John Forté, GRAMMY Nominee Who Worked With Fugees, Dead at 50

John Forté has died. The GRAMMY nominee died suddenly at his Martha’s Vineyard home in Chilmark, Massachusetts, on Jan. 12, MV Times reported. He was 50.

Police Chief Sean Slavin told the outlet that a neighbor discovered Forté on the kitchen floor and called 911. When officers arrived minutes later, they found that Forté was unresponsive and not breathing, the outlet reported. The musician, the outlet noted, was pronounced dead at the scene.

“There is no foul play suspected,” Slavin told the outlet, before offering a personal statement about the tragedy. “It is such a small community, this death hits close to home. It’s the upside and the downside to living on such a small Island.”

A cause of death has yet to be determined. However, according to the outlet, Forté was hospitalized after a seizure in 2025. Since then, he’d been on medication “to control the threat of a grand mal seizure,” the outlet reported.

What to Know About John Forté

Forté grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where he lived until he received a full scholarship to New Hampshire boarding school Phillips Exeter Academy, Rolling Stone reported.

After dropping out of New York University, Forté worked in A&R, met Lauryn Hill, and joined the Refugee Camp crew, the outlet reported.

He went on to work on Fugees’ 1996 album, The Score, which earned him a GRAMMY nomination.

The following year, Forté, a rapper and producer, worked with Wyclef Jean on his debut LP, The Carnival. In 1998, Forté released his debut solo album, Poly Sci.

Two years later, Forté was arrested for carrying liquid cocaine through Newark International Airport. He was convicted on intent to distribute charges and given the mandatory minimum 14 years in prison.

While in prison, he wrote and recorded his second album, I John, which featured collaborations with Carly Simon and Herbie Hancock.

While he was away, Simon, who Forté met through her son, Ben Taylor, advocated for his release. He got out in 2008 after a pardon from President George W. Bush.

After his release, Forté became a prominent member of the music scene on Martha’s Vineyard. He released his most recent album, Vessels, Angels & Ancestors, in 2021.

“There are only two types of music, right? There’s good music and bad music,” Forté told Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas in 2024. “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.” 

Forté is survived by his wife, Lara Fuller, and their two children.

Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival