According to consequence.net, Brother Marquis, member of the hip hop group 2 Live Crew, has died at the age of 58. 2 Live Crew’s manager confirmed Marquis’s death to TMZ on Monday, June 3 and the cause of artist’s death resulted of natural causes but details leading up to the death has not been released. Born Mark Ross on April 4, 1966, Marquis began rapping in his teenage years, eventually landing on the radar of 2 Live Crew’s Mr. Mixx in the ‘80s for his rap battle skills. After a position in the group became vacant, Mr. Mixx offered it to Marquis, who flew to Florida to join.
From there, the group leaned into their humanistic sensibilities and started gaining popularity for their raunchy and sexual songs “We Want Some Pussy” and “Throw the ‘D.’” 2 Live Crew became under national scrutiny with their third album, 1989’s As Nasty as They Wanna Be, which included the hit song “Me So Horny.” The album sold well, which earned Platinum certification and raising concerns among the American Family Association for its explicit lyrics.
After the AFA lobbied the government in Florida, As Nasty as They Wanna Be was declared legally obscene by a US District Judge and made illegal to sell. This famously led to a few arrests including a retailer being arrested for selling the album to an undercover cop several days after it was ruled obscene. Then, members of the band were arrested after performing a live show in a Miami suburb.
Eventually, a US Court of Appeals overturned the ruling but that was not the end of the legal drama around As Nasty as They Wanna Be. Upon releasing a “clean” version of the album, which included a Roy Orbison sampling bonus track “Pretty Woman,” the copyright owners for Orbison’s music filed an infringement lawsuit against 2 Live Crew. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1994, who ruled in 2 Live Crew’s favor by saying that the song was fair use.
Although 2 Live Crew’s popularity faded away after the albums, Brother Marquis remained active and continued to have an influence on hip hop. In 1993, he appeared on the Ice-T song “99 Problems,” coining the phrase “I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain’t one,” which was later used for Jay Z’s 2004 hit.
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