Brown, Foxy

Late-deafened; real name Inga Marchand. A popular rapper or singer of hip-hop music beginning about 2001. For several weeks in spring 2005, Brown noticed that she seemed to be sometimes hard of hearing, though she initially refused to accept its reality. Then overnight on May 22-23, 2005, she suddently became totally deaf, probably from a rare viral infection. Snubbed by many of her "so-called friends" when they learned of her deafness, and surgery made very little improvement. She finally went public about her hearing loss in October 2005, and was considering a cochlear implant.