Mad Cobra

Ewart Brown was born in Kingston and spent much of his childhood in the hills of Islington, St. Mary, before returning to Kingston as a teenager. He took his stage name from villains in the G.I. Joe comic book series and began performing with sound systems while still in school, also using the alias Mr. Flex.

His uncle, Delroy "Spiderman" Thompson, an engineer at Tuff Gong studios, produced Mad Cobra's 1989 debut single "Respect Woman." He rose through the early-1990s dancehall boom as one of the genre's leading deejays, becoming the first reggae artist to reach number one on Billboard's rap singles chart.

His biggest crossover moment came with "Flex," which reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1993, remaining his only entry on that chart and one of the most recognizable dancehall singles of the decade in the United States.

Mad Cobra has continued recording and performing into the 2020s, though his career has also been marked by legal trouble, including a 2023 arrest in South Carolina on cocaine trafficking and weapons charges; he continued performing internationally in the months that followed and has released new singles in subsequent years.