Deadlee

The follow-up album, Assault With a Deadlee Weapon, was released in late 2006. Known for his lyrics, which tackle subjects such as race, class, sexuality and police brutality. On July 15, 2013, he changed his name to Joseph Thomas LeMar when he married his partner. The name is the combination of his last name and Martinez, the last name of his partner.

• Name — Deadlee • Birth Name — Joseph Lee • Origin — Los Angeles, California, United States • Genre — * Hip-hop • homo hop • Occupation — * Rapper • songwriter • Years Active — 2000–present • Label — * Clyde-n-Clyde • Bombastic • Website — * Official site • Official Myspace

Deadlee launched his career in 2000. In 2002, he released his first album 7 Deadlee Sins. A blend of hip-hop and thrash rock, his lyrics tackled subjects like race, class, sexuality and police brutality. The album became one of the first albums produced during the underground musical movement, "homo hop", which started in the early 2000s. He performed at a variety of music festivals including the "Peace Out Festival" in Oakland, California, "Peace Out East" in New York City, and "HomoAGoGo" in Olympia, Washington. The mainstream gay community did not accept his confrontational style during his first few years in the music industry. The "Long Beach Gay and Lesbian Pride Festival" grew larger and even restricted him from performing at the festival. As he became more synonymous with the growing homo hop scene, the LGBT community eventually accepted him and his music. Deadlee later performed at the "Los Angeles Latin Gay Pride Festival", the annual Christopher Street "West Los Angeles Pride" festival in West Hollywood, and the "San Francisco LGBT Pride" Main Stage two years afterwards.

• Illustration — Manager Camilo Arenivar (left) and Deadlee (right) in 2007. After being involved in several motion picture soundtracks and documentaries, Deadlee released his second album in 2004, Assault With a Deadlee Weapon. Fueled with retaliatory attacks on rap and hip-hop's alleged homophobes such as Eminem, DMX and 50 Cent, the lyrics deal with LGBT issues and hardships that are recurring. Assault With a Deadlee Weapon has heavier production and a lot of support from fellow rappers and artists such as Johnny Dangerous, Tori Fixx, Salvi-Mex, Dutchboy, Barnes, Drastiko and Clint Catalyst. The music video for his song "Good Soldier II" has been played numerous times on the MTV-owned network Logo. To support Assault With a Deadlee Weapon, Deadlee toured with a number of other LGBT rappers on the "Homo Revolution" tour, managed by Camilo Arenivar. In June 2009, Deadlee made four appearances in the prestigious Fresh Meat Festival, a trés moderne variety show spotlighting the cream of LGBT performers. He began with an angry spoken word piece written during a college tour, and moved into two classic Deadlee 2213 songs, the dance anthem "Nasty" and "Carnival in My Mind". Deadlee was acclaimed as both riveting and ferocious, surprising and astonishing the audience and proving himself a superb performer, able to bring the goods in any venue, gay or otherwise.

Deadlee has made serious inroads into the movie industry as an actor, appearing in several films including the 'hood comedies', Hoochie Mamma Drama and Getting High in the Barrio. He also made an appearance as a homeless junkie in the Bruce LaBruce zombie thriller, L.A. Zombie, and as Pharmacy Punk in Rampart. He starred in Los Angeles' longest running play Eavesdropper. DEADLEE has shifted his focus to writing with a script for the upcoming satirical comedy CHOLO #1 based partially on his days auditioning in Hollywood. A new documentary AKA DEADLEE directed by Quentin Lee is slated for a 2023 release. DEADLEE is also host of the podcast "DEADLEE USA" where he formerly came out as an "America 1st Republican" supporting 2024 Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.