Brother Marquis death: rapper from controversial “sex rap” group 2 Live Crew dies aged 58

Mark D. Ross, known to millions as Brother Marquis of controversial “sex rap” collective 2 Live Crew, has died at the age of 58. Though no official word on his cause of death has been revealed, TMZ reports that he died of natural causes.

The group became both famous and infamous for their brand of hyper-sexual raps songs including Me So Horny, which sampled from the Stanley Kubrick classic Full Metal Jacket and their album 1989 album As Nasty as The Wanna Be became a platinum-selling album, but faced the ire of “morally upstanding” US audiences and became the first album to be legally determined as “obscene” in 1990 - a ruling that was later overturned. 

Born April 4 1966 in Rochester, New York before moving to Los Angeles, California, Ross spent his early years in music as a member of The Caution Crew with Rodney-O, before coming to the attention of DJ and music producer David Hobbs, known to many as Mr Mixx, which saw Ross leave Los Angeles for Florida to embark on his career with the controversial “sex-hop” group.

He worked on the group’s debut release, The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are in 1986, which garnered attention from hip-hop fans at the time due to its unabashed, frank depictions of sex - somewhat of a hallmark at the time owing to the Beastie Boy’s similar “frat boy” take during their formative years. 

But more importantly, the album laid the foundation for what would later be described as “Miami Bass,” also known as “booty bass”: a subgenre of hip hop music that incorporated drums from the Roland TR-808, sustained kick drum, heavy bass, raised dance tempos, and frequently sexually explicit lyrical content.

Such was the furore over their third album, As Nasty As They Wanna Be that it led to a court case in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, which ruled that the album was legally obscene; the Eleventh Circuit later overturned this ruling. 

The cause celebre, which pre-empted the future trials between Tipper Gore and the PRMC with a number of musicians, including John Denver, led to discussions about decency in music, prompting David Bowie at one stage during his “Sound+Vision” tour in 1990 to stop performing Young Americans to remark on the controversy, informing the crowd “I've been listening to the album by 2 Live Crew. It's not the best album that's ever been made, but when I heard they banned it, I went out and bought it. Freedom of thought, freedom of speech – it's one of the most important things we have."

Even the late great Christopher Hitchens chimed in on the controversy, stating “I don't know the private thoughts of Sheriff Nick Navarro of Broward County, but I doubt they are worth a rat's behind and see no reason why he should sublimate his own vagina-dreading disorders in this expensive and undemocratic fashion.” 

“The same applies to the preposterous Judge Jose Gonzalez Jr., who in ruling on Sheriff Navarro's raid opined that the music appeals to "the loins, not to the intellect."

Brother Marquis and the group would separate for several years, in which the rapper became a born-again Christian, but stated in an interview with 105.1 Bounce in Detroit that felt no moral restrictions when he performed sexually explicit lyrics in 2 Live Crew hits on tour or recordings, prompting Ross to hit the road with some of the remaining members of the group in 2006.

The group in 2010 were honoured at the VH1 Hip-Hop Honors: The Dirty South Edition, and in 2019 the Yo ATL Raps - Lifetime Achievement Award. 2 Live Crew’s Fresh Kid Ice (Christopher Wong Won) died in 2017.