Brother Marquis, member of groundbreaking Miami rap group 2 Live Crew, has died

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. First reported by TMZ, Ross died at the age of 57 due to natural causes.

The Rochester, N.Y. 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.

Uncle Luke expressed his condolences via X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“We took on so many fights for the culture made Great music together something I would never forget,” Uncle Luke wrote Monday evening. “We had recently got back together to take on another fight to get back our catalog that was stolen from us. We will continue that fight in his name for his Family.”

Known for their raunchy lyrics that at one point were declared legally obscene, 2 Live Crew became 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 made it to the Supreme Court, where justices upheld 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.

“We were responsible for securing a lot of that freedom of speech for everybody,” Brother Marquis told the Miami New Times in 2014.

Brother Marquis, however, wasn’t an original member of 2 Live Crew. He joined at the age of 19 right when the group was on the rise following the 1985 departure of Yuri ”Amazing Vee” Vielot. Mr. Mixx had known Brother Marquis from California, where he had moved at age 14, and recruited him.

“Amazing Vee had quit the group, and I knew Marquis from parties in Riverside [California],” Mr. Mixx told Red Bull Music Academy in 2016. “He would battle people and beat them senseless. I met him in the parking lot of a mall and told him if I ever get a chance, I’m going to bring you in. When Amazing Vee quit, Marquis was in Rochester, N.Y., and he came down for a show Luke got us on, at the Dade County Youth Fair.”

In an interview with the Miami New Times, Brother Marquis recalled his first show with 2 Live Crew quite fondly.

“I remember a lot of girls screaming and they were very receptive to us,” Brother Marquis said in 2014. “They loved us.”

Brother Marquis would eventually become one of the driving forces for 2 Live Crew’s popularity as one of the group’s main MCs. He penned the verses on 2 Live Crew’s most iconic tracks including “Me So Horny” and “We Want Some P****” as well as the hook for “Hoochie Mama,” according to the Miami New Times.

“I came up with that hook,” Brother Marquis said of “Hoochie Mama.” “I got that hook out in L.A., where they used to call ‘em hoodrats and hoochie mamas. Then me and Mr. Mixx came down here and did it.”

Between 1986 and 1998, 2 Live Crew released seven albums, though not all of its members were featured in the later years. Uncle Luke was absent for 1996’s “Shake a ‘Lil Somethin’” and by 1998’s “The Real One,” the group’s final project, the only two members Brother Marquis and Fresh Kid Ice.

Brother Marquis career, however, wasn’t just limited to his time with 2 Live Crew. He and DJ Toomp would release the album “Indecent Exposure” under the name 2 Nazty in 1993. That same year, Ice-T released a song with Brother Marquis entitled “99 Problems.” Jay-Z later used the most popular line in that track — “Got 99 problems and a b**** ain’t one” — in his eponymous 2003 track. In a 2023 episode of “Drink Champs,” Ice-T said that line came courtesy of Brother Marquis.

“Out of nowhere he said ‘I got 99 problems and a b**** ain’t one,’” Ice-T recalled. Perplexed, the legendary rapper told Brother Marquis “‘That’s a record, Mark. That’s a record.’”

Brother Marquis would eventually file a lawsuit against Ice-T and Jay-Z over unpaid royalties over the song.

“They gave me a little something, but not what I shoulda got,” he later told the Miami New Times.

The group formerly disbanded in the 1990s yet reunited off and on at various points in the 2000s and 2010s. Though many believe that 2 Live Crew’s contributions to hip-hop have not been celebrated as they should be, the group was honored at the “VH1 Hip-Hop Honors: The Dirty South Edition” in 2010. But for Miami locals like “Drink Champs” podcast host DJ EFN, the impact Brother Marquis and 2 Live Crew had on American culture is undeniable.

“I think it goes without saying how important he, as a member of 2 Live Crew, was to the culture and even to freedom of speech overall as it pertains to music in the United States,” DJ EFN told the Miami Herald via text. “But for us in Miami 2 Live Crew meant so much as it really put us on the hip-hop map in a major way. And I’ve always expressed that lyrically 2 Live Crew matched and rivaled all those doing it at that time but in their authentic Miami style.”