MIAMI — Brother Marquis, a part of pioneering Miami music class 2 Life Crew, has died, according to the team’s social press.
Brother Marquis, who was born Mark Ross, passed ahead on Monday, though no specifics were known. 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.
With their distinctive Miami guitar sound, 2 Life Crew became one of the first Southern hip-hop acts to break into the mainstream with their raunchy lyrics, which at one point were declared officially offensive. 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.
In his memoir,” The Book of Luke: My Battle for Truth, Justice, and Liberty City,” Campbell wrote that” there was no music in Miami when I set out to do this.” ” There was no music group in the South before 2 Life Crew, time”.
As republicans across the state banned the recording for profanity, the album itself turned into a whitening rod. Ultimately, the decision was overturned but the event did it make to the Supreme Court, where judges agreed with the lower court’s decision in Campbell’s pursuit.
” If I do n’t take on that fight, we probably would n’t be here right now and a lot of artists would be getting straight locked up for lyrics”, Campbell told the Miami Herald.
Ross, but, was n’t an original part of 2 Life Crew. Instead, he was a colleague of Hobbs who was brought in after one of the team’s foundation members, Yuri” Amazing Vee” Vielot, left when Campbell encouraged them to move to celebration music in the late- 80s.
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