{"id":406765,"date":"2026-01-14T14:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/406765\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T14:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:20:08","slug":"rapper-john-forte-found-dead-at-age-50-worked-with-fugees-wyclef-jean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/406765\/","title":{"rendered":"Rapper John Forte found dead at age 50; worked with Fugees, Wyclef Jean"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"KKGE35TXBNEO3NPK7JEPMQRT6A\">NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 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. He was found dead Monday afternoon in his home in Chilmark, Massachusetts, according to police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"NX5PXDL6VBFVRAJ2QIKAHF73UM\">Chilmark Police Chief Sean Slavin said in a statement that there were no signs of foul play or \u201creadily apparent cause of death.\u201d The case is being investigated by the state medical examiner\u2019s office, according to Slavin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"FYLWUQQDR5F4ZKL5FOYHEP3XVU\">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 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=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"TIGPOVAFK5ERNPQUIQQZKVBGKU\">In 2000, he was arrested at Newark International Airport and charged with possession of liquid cocaine and drug trafficking. Fort\u00e9 was sentenced to 14 years in prison, but the sentence was commuted after seven years by President George W. Bush. Simon was among many public figures who advocated for his release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"6T44R35TKNBZXIDRQRY6Z6EGDM\">Survivors include his wife, the photographer Lara Fuller, and two children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 John Fort\u00e9, the Grammy-nominated musician known for his work with the Fugees and the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-406765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}