‘Jeopardy!’ Contestant Loses Out on Big Win After Mispronouncing Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise”
As we all know, the rap game hardly plays by conventional rules, and that approach also applies to the genre's lexicon. That's something one Jeopardy! contestant found out the hard way during a recent episode of the long-running game show.
During this particular episode, a man named Nick Spicher chose a clue in the category for Music & Literature Before and After. The category calls for the combined titles of two works. In this case, the clue is: "A song by Coolio from ‘Dangerous Minds’ goes back in time to become a 1667 John Milton classic.”
Of course, the song is called "Gangsta's Paradise," and just about everyone knows the track, and that everyone included Spicher, who promptly answered with the titles of the song and the book combined, "Gangster's Paradise Lost." That's where the problem comes up.
A short while after he'd seemingly answered the question correctly, Jeopardy host Alex Trebek informed Spicher that judges had decided to deduct his $3,200 prize money—this was a Double Jeopardy! round—he'd seemingly earned because he mispronounced the "Gangsta's" part of the timeless Coolio track by pronouncing it "Gangster's." The petty level is high here.
According to Jeopardy! judges' table, “gangsta” and “gangster” are both listed separately in the Oxford English Dictionary, each with its own unique definition. Spicher changed not only the song’s title, but also its meaning. This make his response unacceptable.
"Gangsta's Paradise" is easily the biggest hit of Coolio's career, and it was released as a part of the soundtrack to the 1995 film, Dangerous Minds. The track was everywhere 22 years ago, so it's not a huge surprise Spicher knew the track. It's just that pronunciation was problematic.
Coolio, who has announced plans to run for U.S. vice president in 2020, has yet to comment on this unfortunate happening.
See Spicher's pronunciation fail in the video below. Check out what Coolio's got to say about Eminem's dissing President Trump when you're done.
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