The American rapper Andrew MarQuel Chavers, also known as MarQuel, was born in Hobbs, New Mexico on April 26, 1996 and moved to his current home Phoenix, Arizona in the year 2000. He always had a special love for music growing up and his favorite childhood rapper was Busta Rhymes. He gets the majority of his influence from West Coast content, the Dirty South's sound and the Midwest and East Coast's lyricism.
A product of the Gifted Program, MarQuel started showing an interest in music when his father and uncles began their rap group the "RuccBoyz" back in 2006, but was always too busy with sports to dive into it. Later on, MarQuel received over $500,000 in academic and athletic scholarships out of high school and chose to accept a football scholarship to Clark Atlanta University, a prestigious HBCU (Historically Black College or University) in Atlanta, Georgia. That is where he developed his current taste and style in hip hop, influenced by all of the different types of black people and styles of rap he experienced while attending the university. He started as a true freshman but trials and tribulations plagued both of his semesters including a coaching change that resulted in a loss of scholarship. To make matters worse, in March of 2015 MarQuel lost his favorite older cousin Jason to gun violence.
He returned home and transferred to Grand Canyon University to be closer to family and that's when he started writing to vent about his struggles. He began amateurly releasing music through SoundCloud starting with his first single "Blunt"! From there he went on to perform at open mics club venues and in December of 2015 he opened for King Los performing his hit single "Blunt". King Los cyphered with the audience after the show and after the cypher told MarQuel to keep chasing his dream and that he will get out what he puts in. MarQuel then went on to complete his Demo EP "My Black History: Vol. 1" that released on SoundCloud on February 29, 2016, the last day of Black History Month. On that mixtape were his hits: "Lil Wodie", "Lean Fiend" and "Pursuit". Those songs led him to performing at the notorious Pot of Gold Festival 2016 opening for Future and Ty$ where he generated over $4,500 in ticket sales. Later on in the year, MarQuel featured on his brother in law Midnite Da Dread's Smash Album "The Hybrid" on two Singles, "Berzerk" and "Lightning in a Bottle". He then began taking Audio Engineering classes and leased a studio to begin recording his upcoming mixtape "Wild West" and his debut album "21: Past".