Lauryn Hill has paid tribute to her old friend and creative partner John Forté after his unexpected death at age 50, calling their early friendship and shared rise in hip-hop “surreal” and unforgettable.
Ford, a Grammy-nominated producer and songwriter best known for his work with the Fugees, was found unresponsive at his home in Chilmark, Massachusetts on January 12.
A neighbor found him on the kitchen floor around 2:25 p.m. and he was pronounced dead at the scene. No signs of foul play were found and the cause of death remains under investigation by the state medical examiner.
Lauryn Hill, who introduced Forté to Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel in the early 1990s, recalls their early days together in New York, when hip-hop was still finding its voice and the Fugees were just beginning to shape their own.
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“I don’t remember the exact moment I met John Ford (or Ford as we used to call him), but I know we quickly became good friends,” Hill said in a statement. “I love him. My family loves him too.”
She recalls walking the streets of New York with Forté, both caught up in the energy of an emerging genre.
“Our generation of hip-hop is still young and in the midst of an epic rise,” she said. “We’re all there… participating and embracing it all, full of excitement and possibility.”
Born in Brooklyn in 1975, Ford is a classically trained violinist who blends his Brownsville roots with prep-school elegance.
Lauryn Hill described him as “a gentleman and scholar with strong writing, deep soul and kind heart.” She added, “Being half Brownsville, half prep school, he had the opportunity to express himself with a vocabulary and a fluency that was very rare at the time.”
Forte’s breakthrough came when Hill introduced him to the band the Fugees. He went on to co-write and produce several songs on their 1996 Grammy Award-winning album The Score, which remains one of the best-selling hip-hop albums of all time.
He has also collaborated with artists such as A Tribe Called Quest and Busta Rhymes on tracks such as “We Trying to Stay Alive” and “Rumble in the Jungle.”
Hill describes the era as cinematic.
“I remember that summer as being like a movie,” she said. “Me, Forté, Chuck and Edwin were all over New York, loving hip-hop and where it was going and where it could go.”
Their creative chemistry extends beyond music.
“We were inseparable that summer—music and fashion connoisseurs out there, looking for the best way to convey our particular consciousness within the musical landscape,” she says. “To me, our adventures are like a ’90s version of Cooley High.”
Although years passed without us meeting, Hill said Ford was on the final Miseducation – The Runaways tour and took to the stage “like time had never passed.”
They stayed in touch just weeks before his death.
“This loss is unexpected, surreal, and my heart aches … for his family, his wife, his children, his friends, and all of us who were lucky enough to know him,” Hill said. “Love you John. Rest in peace, gentle king.”
Folt is survived by his wife, photographer Lara Fuller, and their two children.
