John Forté, Grammy-nominated musician and Fugees collaborator, found dead in his home at 50
- - John Forté, Grammy-nominated musician and Fugees collaborator, found dead in his home at 50
Ryan ColemanJanuary 13, 2026 at 6:19 PM
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Theo Wargo/Getty
John Forté at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2025
John Forté, the Grammy-nominated musician and producer who was a close collaborator with the influential hip-hop group Fugees, was found dead at his home in Chilmark, Mass., on Monday. He was 50.
Chilmark Police Chief Sean Slavin said in a statement provided to Entertainment Weekly that officers were dispatched to Forté's home around 2:25 p.m. after a report of an unresponsive male. The individual was identified as Forté, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to an initial investigation, there were no signs of foul play and a cause of death was not immediately apparent. The case has since been referred to the Massachusetts State Police-Cape and Islands Detective Unit, pending an investigation by the State Medical Examiner's Office in Sandwich.
Bennett Raglin/Getty
John Forté and Wyclef Jean at the Essence Festival in New Orleans in 2022
Slavin told the local Martha's Vineyard Times that a neighbor discovered Forté alone on his kitchen floor, prompting the 911 call.
Forté was a longtime resident of Martha's Vineyard and knew Slavin socially. "It is such a small community, this death hits close to home," Slavin told the paper. "It's the upside and the downside to living on such a small Island."
Forté was born in Brooklyn on Jan. 30, 1975, and grew up in the Brownsville neighborhood. He took to music early, picking up the violin and attending New York University as a music business major. He shared a room with Talib Kweli there, forging a friendship that would last a lifetime and see both musicians rise to critical and commercial acclaim in hip-hop.
In the early 1990s, Forté worked as an executive at Rawkus Records, which signed such artists as Kweli, Mos Def, and Eminem. After hearing a "weird" but "captivating" advance track from Fugees' first album, Blunted on Reality, Forté went to see the group perform in 1994, as he told GQ in 2022.
There he became convinced of their potential and met group member Lauryn Hill, who later invited him to collaborate on their follow-up, The Score. Forté was ultimately featured on two standout tracks, "Cowboys" and "Family Business," and contributed to the production on both. The album topped the Billboard charts upon its 1996 release and won two Grammys.
Forté remained close with the Fugees, even as the group splintered. He went on to appear on two songs on Fugees member Wyclef Jean's solo debut, Wyclef Jean Presents the Carnival. Jean returned the favor by helping produce Forté's 1998 solo debut, Poly Sci, alongside fellow Fugee Pras.
Forté would go on to release five more solo albums featuring contributions from musicians like Fat Joe, DMX, Herbie Hancock, and Carly Simon, the mother of a close friend, musician Ben Taylor.
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Forté was arrested in 2000 on drug possession charges, eventually receiving a 14-year prison sentence that was commuted by President George W. Bush in 2008. The musician told New York magazine in 2009 that the first call he made after his arrest was to Simon, who fought tirelessly for his release. "She was as scared and loving as any mom would be," he said. "She never wavered. Not one day."
It was Taylor who introduced Forté to Martha's Vineyard in 1998. There he met the photographer Lara Fuller, whom he'd marry and share two children with: Wren, 10, and Hale, 7.
Reflecting on the music he'd most recently been at work on, Forté told Martha's Vineyard Arts & Ideas in 2024, "It feels like a time capsule for my children. I make music now that I really want my kids to like, when they’re able to receive it."
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
