Coolio‘s voice will appear in the upcoming reboot of beloved animated series Futurama. The rapper, who died on Wednesday at age 59 will return as the holiday-bot — pal to Santa Claus Robot and Hanukkah Zombie — who he portrayed in a pair of previous episodes (2001’s “A Tale of Two Santas” and 2010’s “The Futurama Holiday Spectacular”) and a direct-to-DVD film, 2007’s Bender’s Big Score.
The character whose main purpose is to hand out the book called What the Hell is Kwanzaa? will get one more go-round according to series producer David X. Cohen, who told TMZ that Coolio recently recorded new dialogue and music for the Hulu-funded reboot of the show originally created by Simpsons boss Matt Groening in 1999.
Cohen told TMZ that Coolio “looked and sounded great” during the sessions, “even taking over the recording session by producing tracks on the fly for the episode.” He also noted that the upcoming episode will be dedicated to Coolio and feature the MC rapping over the closing credits to give him “the best send-off we can.”
“Coolio was one of my favorite guests. He was always totally upbeat and genuinely enjoyed coming in to record as his character Kwanzaabot,” Cohen said. The show is slated to hit the air again in 2023. Coolio, born Artis Leon Ivey Jr., was found dead on the bathroom floor of a friend’s house on Wednesday, with paramedics initially suspecting that he suffered cardiac arrest; no official cause of death has been announced so far.
