{"id":233103,"date":"2026-01-14T17:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T17:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/233103\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T17:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T17:32:14","slug":"grammy-nominated-musician-john-forte-found-dead-at-50-in-massachusetts-home-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/233103\/","title":{"rendered":"Grammy-nominated musician John Fort\u00e9 found dead at 50 in Massachusetts home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">John Fort\u00e9, the Grammy-nominated musician known for his work with the Fugees and the Refugee Camp All-Stars among others, has died at age 50.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He was found dead Monday afternoon in his home in Chilmark, Massachusetts, according to police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Chilmark Police Chief Sean Slavin said in a statement that there were no signs of foul play or \u201creadily apparent cause of death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"John Fort\u00e9, the Grammy-nominated musician known for his work with the Fugees and the Refugee Camp All-Stars among others, has died at age 50. Getty Images\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"681\" height=\"1023\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1e556053c27276945964c76df581fcbb.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>John Fort\u00e9, the Grammy-nominated musician known for his work with the Fugees and the Refugee Camp All-Stars among others, has died at age 50. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The case is being investigated by the state medical examiner\u2019s office, according to Slavin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A native of New York City, Fort\u00e9 was a musical prodigy who broke through in his early 20s as a contributor to the Fugees\u2019 Grammy-winning \u201cThe Score\u201d and to Wyclef Jean\u2019s Grammy-nominated \u201cThe Carnival.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A multi-instrumentalist and rapper, he also released such solo albums as \u201cPoly Sci\u201d and \u201cI John,\u201d with contributors including Carly Simon, whose son, Ben Taylor, was a close friend of Fort\u00e9\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In 2000, he was arrested at Newark International Airport and charged with possession of liquid cocaine and drug trafficking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Fort\u00e9 was sentenced to 14 years in prison, but the sentence <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2008\/12\/22\/rapper-is-free-to-yo\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:was commuted after seven years;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">was commuted after seven years<\/a> by President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Fort\u00e9 was found dead Monday afternoon in his home in Chilmark, Massachusetts. Getty Images\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/651143dea7a3fbadbdf81066b76f7717.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Fort\u00e9 was found dead Monday afternoon in his home in Chilmark, Massachusetts. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"A multi-instrumentalist and rapper, he also released such solo albums as \u201cPoly Sci\u201d and \u201cI John,\u201d with contributors including Carly Simon, whose son, Ben Taylor, was a close friend of Fort\u00e9\u2019s. Getty Images\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"636\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ecf2632bf6d9017962412fc6c3acb7eb.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>A multi-instrumentalist and rapper, he also released such solo albums as \u201cPoly Sci\u201d and \u201cI John,\u201d with contributors including Carly Simon, whose son, Ben Taylor, was a close friend of Fort\u00e9\u2019s. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Simon was among many public figures who advocated for his release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Survivors include his wife, the photographer Lara Fuller, and two children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Fort\u00e9, the Grammy-nominated musician known for his work with the Fugees and the Refugee Camp All-Stars among&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[138252,136041,137892,156,3714,129985,137889,5002,157,111,139,69,137891],"class_list":{"0":"post-233103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ben-taylor","9":"tag-carly-simon","10":"tag-chilmark","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-getty-images","13":"tag-grammy-nominated","14":"tag-john-forte","15":"tag-massachusetts","16":"tag-music","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-refugee-camp-all-stars"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}