap, Don’t Forget the Lyrics).
Coolio shot to superstardom in 1995 as a rap star with three platinum albums and six Top-10 hits, including Gansta’s Paradise and Fantastic Voyage. Since then, he’s become a family man, raising his six children as a single dad.
With the rapper’s unconventional methods of discipline, Coolio sets out to balance his family life with his rap career and launching his own clothing line, and finds that he’s got his work cut out for him. Nobody said parenting was easy – especially when you’re a rap star going through a mid-life crisis.
“This show is a perfect balance between family life and comedy,” Debby Beece, Oxygen’s president of programming and marketing, said in a prepared statement. “Juggling a career and home life as a single parent really resonates with our audience. Throw in a little bit of comedy and a twist on parenting, and Oxygen has another one of our signature over-the-top, bold personalities.”
