Meet “The Brownz” (Young Fierce and Rose Brown)

Hailing from Kansas City, historically celebrated for deep jazz roots and world-renowned barbecue, The Brownz, are a hard-hitting husband and wife hip-hop duo consisting of Columbus Brown, whose rap moniker is “Young Fierce”, and Melena Rose Brown, who released multiple early projects as “Melena” but has more recently opted to use “Rose Brown” as her artist name. The pair had individually established reputations as independent secular artists for many years, but as both matured into adulthood, deepened in their dependency on and relationship with God and developed stronger convictions, they found themselves at a crossroad with their music.

Raised in the hood, but deeply rooted in church with both his maternal and paternal grandfathers being pastors, Columbus’ grew up seeing his mother, aunts and uncles on both sides of his family singing, playing and leading worship for their church. When his older cousin began pursuing an R&B career, he and his friends became back-up dancers, dedicated to rehearsals and shows at an early age. Columbus’ high energy was well suited for dance, but he quickly realized that the true attention of the audience was with the singers, and he longed for that level of admiration. He had struggled with a severe stutter his entire childhood, but he came to realize that when he put words to a beat, he could say them perfectly. This was truly a life-changing epiphany for Columbus, who would go on to achieve excellence not only with hip hop, but with poetry and acting as well.

While not growing up with musical influence at a young age, Melena exhibited exceptional natural abilities for both art and writing which was recognized and encouraged by her grandmother and teachers early on. She joined the choir in Junior High and accompanied her older cousin in joining the choir at church as well, but her true interest in music didn’t blossom until a few years later, as her peers exposed her to more R&B and hip hop. Like Columbus, Melena was deeply inspired by 2Pac as a young adult, initiating a curiosity and passion for hip hop. Growing up in the small Kansas City outskirt town of Leavenworth, Kansas, Melena never entertained that recording music was a possibility unless you were a famous artist signed to a major label. This began to shift as she saw a close friend of hers, Eddie White (who would also influence his nephew who went on to become well known producer, J White) begin to make beats and set up a studio in his home. As female hip hop artists such as Lil Kim and Foxy Brown propelled into stardom, Melena’s real inspiration took hold.

Columbus and Melena met in 2003, shortly after Columbus returned to Kansas City following months of touring with popular Sacramento rapper, Luni Coleone, who released Young Fierce’s first album, “Sinful Living With Righteous Intent”. Although Melena expressed her desire to pursue her own rap career then, Columbus was amazed when a few years later he began to see fliers promoting her first project release and multiple shows she was hosting. They would continue to connect at various radio shows, showcases, and studio sessions over the next several years, maintaining a friendship that after much patience and persistence from Columbus would eventually become a beautiful marriage and the acclaimed hip hop group, “The Brownz”.

The same strong determination that enabled Melena to release 3 independent solo projects prior to their union, inspired the couple to learn more of the business side of music so they could continue to push forward and regrow an audience while switching from secular to a more conscious and faith-filled message. “Music is either poison or medicine”, Fierce explains,” and knowing that long after we are gone, our music is eternalized, we want to make sure that it’s medicine we are leaving behind as a legacy.” Both artists expressed how awkward it was to play the music they had recorded early in their careers for their family or co-workers. They now pride themselves on music that excludes cursing and glorification of earthly things, and they encourage other artists to do the same.

Influenced by the distinct and eclectic variations of hip hop coming from all regions of the U.S. in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, their current sound fuses Jazz, Funk, Soul, R&B, Gospel and Hip Hop with lyricism worthy to be compared to the likes of Andre 3000, J Cole, D Smoke, Nas and 2Pac. Though their styles are different, they both compliment and encourage growth within one another. “Fierce will pick a beat I would never pick”, Melena says, “but he comes with an amazing hook and once I finally write a verse to it, it ends up being one of our favorite verses of mine, and vice versa when I lead on a song”.

Over the last 3 ½ years, The Brownz have been focused on consistently releasing quality singles with memorable visuals and building their Omegalistic Music brand and YouTube channel. They have performed in multiple venues and festivals in the Kansas City area, as well as being featured in a streaming only concert at The Historic Jazz District with band, “We The People” during the pandemic. The Pitch Weekly has featured 2 of their video releases on their online platform, and they have been interviewed for DopeCauseWeSaid.com as well as various radio shows in their Kansas City locale. They released an 8 song emcee collaboration with fellow artist, SHADOW in October of 2020 as “D.E.M.” on their Omegalistic label, and plan to release a 2nd D.E.M. project in the future, with more featured artists. They have had multiple releases featured on Christian Hip Hop Hits Just As Hard platforms.

As The Brownz approach their 9th wedding anniversary this April, they remain committed to making “feel-good” music that has a positive, Christ-filled, non-violent message that is lyrically appealing to the most passionate of “Hip Hop heads” and is stylish enough to entice even non-Believers to take a listen. God willing, the group hopes to collaborate with artists such as Bizzle, Evan & Eris, D. Smoke and Tobe Nwigwe in the future, but until then, they continue to remain grounded in their own goals and projects. They plan to publish Melena’s book, “Desperate Heart, Beautiful Feet: My Life Through Scripture and Song” later this year. Having earned a reputation for their creative and well- executed storylines and treatments for their visuals, they plan to release some short films later this year as well.

Their most recent release, “Work So Hard”, through both the song lyrics and video, depicts 2 different perspectives of an artist’s struggle, cleverly told through a Jordan Peele’s thriller, “Us” scenario. The first verse narrates a battle with the old demon’s within one’s self, such as pride and envy that try to pull you back into your old ways – while the 2nd verse is the frustrated rant of the underground artist who continues to work as hard or harder than other, more successful artists without the benefits and rewards. Melena had already written and recorded the hook, but struggled with what direction to take in writing a verse. One night Fierce proposed that if he did a song with Tech N9ne at this point, he would have to come from the angle of being Tech’s oppressed underground doppelganger. The clever idea may have never come to fruition if they waited on that opportunity, so instead they decided to adopt that concept in a different way on their own. Having established the concept of the video, the words for the verses came easily.

Keep up with The Brownz latest releases and upcoming projects by subscribing to their channel
on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQTvvcTlqmG7GRu7w08dxHQ , following
them on Spotify –https://open.spotify.com/artist/008F72jcFAOnF8CCJWyhcJ

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/youngfierce1/ and https://www.instagram.com/therealrosebrown/
and Liking their Artist Pages on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/youngfierce1 and
https://www.facebook.com/OmegalisticMusic/