Today we’d like to introduce you to Marcellus A Brown III.
Hi Marcellus, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born and raised in St. Augustine, Florida, in Lincolnville. Music was always around me growing up. My mom, my dad, and a lot of my cousins were into music. I had cousins who rapped and cousins who sang R&B, so music was already part of my life before I ever started making it myself.
I grew up listening to all types of music. Caribbean music was a big influence on me. Songs like “Everyone Falls in Love,” “Tempted to Touch” by Rupee, and “No Letting Go” by Wayne Wonder gave me a certain feeling. I was also influenced by R&B singers and groups like Troop, New Edition, and Silk. I loved music that could make you think about love, relationships, and heartbreak while still making you want to move.
A lot of my friends growing up were Latino, so Latin music was also a big part of what I heard. I listened to artists like Daddy Yankee, Pitbull, Prince Royce, and Romeo Santos. The feeling their music gave me is the same kind of feeling I try to put into my music now. You could dance to it and enjoy yourself, but there was still a real story being told.
I also grew up with five sisters, so I was around a lot of different personalities and emotions. I think that helped shape the way I look at love and relationships. It made me pay attention to how people feel and the things they may not always know how to say.
Before music became my main focus, basketball was my first dream. I was a star basketball player in high school, and I really thought basketball was going to be my way forward. Growing up, it sometimes felt like the only ways people thought they could make it out were sports, music, or getting caught up in the streets.
My parents, teachers, and guidance counselors always encouraged me to think bigger than that. They pushed me to have higher goals and see more for myself, even when I didn’t know exactly what my future was going to look like.
When I injured my knee, my plans for basketball started to change. It was hard because I had put so much of myself into the game. But that injury pushed me to focus more on music. I didn’t know it at the time, but losing one dream was leading me deeper into another one. I took the same hunger and drive I had for basketball and started putting it into becoming an artist.
I first started making music when I was in high school. Some of my friends asked me to join their rap group. I told them, “I don’t rap, I sing. But if y’all write my part, I’ll do it.” That’s really how it started.
My first performance was at a church. I was supposed to perform with one of my friends, but he backed out. I could’ve backed out too, but I decided to go onstage and do it by myself.
I thought I did horrible. I was nervous, and the performance didn’t go the way I imagined it. But even though I felt like I did bad, I still fell in love with being onstage. Something about performing made me want to do it again.
The stage called me.
Instead of letting that first performance embarrass me enough to quit, it made me want to get better. After that, I started taking music more seriously. I began writing my own songs and working on my first project. I went on my first tour and released my first mixtape in 2009. I released my second mixtape in 2011.
During that time, I was still trying to figure out who I was as an artist. I knew I loved music, but I hadn’t fully found the sound that felt like me yet.
That started to change in 2016 when I heard an Afrobeats song on the radio. The song reminded me of the Caribbean music I grew up listening to. It brought back that same feeling I had as a kid, but it also sounded new and different.
That was when I started moving more toward Afrobeats and Afro-Caribbean music.
What made me fall in love with Afrobeats was the authenticity. It felt real. It had rhythm, culture, emotion, and a message. I could make music that people could dance to while still talking about love, relationships, heartbreak, drama, and things people actually go through.
To me, Afrobeats is a combination of all the music I grew up on. I can hear pieces of Caribbean music, R&B, Latin music, hip-hop, and soul in it. Some of my biggest influences in the genre are Wizkid, Mr Eazi, Burna Boy, Tekno, Davido, and Rema. They all showed me different sides of the sound and how far you can take it while still being yourself.
As I continued developing my sound, I released my album Endless Summer in 2020. That project was another step in me becoming more comfortable with who I was musically. I was able to bring more of my Caribbean, R&B, and Afrobeats influences together.
Florida is a melting pot for world music, and you can hear that in my sound. Depending on the song, you might hear the Caribbean influence, Latin influence, R&B, African rhythms, or a combination of all of them. That’s natural to me because that’s what I grew up around.
Being from St. Augustine and growing up in Lincolnville makes it even more personal to me. Fort Mose was right here near St. Augustine, and Lincolnville was built by freed Black men and women after slavery. It was even known as Little Africa. That history is part of where I come from. So when I make Afrobeats and connect with African and Caribbean sounds, it comes naturally to me. I guess you can say I’m going back to my roots.
Life has tested me in a lot of different ways. I’ve gone through divorce, job loss, surgeries, injuries, and times when it felt like everything in my life was changing at once. I’ve had moments when I had to start over and figure out what my next move was going to be.
A lot of the love, heartbreak, drama, and emotions in my music come from things I’ve really experienced. Music became a place where I could be honest about what I was feeling, even when I didn’t always know how to talk about it.
Going through a divorce changed the way I looked at love, trust, heartbreak, and healing. It didn’t make me stop believing in love. It just made me understand that love isn’t always perfect. Relationships can have good moments, painful moments, mistakes, confusion, forgiveness, and healing. I want to be honest about all of it in my music.
Losing a job also showed me how fast life can change. One minute you feel stable, and the next minute you’re trying to figure everything out again. It reminded me that my purpose couldn’t be based on one job, one paycheck, or what somebody else decided about my future.
My surgeries and physical setbacks tested me too. There were times when I had to slow down, change my plans, and rebuild myself physically and mentally. But I’ve learned that just because one path closes doesn’t mean your whole journey is over. Sometimes you have to find another way to keep going.
Becoming a father gave me an even bigger reason not to stop.
My daughter motivates me because I want her to see that dreams are worth fighting for. I want her to know that life can knock you down or change your plans, but that doesn’t mean you give up.
I feel like if I give up on my dream, I could be showing her that it’s okay to give up on hers. I don’t want that. I want her to see me keep pushing, even when it’s hard. I want her to believe that her dreams can come true too, as long as she keeps believing in herself and working toward them.
Along the way, I’ve met artists, musicians, producers, industry professionals, and other people who believed in what I was doing. Some encouraged me, some challenged me, and some gave me advice or opportunities that helped me grow. Everybody played a different part in my journey, and I appreciate the people who helped me get to this point.
My self-titled album, CELLUS, brings all of those different parts of my life together. It represents where I come from, what I’ve been through, the lessons I’ve learned, the father I’ve become, and the artist I’ve grown into.
My music is personal because it comes from real life. I’m not trying to make love look perfect. I want to talk about the excitement, the romance, the mistakes, the heartbreak, the healing, and finding the courage to love again.
I make music that encourages women to know their worth and men to be confident, show love, and be unafraid to express how they feel.
I also want my music to fit into real moments in people’s lives. It could be playing during a long ride when you have a lot on your mind, in the club when you just want to dance, on a date with somebody you love, or when you’re by yourself trying to get through heartbreak.
No matter where somebody hears my music, I want it to meet them where they are. I want people to enjoy it, dance to it, and still be able to hear part of their own story in mine.
That’s always been the goal. Make people move, make people feel something, and give them music they can live with.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. I’ve been through a lot of setbacks, and some of them made me question what I was going to do next.
One of the first big things was hurting my knee in high school. Basketball was my first dream, and I really thought that was going to be my future. Once that changed, I had to figure out another direction, and that pushed me more toward music.
As I got older, I went through divorce, job loss, multiple surgeries, financial struggles, and times when it felt like I had to keep starting over. Trying to work, pay bills, handle real-life responsibilities, and still put time and money into music has not been easy.
There were plenty of times when quitting would’ve made more sense, but I never could fully walk away from music. It’s too much a part of who I am.
Becoming a father gave me even more motivation. My daughter makes me want to keep pushing because I want her to see me chase my dream. I feel like if I give up on mine, I could be showing her that it’s okay to give up on hers, and I never want to do that.
A lot of what I’ve been through shows up in my music. The heartbreak, the stress, the mistakes, the good moments, all of it. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and the biggest thing about my journey is that I never stopped.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a singer, songwriter, and performer specializing in Afrobeats with influences from R&B, Caribbean, and Latin music. I make music about love, relationships, heartbreak, healing, and the different emotions people go through in real life.
What sets me apart is that my sound comes from everything I grew up around. Being from St. Augustine, Florida, I was exposed to a lot of different cultures and styles of music. You can hear Caribbean, African, Latin, and R&B influences in my sound, but it still sounds like me.
When I make music, I’m always thinking about how I want people to feel. I want somebody to be able to play my music on a long ride, at a cookout, on a date, in the club, or even when they’re going through a breakup. I want my music to fit into people’s real lives, not just be something they hear once and forget.
What I’m most proud of is that I never gave up. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and every project has helped me grow into the artist I am now. I’ve learned more about myself, my sound, and the kind of message I want my music to carry.
I also want my music to encourage people. I want women to know their worth, and I want men to feel confident showing love and expressing how they feel.
More than anything, I want people to remember how my music made them feel. I want them to dance, relate to it, and hear a part of their own story in mine.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
If I had to pick one quality that’s been most important to my success, I’d say perseverance.
Life has given me a lot of reasons to quit. I’ve dealt with injuries, divorce, job loss, surgeries, financial struggles, and plenty of moments where things didn’t go the way I planned. But no matter what happened, I always came back to music.
I don’t think success comes from having the most talent. I think it comes from being willing to keep going when things get hard. A lot of people start chasing a dream, but not everybody sticks with it when life gets in the way.
I’ve been making music for almost two decades, and every setback has taught me something. Every challenge made me a better artist and a better person. I honestly feel more prepared now than I ever did when I was younger. Back then I had the passion, but now I have the experience to go with it. I’ve lived through enough to know who I am, what I want to say, and the kind of artist I want to be.
I also believe staying true to yourself is important. Trends come and go, but people connect with what’s real. Once I stopped trying to sound like everyone else and started making the music that came naturally to me, everything started falling into place.
You only really fail when you stop. That’s something I truly believe. As long as I’m learning, growing, and continuing to create, I know I’m moving in the right direction.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cellusexclusive.beehiiv.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealcellus
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/therealcellus
- Youtube: https://YouTube.com/therealcellus
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4RJEBophCLOExOrMjztTik
