McGregor’s staff raise a glass to US rap legend
STAFF at Conor McGregor’s Black Forge Inn were ‘in mourning’ this week following the death of rap legend Coolio, who spent an unforgettable evening at the pub just a few months ago.
Workers and customers raised a glass in tribute to the rapper – at the request of ‘the Notorious’ – and sang his 1995 global smash Gangsta’s Paradise on the day the news broke.
Coolio, real name Artis Leon Ivey Jr, was discovered unresponsive at a friend’s home in Los Angeles early on Thursday morning Irish time, aged just 59.
He was a regular visitor to these shores and visited UFC star McGregor’s pub in Drimnagh on Dublin’s southside as recently as June.
Black Forge manager Liam Flynn told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘He was really, really nice – so cool and relaxed and made you feel at ease as well. No notions whatsoever. Lovely man I have to say.’
After enjoying a meal with his entourage, the rapper stunned customers when he got up to perform a rendition of Gangsta’s Paradise, accompanied on guitar by the pub’s regular entertainment. Later he went behind the bar to pull a pint of the house stout.
‘When he came out from behind the bar he was saying, “now I can say I’ve pulled a pint of stout,”’ said Mr Flynn, from whom McGregor bought the Black Forge two years ago.
After posing for photographs with customers and staff – and one of McGregor’s belts – the singer was gifted a bottle of the fighter’s Proper Twelve whiskey on the way out.
Mr Flynn said his staff’s ‘heads went down big time’ when they hard of Coolio’s death.
He said: ‘There would have been about 17 staff on that day he was there. We couldn’t believe it. Their boss Conor wanted us to raise a glass to him [on
Thursday] night, so I got the same lad who was playing that night to come. We went around all the customers and asked them to go up the front of the pub and sing along. It’s horrible – 59 years of age. It’s crazy. On behalf of the staff, we’re in mourning over him. He was such a nice man.’
Coolio was an avowed fan of Ireland and Dublin in particular – the appreciation evidently mutual going by the outpouring of fond reminiscences this week from people who had encountered him. Dublin hip-hop outfit Versatile – who collaborated with Coolio on their 2019 track Escape Wagon – said their ‘hearts are completely broken’ by the news of his passing, and that it had been ‘non-stop laughs when we were with you’.