Dotmusic noted "the undoubted brilliance" of the track. David Browne from Entertainment Weekly said it "may be the bleakest tune ever to top the pop singles chart." He added, "With its ghostly choir and lyrics about a gun-toting 23-year-old who kneels in the streetlight wondering if he’ll live to see 24, it examines the abyss with journalistic coolness." Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger declared it as "complete pop greatness". Mike Wood from Idolator called it a "rap rhapsody". Pan-European magazine Music & Media commented: "Last year, this rapper hit paydirt with a reworking of Lakeside's Fantastic Voyage. This time around, he pulls off the same trick with this tall tale founded on Stevie Wonder's Pastime Paradise. Unlike the original, which surprisingly never was a hit, this one was a US number 1 and has every chance of succeeding in Europe." A reviewer from Music Week rated it four out of five, adding: "An infectious release from Grammy-nominated rapper that challenges the assumed form of the genre. Number one in the US and could do big things here." The magazine's Alan Jones deemed it "a brooding and menacing track". Chart performance The single reached number one in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand, making it Coolio's most successful single. In Australia, the song stayed at No. 1 for 14 weeks, a record that would only be broken 22 years later by Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You". Following Coolio's appearance on Celebrity Big Brother 6, it re-entered the UK singles chart peaking at No. 31. In the United Kingdom, "Gangsta's Paradise" is the first rap single to sell over a million copies. In the United States, the single spent twelve weeks in the top two of the Billboard Hot 100, of which three were spent at No. 1 and nine at No. 2. The song was certified triple platinum by the RIAA on February 23, 1996, indicating 3 million copies sold. It has sold a further 1.8 million downloads in the US in the digital era . As of September 2022, the songs has sold 1.9 million downloads in US and has accumulated 763.1 million streams. Following Coolio's death on September 28, 2022, "Gangsta's Paradise" debuted two days later at number 5 on the UK Official Singles Sales Chart Top 100, and reentered the Official Top 100 Singles Chart