Fresh Kid Ice, the stage name of Christopher Wong Won and a co-founder of 2 Live Crew, died in Miami on July 13, 2017, at age 53. His death closed the life of a performer who helped shape Miami bass and became a prominent rapper of Asian descent, while his group’s work also figured in landmark disputes over obscenity and parody.
Who was Fresh Kid Ice?
Wong Won was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on May 29, 1964. His family moved to Brooklyn in 1977. He performed as Fresh Kid Ice and also used the name The Chinaman. CBS described his grandfather as Cantonese and called him a prominent biracial rapper of Asian descent; The Washington Post characterized him as hip-hop’s first notable rapper of Asian descent. That distinction is the newspaper’s description, rather than a measurable ranking.
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In a Vice interview reproduced by The Washington Post, Wong Won said, “The Asians were there in the beginning of hip-hop — but as DJs,” reflecting on Asian participants’ early presence and relative lack of visibility.
How did Fresh Kid Ice shape 2 Live Crew?
Wong Won formed 2 Live Crew in California in 1984 with DJ Mr. Mixx and Amazing Vee. The group later moved to Miami, where Luther Campbell joined. Its music became associated with Miami bass and sexually explicit lyrics.
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Campbell called Wong Won the first rapper on bass music and described 2 Live Crew as one of Miami’s first groups to start southern hip-hop. Those are Campbell’s assessments of Wong Won’s influence and the group’s place in the scene.
What happened in the group’s legal battles?
The obscenity case
The group’s 1989 album As Nasty As They Wanna Be became the focus of an obscenity case. A Florida judge ruled the album obscene, but a federal appeals court later overturned that decision. Wong Won and Campbell were also arrested after a 1990 performance.
The parody case
A different legal dispute involved 2 Live Crew’s parody of Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman.” The Supreme Court sided with the group in 1994. The parody decision was separate from the obscenity case over the album.
The Television Academy identifies the group’s 1990 album Banned in the USA as the first album to bear a parental-advisory label warning.
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What did Fresh Kid Ice release outside the group?
After 2 Live Crew broke up, Wong Won released solo albums and later reunited with members for performances. His first solo album was The Chinaman. In 2015, he published My Rise 2 Fame: The Tell-All Autobiography of a Hip-Hop Legend, a memoir about his life and career.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How did Fresh Kid Ice die?
Wong Won died in Miami on July 13, 2017. On the day of his death, the group’s manager described the cause as an undisclosed medical condition. The Washington Post reported that he had experienced unspecified medical ailments for several years.
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In December 2017, TMZ reported that the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner identified cirrhosis of the liver among the causes of death, with Hepatitis C and a history of alcohol as contributing factors. The report also mentioned acute respiratory failure and shock. These details appeared in later reporting attributed to the medical examiner; they were not the specifics the manager gave in the initial announcement.
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