MIAMI — Brother Marquis, a member of pioneering Miami rap group 2 Live Crew, has died, according to the group’s social media.
Born Mark Ross, Brother Marquis passed away Monday though details about his death were scarce. According to TMZ, Ross died at the age of 57 due to natural causes.
The New York native was part of the group composed of Miami’s own Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell, Chris “Fresh Kid Ice” Wong Won and David “Mr. Mixx” Hobbs. Wong Won passed away in 2017.
Known for their raunchy lyrics that at one point were declared legally obscene, 2 Live Crew became the one of the first Southern hip-hop groups to crack into the mainstream with their signature Miami bass sound. The group’s 1989 album “As Nasty As They Wanna Be,” which featured the popular track “Me So Horny,” went platinum less than a year after its April 21 release.
“There was no rap in Miami when I set out to do this,” Campbell wrote in his autobiography “The Book of Luke: My Fight for Truth, Justice and Liberty City.” “There was no rap group in the South before 2 Live Crew, period.”
The album itself became a lightening rod as conservatives across the state banned it for obscenity. Eventually, the ruling was overturned but the case did it make to the Supreme Court, where justices agreed with the lower court’s ruling in Campbell’s favor.
“If I don’t take on that fight, we probably wouldn’t be here right now and a lot of artists would be getting straight locked up for lyrics,” Campbell told the Miami Herald.
Ross, however, wasn’t an original member of 2 Live Crew. Rather, he was a friend of Hobbs who was brought in after one of the group’s founding members, Yuri ”Amazing Vee” Vielot, left when Campbell encouraged them to switch to party music in the mid-80s.
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