Rebel Wilson Raps 'Gangsta's Paradise' With The Kooks At Reading Festival
"She said the only song she knows all the words to is 'Gangsta’s Paradise'..."
Rebel Wilson performing with The Kooks (Source: YouTube/BBC Music)
Australian actress and comedian Rebel Wilson made an unexpected appearance at the UK’s Reading Festival on Friday (22 August).
Sharing the stage with indie rockers The Kooks, Wilson was introduced before the band launched into a performance of the Coolio classic, Gangsta’s Paradise.
Welcoming Wilson to the stage, The Kooks singer Luke Pritchard said, “We’d like to film a scene of a movie with you. So, we’d like to welcome to the stage the incredible, the unbelievable, the hugely successful, famous, beautiful popstar, Tazzie Young… otherwise known as Rebel Wilson!”
Addressing the audience, Wilson said, “What’s up, Reading? Seeing as I’m out here, I thought I should sing a classic Kooks song… so I don’t know about you guys, but I was thinking about Gangsta’s Paradise.”
You can watch footage of the performance below.
Opening up about how the collaboration came to take place, Pritchard said, “We’re huge fans of Rebel. She got in touch, saying she wanted to come and watch us.
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“Immediately, I invited her to join us on stage. We asked her which song she wanted to sing, expecting her to pick one of ours. She said the only song she knows all the words to is Gangsta’s Paradise. So, Gangsta’s Paradise it was!”
On her Instagram, Wilson said of the experience, “Last night was pretty epic at Reading Festival @officialrandl with my homies @thekooksmusic and the GG crew.”
The Kooks returned to Australia in February and March for a stacked national tour, as well as enjoying billing as headliners at Party In The Paddock and Yours and Owls Festival.
Earlier this year, the group dropped their seventh album, Never/Know, with Pritchard offering a track-by-track exploration of the effort for The Music.
The album, self-produced by Pritchard, was born out of a need to reconnect with the band’s early creative spirit. He shared, “It’s not about going back to the first album’s sound, but to the roots of our influences and asking, ‘What is the identity of this band?’ The whole thing was to just forget that the past had happened.”
In order to move forward, though, The Kooks ended up in an introspective space, asking themselves: “What kind of music do we want to make, and how do we make it feel natural?”
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