Sotto Forté

This interview was published in Arts & Ideas, a publication by The Martha’s Vineyard Times, in 2024. After the tragic news of John Forté’s death at the start of 2026, we wanted to republish the piece on what would have been Forté’s 51st birthday to our main website with more of the accompanying photographs by Robyn Twomey. The original piece can be read here.

Interviewed by John Battelle

John Forté has made his home on Martha’s Vineyard for nearly a decade, but he’s been in love with the Island since his first visit back in 1998, when he came with a friend who just happened to be Ben Taylor, son of Island legends Carly Simon and James Taylor. Beyond a star turn with the Fugees and releasing four albums of his own, Forté has collaborated with a broad spectrum of musical talent, many of them household names — beyond Simon and Ben Taylor, he’s worked with Herbie Hancock, DMX, and even Michael Jackson.

Fresh from his 1996 success as a producer and contributor to the Fugees’ ground-breaking and runaway hit album “The Score,” Forté began building a promising solo career. His life took a dramatic turn in 2000, when he was arrested on drug charges. He served half of a fourteen-year sentence, and was pardoned by President George Bush at the urging of many of his supporters in the music world, including Simon, the woman he calls his “second mama.” Today, Forté splits his time between writing new music, composing for film and television, and collaborating with a dizzyingly diverse group of musicians, many of whom are also Islanders. He will be touring with Lauryn Hill and the Fugees later this summer and fall.

JB: Before we get into your connection to the Island and your musical legacy, I want to start with what you’re working on now. You’ve been in the studio most of the past winter, no?

JF: Yeah, working on something for HBO — “Eyes On the Prize” — an awardwinning series that began on PBS in the 80s. It chronicles the Black experience in America in the wake of the Civil Rights era. 

It’s moved to HBO?

Yeah, I spent much of last year working on it. The time frame is 1979 to 2012. I was born in 1975. So it almost seemed autobiographical. It was a real honor to do that. It was kind of a big deal for me — it feels like something that one day my kids will be able to tune into when the time is right.

Scoring a full series like that, was that a new experience?

It was definitely the largest project that I had done — just because of the sheer scope of it, six episodes, six different editorial teams. As soon as I finished up music for one episode, and I think I can take a nap, the director from another episode was looking for their music. It nearly killed me, but that which does not kill you makes you stronger.

I’ve seen you at work in your studio, the amount of technology on hand, all those screens. It’s like you’re in wizard mode. With the rise of AI tools — have you incorporated them into your work?

Being surrounded by screens all the time, I had every opportunity to opt in to AI — whether it was ChatGPT, or all the platforms that are giving us AI. I certainly read about it and I monitored it and I watched it. But I resisted it. What unnerved me was the implicit biases that were baked into the technology, biases we can’t get around. So I was resistant for a long time.

But then something changed?

The platform that I work in, where I do the lion’s share of everything, is Logic Pro. They are doing a big update. Obviously, they’re going to have some AI features. I went down the rabbit hole. They had these virtual players, right? And so the virtual players were largely AI, but in the song-creating process, that represents an initial input. I’m going to lay down, say, a bass guitar, and then I’m gonna lay down an acoustic guitar, and then a drum track. But then they also had AI tools for the mastering — when the song is done, and you’re getting ready to play it for others. You need to make sure that it’s amplified in the right way, all of the frequencies are working correctly. Mastering has for decades — since the inception of recorded music — it’s been a human art.

Like the final edit on a piece of writing.

Exactly. And now, with the mastering tools (in Logic Pro 11)… my goodness. It’s the click of a button. It’s analyzing your song and what used to take hours, within seconds now you have a mastered, full, robust-sounding song. Once it does the analysis, then you have all the power in the world, to do it all or a little, postmastering manipulations as you’d like.

How much do you use “real instruments” in your process? Like with the bass line, or drums?

Prior to this update, I recorded all of my instrumentation. So if I wanted to deliver a song idea, the process was, I hear a song in my head, I’m going to develop that song until it’s as close as possible to how I’d like to present it — something that will get us in the neighborhood, but then I’ll give it to a player who knows what to do with it. Same thing with my keyboard arrangements, and the drum programming is an art form for me.

That’s how you first got into the music business, right? Making beats in collaboration with others when you were a teenager?

Yeah, that was the beginning for me, making beats on my way to learning how to play the guitar and learning how to compose. But my first instrument was the violin, so I had classical theory at the foundation of everything. I wasn’t necessarily a player that didn’t happen until many many years later. In fact, it was when I was in prison that I picked up a guitar and learned how to play and accompany myself. Before that, I always needed a DJ. But in the beginning, I made beats, and I was in the studio with DJ Premiere, Gangstar. Premiere is a legend, but I was blessed at 14, 15 years old to just be invited to the studio to just hang out and watch his process.

How does that compare to what you do now, using the virtual instrument players — can you get to a sound, to the thing you hear in your head, faster?

It’s phenomenal. The magic and the beauty for me is that they are tools. It’d be one thing if I just use them on their own, which I’m not tempted to. When I marry the virtual instrumentation with what I do — you know, my unique sound, and how I’m playing something, how I’m strumming something…

Do they respond like musicians would respond?

Not intuitively necessarily. But, you know, where you start, is closer than it’s ever been. The ability to get the performance that you want is closer if you know how to use that tool. I mean, the music that I’m making now feels sexier than I’ve made in decades.

Now it’s just got more flow?

That’s exactly right. The ability to just optimally, efficiently get in and get out. And then you know, enjoy this thing called life, right? And hang out with my kids, play poker with friends. I feel more capable, I feel more empowered to do my job.

Let’s pull back to that larger picture, your life here on the Island. I came to know you because of our mutual friends Dave Sayer and Gogo Ferguson; your studio is in their basement. You were the guy who I saw every so often emerge from that studio.

Coming up the stairs. Yeah, exactly.

I always wondered, how did you end up here? What was your journey to Martha’s Vineyard as a place to live and work?

I didn’t anticipate living and working here. I was introduced to the Island in the late 90s by Ben Taylor. One weekend he says “Hey, I want you to come home to my place.” I thought he meant the Upper West Side, but he meant the Vineyard. So that resulted in me spending most of that summer up here. I fell in love with the place, I was really feeling that sense of community.
After that, I went away. I went to prison from 2001 to 2008. I was supposed to be there until 2014. But it was largely Carly’s activism that garnered me an early release. And so naturally, after I came home and got back on my feet, even though I was living in New York, I would come up to the Vineyard whenever I could. It still had that gravity. And you know, Carly and Ben. They’re family.

How did you meet Ben?

It’s a great story. We had a mutual friend in the music industry, Karen Rachtman. It’s been misreported that Ben and I met while we were at Exeter. But that wasn’t the case. We didn’t meet until, you know, years later, through Karen, who was the music supervisor on “Pulp Fiction,” among many other things.

Man, you could die happy if that’s the only credit you have, right?

After she did that she could essentially do anything she wanted to. I ended up working with her on the Warren Beatty film “Bulworth.” I ended up doing a song on that soundtrack. One day, she calls me out of the blue, “Oh, I got this guy, singer songwriter, you’re going to love him. His name is Ben Taylor, I’m gonna send you his cassette.” I didn’t listen to it for months. When I did, I couldn’t get past the first song. I called Karen — “Karen, I’m just listening to the demo and I can’t get past the first song. It’s incredible.” And she says “Well, you’re in luck. Because Ben is in New York right now.” And she connected us. And I remember driving up to this place on the Upper West Side. I was listening to Sara McLachlan, her new album. And I pick up Ben. And he was just listening to Jay Z’s new album.

Well there you go.

We had this instant appreciation for the other’s contribution, right? He’s a singer songwriter who’s playing guitar, and you know, I’m this guy making beats. And the synergy was instant and lifelong.

How did you end up at Exeter in the first place?

It was academics. You know, I was a kid from Brownsville, Brooklyn. I was commuting from Brownsville to a school for the gifted and talented. One day, my guidance counselor called me in and said, “Hey, have you ever considered boarding school?” And I said, “I don’t know who you’re talking to — I’m a good kid!”

You thought it was punishment.

I thought it was reform school! Then she went into her desk, and she pulled out a brochure. And there was a river, I remember, and a little boat, and it was the most charming scene. What is this? She said, “This is high school.” What? The high schools in my neighborhood were getting metal detectors installed.

It’s a very different world — Exeter, where the elite have gone to school for centuries. You must have stood out there?

It was alienating. But there’s also an opportunity there, right? That alienation can become empowering — your ability to stand out and your ability to shine. So that was something that I learned how to navigate. Now I’ve got lifelong friends, I have godchildren who are now at Exeter. Maybe one day my kids will go there; it’s the type of place that nurtures and fosters lifelong friendships and respect for the other.

You went to prison right as your career was really taking off. How do you tell that story to the world?

I don’t ever have a setlist when I walk into a performance. Because I never know until I know, and I don’t want to ever get ahead of myself. I don’t ever want to assume that I’ve got the room figured out. It’s always different. But my story — I mean, my story is my story. But there are different aspects of it that are called to be shared at the time. I’m currently working on a film about my life.

Right, I heard that a documentary is in the works.

Yeah, I think it’s a story worth telling.

Indeed — the narrative arc, a kid from Brooklyn who ended up at Exeter, got white hot, then ended up in prison, and is now working across film, television, and live performance from the Vineyard. At what point did you decide that you were going to be based here, on the Island?

I didn’t envision myself living here. It happened very naturally, really, romantically. I met my wife in 2015. And then we had our daughter in 2017 and our son in 2020. And so we began a family here. And then COVID, which also affected and impacted the way that I was used to working. As a musician I was used to leaving the Island, checking into the mainland, being invited to perform and sing songs and play guitar, but that didn’t happen for a couple of years during COVID.

And so I had to ask myself, what am I going to do to support this studio here? Is there a scenario where I’m more of an at-home producer and composer instead of the touring singer-songwriter? And then one opportunity led to another. For two decades, I’ve been contributing to soundtracks. But scoring, scoring really happened for me because of hunkering down here on the Vineyard, being able to have a project that would require going in my studio for three months at a time.

And yet you do continue to get out into the world. You were touring with the Fugees last year, and will continue to do that — the new tour was just announced, right?

Yeah.

Compare that moment of glory on stage, where people are losing their minds, with sitting in that studio and working through scoring a scene. Those two experiences couldn’t be more different.

It feels a lot like breathing. I really love inhaling, I love exhaling. And it’s best for me to just do that dance. I could not imagine a reality where I was solely relegated to being a touring musician. I have friends who tour indefinitely, right? I have friends who live on the road. I don’t envy that life, right? There’s something really, really beautiful about getting up there and sharing your gift and receiving your flowers. But I know how exhausting that is. It’s really nice to be able to do that. But to also be able to go on the other side of that, to have these quieter, more introspective moments that allow me to dig deeper into a side of my artistry that I am convinced pushes me forward. You do anything, you get better at it. I can look back and I appreciate where I’ve been. But I love, love, love where we might go.

Talk to me a little bit about the Island music scene. Do you feel like you’re part of it? I don’t think I’d ever seen you perform here in a formal venue. There used to be the Hot Tin Roof, which Carly and many others supported back in the day. But there isn’t a place now where artists who might be performing in Boston or Providence might say, “Oh yeah, I’ll swing by and play on the Vineyard too.”

It feels like a topic of discussion every summer. How come we don’t have a venue? There are some incredibly talented musicians based on this Island. I’ve had the honor and the pleasure of sitting in with them over the years. What this Island lacks, fundamentally, is an ability to support the talent that exists here in a meaningful way. I go where the work is; the work is not here for me as a live musician. But what I can do is I can contribute to soundtracks, and I can invite some of those musicians into the projects that I’m working on, which feels like a natural way for me to honor them.

I recall watching some work you did with Harry Belafonte. Can you tell us about that?

Yeah that was not AI, that was Harry! He came into the studio and sat down with us for an afternoon and he was just singing with us. And so I have this session, an unreleased session of Harry singing along.

What are you going to do with that?

I have no idea. It’s somewhat emblematic of a lot of the work in my career. I’ve got hard drives filled with collaborations and music and people that I’ve met over the years, and some of it we’ve released, but a lot of it, we haven’t. And that’s just part of what we do. For me, they’re snapshots, they’re photographs in time, and some of those will be shared with friends and family. But I think all of them have a destiny of their own. It’s not for me to decide.

In the past, when you’ve made albums you’ve expressed frustration with the music business. Do you think in those terms, like “I have to make an album,” or is that no longer true north in the way you approach your work?

What I found myself doing most recently is honestly just feeling empowered. I’ve released a bunch of music over the years. But I’ve only officially released four albums. In between I did a bunch of singles and collaborations. In the past, if I wanted to do an album, it was like a public private partnership with the label —“Hey, I’m looking for a partner to help me land this plane.” Now I’m always writing songs. But there is a moment for me in my process where the songs that I’m working on are clearly connected. “Oh, I think I think I’m actually in the middle of an album here.” It’s funny you asked me that, because you know I’m doing two movies at the moment. And I’m also working on Peter More’s new EP, which we’re finishing up, which is beautiful.

You played some of that for me this past winter. It blew my mind.

It’s only gotten better since you’ve heard it. It’s that good. So, I feel like I have no shortage of opportunities to be creative. Sometimes the creative lens is really about me and the story that I’m telling. But most of the time, it’s like, how can I support someone else’s storytelling initiative as a producer, as a composer? And I’m fine with that.

Just just for the readers’ sake though — is there an album in the works — one that perhaps hasn’t yet presented itself to you?

I had this epiphany the other day — I was watching some things that I was working on… “Huh, Is this…? Are we…?” So, you never know.

That sounds like a better process than the way it used to be. A lot of albums got made because they were on contract, and had to be forced out of a musician.

Right. Before, the music industry was doing so much for you. But now, technology allows us to do a lot more for ourselves.

I listened to a lot of your music in preparation for this. Your latest stuff is very intimate, spare, and direct. It works in themes of justice, the Black experience in this country. When people ask you “What’s your music about,” do you have a ready answer?

The question I usually get is “What type of music do you play?”

GQ magazine called it almost folk. That’s an interesting genre to compare you to. How do you respond to that?

I say, “I make good music.” There are only two types of music, right? There’s good music and bad music. Genre is largely geography, like where we are, whether you find yourself proximate to a stringed instrument or a beat machine. But when you really unpack the stories, it’s the human experience. They could be rapped, they could be hummed, they could be strummed. But a story is a story, is a story.

What would you point the readers of this piece to if they wanted to understand where you’re coming from?

You know, I’d probably just encourage folks to work their way backwards. Start with “Vessels, Angels and Ancestors,” then go to “Riddem Drive.” You won’t find “I, John” because we only released it on CD. That was while I was away. There’s been quite a call from the community for us to re-release digitally. We are exploring that. I did that with Herbie Hancock and David Passick.

You’ve collaborated with some incredible people. Do you see that as reflective of who you are?

One hundred percent. Even though I live on an Island, I’m not an island. I could not do what I did, were it not for my community. When I think about it, I get emotional — all of the people that I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with over the years — DMX, Michael Jackson. It’s mind blowing. It really is. But the music that I think of most recently, its purpose — 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. 

John Battelle is an Island-based author, media entrepreneur, and professor. He resides in East Chop with his family.