There is a cello accompanying the sub bass line. The bass line is has a smooth sustain, cutting through the mix at around 300Hz with bit of fuzz. The kick locks with the accompanying fat hip hop sub bass line and sits in the centre of the mix. The use of these samples are very indicative of the hip hop genre. Both the cowbell and guiro sit in the back of the mix as they are part of the instrumentation sampled straight out of the вЂњPastime ParadiseвЂќ original. The cowbell is playing standard crotchets and a guiro playing sixteenth notes on the offbeat, creating a polyrhythmic effect and adding groove to the beat. Sampled hi hats play a consistent eighth note pattern and are panned to the left. It sounds like an 808 with a short decay and a bit of added high end to give a punchy transient. The song starts in 4/4 with a hard kick played on the first beat of every bar. CoolioвЂ™s minimalist arrangement of the song takeвЂ™s StevieвЂ™s conscious and anti-materialistic soul music and forces it into the brutal context of ghetto lifestyle. With a thumping sampled kick and thick driving bass line, Coolio replaces the original вЂњPast Time ParadiseвЂќ with вЂњbeen spending most our life living in a ganstaвЂ™s paradiseвЂќ. вЂњGangstaвЂ™s ParadiseвЂќ is sampled straight out of Stevie WonderвЂ™s 1979 song вЂњPast Time ParadiseвЂќ. вЂњGangstaвЂ™s ParadiseвЂќ resonated with youth of the ghetto and also gave the world a glance of the brutality of the inner-city street life. His lyrics in вЂњGangtaвЂ™s ParadiseвЂќ reveal his perspective of on life as an African-American man growing up in the ghetto.

Coolio was born and raised in Compton and experienced these struggles first hand. The centre of much gangsta rap appealed to the under privileged and rebellious youth of the black community who experienced this harsh reality. Gangsta rap is a product of the often violent American city street lifestyle associated with poverty and drug dealing/abuse.

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