Greater New York City’s hip-hop community is in shock after the death of rapper Marlon Brando from the hit-wonder rap trio Sporty Thievz behind a freak auto accident in the Bronx last week.
The Yonkers, N.Y.-based Brando, who also went by the additional nom de hip-hop Robin Hood, died of internal bleeding after he was struck Thursday by a car that jumped the curb after hitting a median on Fordham Road in the North Bronx. He was 22 years old.
According to witnesses, Brando pulled a child out of the oncoming car’s path before himself receiving the impact that knocked him to the ground. Brando then rose to his feet for a moment and then sat down complaining of pain and dizziness before he was rushed to a hospital, they also observed. The easy-going Brando was known as a charitable, spiritual, and good-natured soul to friend and colleagues.
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“That’s the kind of guy he was, real cool guy,” said Lee “Leethal” Wren, lead producer for Doom Entertainment, who attended high school in Yonkers with Brando and collaborated on projects with the Sporty Thievz rapper for the Yonkers-based production company. “We showed Doom much love, ridiculous love. He told me that if there anything we needed from him to let know. We were about to have him work with my artists [Yonkers mic-controllers] Phil Blunts and Khoury Planet.
“All Marlon ever wanted to do was get on. When Khoury would see on the bus, that’s all they’d ever talk about. He’d tell Khoury, you’re gonna get on. It’s not gonna happen in a hurry, but it’ll happen.”
Brando’s Sporty Thievz kinsman King Kirk, aka Stealin’ Spielberg, and Big Dubez, aka Safecracker, were reportedly devastated by the news of Brando’s death. R&B crooner Kibwe Dorsey, who sang the hook on Sporty Thievz’s 1999 runaway, major label hit “No Pigeons” and who recorded with Brando for the Yonkers-based do-it-yourself independent label Gold & Platinum Records, Dorsey’s former manager Jumaane Driver acknowledged. Brando appears on Dorsey’s underground hit single “Sunshine and Moonlight.”
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“It hit me real hard when I heard about it,” Driver said. “Out of all of Sporty Thievz, he’s the one I respected the most. He was a hard-working brother and he deserved better than what happened to him at Columbia [getting dropped with the group from the label].”
