Oh. Em. G.
If you were fortunate enough to be tuned into the Today show this morning, you would have seen 90’s rapper-actor Coolio cooking with Hoda and Kathy Lee.
Confused? Don’t be. Coolio has been producing an online video cooking series called “Cooking with Coolio” since 2008. The show features sexy, scantily clad women assisting him in the production of such culinary masterpieces as Caprese Salad, “Tricked Out Westside Tilapia” and “Swashbucklin’ Shrimp.” Each five minute segment is full of qirky, distinctly Coolio moments. Instead of measuring out his spices on the spot or into small bowls like most cooking shows, Coolio measures them all out ahead of time into small plastic baggies (hmm, I wonder what small plastic bags of powder could be a reference to?). And of course, it wouldn’t be Coolio if the program wasn’t riddled with mildly offensive cursing.
This video is fantastic for a number of reasons. The segment is peppered with exclamations of “Shakazulu!” (which Coolio later defines for his hosts), and as Coolio walks the two very confused hosts through his recipe for “Soul Rolls” he fends off questions about his hair, the state of his life, and Kathy Lee’s accusation that his “Soul Rolls” are “Ghetto Egg Rolls.” (Watch Kathy Lee try to back pedal as she defends her logic on that comment!)
If you watch closely, you can see a very uncomfortable Hoda forcing smiles and awkwardly bumbling through the simple tutorial.
