Who Is Gilbere Forté?

Meet the rapper behind "Pray."

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Born in Michigan and raised in Philly, 25-year-old Gilbere Forté has been in the music industry for years. While majoring at entrepreneurism at Temple University, Gilbere landed an internship at a local studio. That's where he met the mentors that would guide him to the career he has today.

After he met producer, Raak, during his freshman year, the two started working on the music that would end up on the mixtapes 87 Dreams, Eyes of Veritas. The final chapter of the trilogy, PRAY, dropped in full last month.

Forté, who was previously signed to Universal Motown, just joined Anigma/Epic earlier this year, and is on his way to big things in music, movies, and the industry overall. We spoke with him right after PRAY dropped last month to find out just exactly Who Is Gilbere Forté?

As told to Lauren Nostro (@LAURENcynthia)

RELATED: Listen: Gilbere Forté "Pray"

Growing Up

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Gilbere Forté: “Being born in Flint, Michigan, you just want to have the normal kid life. I grew up in a single-parent home. I lived in a city where a bulk of my mom’s side of the family lives, so I was surrounded by all my little cousins. I never had to worry about having friends because I had my cousins around me. Flint’s a very rugged place and my mom was very fortunate to get us up out [of there]. We randomly moved to Chicago for a little bit before bouncing back and forth to Michigan before Philadelphia."


 

In high school, I felt like I was so ahead of my class. There were subjects that I thought that I didn’t even need to know when I grew up.


 

“I was the kid that was cool with everyone. My friends who wanted to be extra hood, I was accepted by them and still accepted by the kids who were just cool just in their own space. I was able to relate to everyone and that kept me balanced during my high school years. I look at my high school years the same way I look at college.

"I only went to college for two years because I felt like I got everything I needed to know. In high school, I felt like I was so ahead of my class. There were subjects that I thought that I didn’t even need to know when I grew up. I see my mom doing her taxes and she’s doing simple mathematics and I’m like, ‘Why do I need to know trigonometry?’ In those classes, I literally just slept and skipped them. But I was able to pass those classes because all the teachers thought I was charming.”

Early Inspirations in Music and Movies

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Gilbere Forté: “As a child, I remember my mom and dad playing a bunch of soulful music, of course, but what I noticed was the Hall and Oates and Phil Collins records, too. I was fortunate enough to be exposed at an early age to stuff that goes on in the East Coast, the West Coast, and in the South, because when you’re in the Midwest, you’re pulling from everything. I had the privilege of being introduced to Notorious B.I.G., Master P, while also listening to Death Row, and the Geto Boys. I was familiar with all that music as I was continuing to grow.


 

It was a thrill watching these mystery movies and then I noticed the music and I’m like, ‘How does this music make these scenes have more impact? How can I remember a scene verbatim from a movie I saw as a child?’


 

"Music was an inspiration but so were movies. My parents were very big on movies so they’d make me watch everything whether it’s rated R or a horror film—everything. I had to sit there and absorb all of it. I thought there was something just so amazing about them.

"As a kid, it’s just pictures, people talking, saying big words and cursing. It was a thrill watching these movies that had mysteries to them and then I noticed the music and I’m like, ‘How does this music make these scenes that have more impact? How can I remember a scene verbatim from a movie I saw as a child?’ I could still think of something just like that because I remember the music and I carry that with me up until the point where I wanted to start creating music in high school."

Starting to Produce and the Influence of Kanye West

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Gilbere Forté: “I was introduced to programs like Fruity Loops and Reason to start making beats. I’d play my beats for people in high school and people would be like, ‘These are cool, but they sound like they should go to a movie. No one can rap on this stuff, no one can sing on this stuff.’ I said, ‘I’m gonna fucking prove you wrong one day.’ I tried to really go out there with my beats to different producer conferences and play my stuff and I would get the same responses.


 

I always had aspirations to be an artist. What set that up for me was when I was in high school, I remember seeing Kanye go from being a producer to an artist. I felt like I could relate to him.


 

“When I got to college, I met Raak. Me and Raak became close friends over the first two years of college—he was also producing and I had my secret little musical scoring beats. We would always battle each other and it got to a point where we just sat down in a room and we decided to work on some stuff just for fun. I always had aspirations to be an artist. What set that up for me was when I was in high school, I remember seeing Kanye go from being a producer to an artist. I felt like I could relate to him because he was from the Midwest, had a single-parent home, had similar interests. He had that creative frame of mind. I said, ‘One day, I want to do that in my own way.’ That was my game plan."

The Importance of Internships

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Gilbere Forté: “Getting into Temple University was a new step for me. I’m living on my own, still into production, but going through the woes of people not wanting to rap or sing on my music. I studied entrepreneurship, it was the smallest major at my university. During the first two years, I got my own internship with this recording studio in Philly called Studio 609 and it was with Dre & Vidal, who are Grammy Award-winning producers.


 

An internship at a recording studio is probably the best experience anyone should try to have if they want to get into the business. I was in so many different situations: Fights, conversations, contracts, deal points.


 

"An internship at a recording studio is probably the best experience anyone should try to have if they want to get into the business. I was in so many different situations: Fights, conversations, contracts, deal points. I’m absorbing all of this but my duties were to take out the trash and open the door for people.

“Through the internship, I soaked up all this information but I wanted to apply it to my life. Raak and I started recording more and he said, ‘This is just incredible. You ever thought about taking this seriously?’ My goal was to be successful through my production and hopefully scoring something. We were putting together something very great.

“At the time, I got a chance to work for a street wear brand called UNDRCRWN. I met the creative director when I was working at Adidas on South Street in Philadelphia. Everyone would come into the studio I was interning at in Adidas tracksuits everyday, so I thought if I got a job at Adidas that they would recognize me as the kid from the studio. That’s what happened. I became everyone’s golden child, so they kept me around. I was in every studio room from that point on and people wanted me to sit around and soak in information.

”I pulled Dre to the side one day and showed him some of my beats. He was like, ‘This shit is really good. I’d love to hear more.' Everything was shaping and coming together in 2007 when I made the decision to pull away from school to start looking into working on music. I feel like I will finish at some point. If fucking David Robinson can do it, then I can do it.”


 

Everyone would come into the studio I was interning at in Adidas tracksuits everyday, so I thought if I got a job at Adidas that they would recognize me as the kid from the studio. That’s what happened.


 

“My mentors at the time included Marc Byers who was managing Dre & Vidal. Him and his brother Sherman taught me to keep it witty and to think fast on my feet when it came to a business setting. I met another guy by the name of Set Free. When I was working for UNDRCRWN, he was doing marketing for UNDRCRWN and he schooled me on how to intertwine a clothing brand and an artist. There were other people along the way, too, but those two people gave me enough information to get started in the industry.”

I knew in the back of my mind that if I ever played [my mentors] my music, they’d give it a genuine listen. We put the project together and I had my mentors come over to listen. They didn’t even know I was working on music, so I completely blindsided them. They were like, ‘So you’ve been in the studio as an intern throwing away old weed, washing the floors, ordering pizza and running to the ATM to get money for the weed man, but you’re absorbing all this information and you’re crafting this music?’"

His First Music Video for “Black Chukkas”

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Gilbere Forté: “During my time at UNDRCRWN, I met the director Chris Robinson, who happened to be close friends with Set Free. I didn’t know about music at the time I met Chris. When I made this record called “Black Chukkas,” I made it because I liked wearing Vans. Set linked me up with Chris and I sat down at his house and we put together a concept for the video. It was going be my first look to the world, but I wanted it so no one would see me until the end of the video.


 

When I made this record called “Black Chukkas,” I just made it because I liked wearing Vans at the time.


 

"I was like, ‘Let’s shoot this video from the perspective of my feet, so let’s show a day in the life of me running around in my black chukkas.’ We were in Los Angeles and a lot of my friends in L.A. didn’t even know I was making music. I had them participating in the video too. Everyone was taken back like, ‘How is this happening?’

"The video came out great and “Black Chukkas” was the first thing to kick it off. I remember releasing that record on a little EP project I did with this brand called Black Scale in 2010, before 87 Dreams even came out, called Gilbere Forte is Blvck."

His Mixtape 87 Dreams

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Gilbere Forté: 87 Dreams, my first mixtape, was a result of having the resources to help my music get in front of some people, to open up an introduction. I’ve payed attention, I’ve watched all of [VH1's "Behind The Music"], I’ve seen backstage, I’ve watched the shows. I wanted to figure out a way to do it where no one can look at it as being mediocre, but as being next-level. There was a lot of great music out, and I was like, ‘Now it’s my time to put this shit out.’ I said to Raak, ‘Watch how we’re gonna release this one project and it’s going to bring a lot of attention that we’ve never imagined.'


 

What I noticed after listening back was how meticulous I was making sure that each track had a different emotion. I wanted every song to have a different emotion, therefore every listener has a reason to like it.


 

“Within a week, my mentors were like, ‘This is what you do next: You drop a freestyle, but it’s gotta be crazy because obviously, your name is not common. Who the fuck is Gilbere Forte? He sounds like an actor or he writes novels. I did my first freestyle on a record that was supposed to be for Diddy on his Last Train to Paris album and it was a leak on a DJ Big Mike mixtape. It had a hidden verse on the song from Kanye and because it was a leak, it was only a minute long, so Raak cuts a couple clips from it and restructures it to where it sounds like the original instrumental.

"That freestyle ended up being the first piece that opened it up for me. I remember it landing on AllHipHop.com and that was a record that got a lot of people like, ‘Who the fuck is this kid? it’s all over the blogs!’ I just started to consecutively release freestyles just to open up opportunities in Fall 2009. 87 Dreams was set to release in July 2010 and I went to New York, met a bunch of people.

“With my first project, I thought about if I were to have the time and opportunity to direct a movie, it’s going to be called 87 Dreams. I’m gonna make one fucking movie and it’s going to be 17 tracks and it’s going to be everything. What I noticed after listening back was how meticulous I was making sure that each track had a different emotion, therefore every listener has a reason to like it.

"At the time, I told Raak to just trust my vision and watch how everything plays out. I told him, ‘This project is going to get us a deal, just wait and see.” I started to make a lot of connections with people and we got to the point where I got a production deal, I got a management crew, then I released 87 Dreams.”

Getting Signed and Leaving Universal Motown

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Gilbere Forté: “Label calls were coming in right after I released 87 Dreams. I told myself there was going to be one project and that hopefully, I can get into a situation where people will respect the vision, see where I’m trying to go with my music and give me the platform.


 

I felt like a dream was put in front of you, you signed up for it and now someone says, ‘Hey! Just put my contract in the shredder.’


 

"When those calls started to come in, I was meeting with every label in New York and I’m meeting with the big A&Rs. I’m like, ‘I’ve read about these guys, I’ve fucking seen them on VH1’s Behind the Music.’ When we were getting through all the label talks, I was doing some showcases in Fall 2010. It was between Republic and Motown and at the top of 2011, I decided to go with Universal Motown, which is with Sylvia Rhone.

“I’ve heard all of these amazing stories about her. It’s important that they were able to get my vision. What I got from being around her was a lot of interesting knowledge about how to prepare myself for the next phase of really being with a major label.

"It was unfortunate that she ended up leaving the company and her staff also left. It was in the first four months of my deal. Then, I was in the position that I read about in the 1999 issue of The Source magazine ‘The Artist Gets Left at the Label and Gets Shelved,’ or the new boss comes over and says, 'I don’t know you, I don’t know anything about you, I can care less, get off the label.'


 

I wanted to just jump out there but I told Raak, ‘We’re gonna go back to your mom’s basement and we’re just gonna keep working.’"


 

“I felt like a dream was put in front of you, you signed up for it, and now someone says, ‘Hey! Just put my contract in the shredder.’ I felt like I’ve worked so hard to be able to live out my imagination. If I didn’t attain these things from my imagination, I wasn’t doing myself a good service.

“I fought hard to get out of that contract for almost about six months. They were trying to move me to Def Jam and I didn’t know if that’s where I need to be. Overall, I was able to make it out of that situation and but then it was back to square one.

"My project Eyes of Veritas was out in Summer 2011 and I was like, ‘Shit, everyone’s so fucking excited about 87 Dreams, everyone’s so excited about Eyes of Veritas, no one knew I had a deal.’ I wanted to just jump out there but I told Raak, ‘We’re gonna go back to your mom’s basement and we’re just gonna keep working.’"

Linking Up With French Producer Bob Sinclar

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Gilbere Forté: “After leaving Universal Motown, I was working with a smaller booking agency and I went out on a college tour. A bunch of us we were packed in a little van and we did 40 to 50 tour dates. I get a call from Bob Sinclar and tells me he really liked a song that I had put out eight months prior, and that he wants to do a remix to it.


 

I get a call from Bob Sinclar and tells me he really liked a song that, at the time, I put out eight months prior, and that he wants to do a remix to it.


 

“Bob Sinclar is sending me music that he wants me to work on so I work with Raak on the records. While I’m on this college tour, Bob tells me he’s playing at Amnesia in Miami and that he wanted me to come perform the songs I was working on with him. There was a remix I did on “Alors On Danse” by Stromae and Kanye. He was like, “I want you to perform that song and I want you to perform the records that we did.”

"We go to Amnesia and there’s hundreds of people. I hopped on this stage, it was about 20 feet high, I’m standing out and looking down at the crowd—Bob starts turning on the record and I remember just performing this song that me and him were working on at the time called “Around the World.” We were kicking it a little bit there and he had to leave Miami and that’s when I left to go back on tour.


 

It was crazy but it was mad inspirational. It was a moment for me that everything is still possible.


 

“Later on, I went to Paris to meet up with Bob, again. I did a small tour run with him with records that were on the project and I’m was on one of the biggest radio stations in France. It was crazy but it was mad inspirational. It was a moment for me that everything is still possible. For me to have this opportunity to take myself away from what I’ve been seeing for the past two and a half years to see a whole different light and have a driver pick you up from the airport and at one point, he had me sleeping literally on his couch, it was crazy. After that, I came back and I was going back and forth to L.A.”

Working On His PRAY EP

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Gilbere Forté: “Long story short, I did the college tour run, and then it was 2012. I had released a project called Some Dreams Never Sleep. It was a record where things didn’t go as planned, but dreams don’t die. At the time, I was just going through the motions and just as a human being, I was just figuring myself out going through the phases of life—not having any money, still wanting to make this music and trying to afford it, going to Raak’s house all fucking day.


 

It was a record where things didn’t go as planned but dreams don’t die. I can tell myself in my projects to remind myself what I’m trying to get to at the end of the day.


 

“At the time, Raak was in Philly and I was in L.A. It was like a separation period so I’m learning new things. After a lot of shit happened for me, I came back to Philly and Raak made PRAY. We cut that record the end of Summer 2012. I went through so many different emotions from being broke, heartbroken, still mourning over a father’s death and all these different things, then having the privilege of being around people who’re in another world. I was like, ‘I’m just going to allow my passion to get me back.’

“Before and after Paris, it was very dark [time]. I was losing faith in myself as a person and in music. I was like, 'Fuck you, I have an imagination that I’m living in right here. Fuck reality.' But reality was setting in, so this particular project allowed me to evoke a lot of emotion that I consider now being dead weight. We were all depressed and I told Raak to trust my vision. 'The same way we set up 87 Dreams, watch how we set up PRAY.' 


 

Sometimes when you really believe that your imagination is real and you just make that shit your reality, nothing else matters. I met with L.A. Reid, and I signed to Epic Records.

 

"It was me finally in my skin and comfortable beyond anything I could ever imagine. I was more aware of how I wanted to see a structure for myself business wise going into this phase and having this new, refreshing music. I know people are going to appreciate it because it’s finally everything I always wanted to do.

“The features on this project are very minimal. It’s my reintroduction but also, the space I’ve always wanted to be in. A good friend of mine goes by the name of Active Child and he was one of the main features on the project. We did this record called “Nolita,” there’s a record called “Forever Sin,” and the other two features were my homegirl Nylo, who’s amazing, and another good friend of mine by the name of De Carlo. I wanted to keep it very minimal, but show a range of artists that I want the light on.”

“When you believe that your imagination is real and you make it your reality, nothing else matters. I met with L.A. Reid, and I signed to Epic Records. What I noticed about that label is that there wasn’t any artist doing what I was trying to do. It's the perfect home for me to be able to embark on what I always wanted to do."

What's In His Future

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Gilbere Forté: “My view moving forward is working with obscure people that I think people should be listening to. That will be what determines my future collaborations. I’ve gotten some calls to work on other people’s projects but I really want to focus on the light that stands before this one.

"I’m going to work on getting more music visuals out for this to complete the vision for this project. I’ve been given the blessing from my label to allow me to focus on this project before starting my major album because I want to make sure people know who I am before I even press that button.


 

I’m a huge fan of Lana Del Ray. I would love to see what I could put together with her. The same goes for Florence and the Machine.


 

"I’m a huge fan of Lana Del Rey. I would love to see what I could put together with her. The same goes for Florence and the Machine. Another dream is to have Jay-Z in one of my sessions, whether we collaborate or not. I’m looking into trying to work with some older cats that I grew up listening to because I still want to educate the youth. My son will never know who Sting is.

“Right now, Pray allows me to feel like a chapter in my life is complete. I feel restored now that I’m no longer sitting with this music in my iTunes. It’s out now and I’m just really interested to see how people will receive this body of work. It feels like things are very much so in place and the universe is doing what it needs to do for me. I want to score a movie and direct, so like I said, I gave myself to my passion which is music first. That’s going to bring me to the dream."

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