By Alex Kurtz, Sports Editor
September 7, 2018: recording artist Mac Miller was found dead in his home of a drug overdose. Many across the country mourned his death and were haunted by the thought that a man who had brought so much originality and character to the rap industry was gone in an instant.
One of those people was recording artist Nick Forbes.
“It was like losing a close friend,” Forbes said. “You don’t think that a person who hasn’t spoken a word to you can mean that much, but his lyrics always spoke to me in a way that was bigger than music and really helped me when I needed it.”
“I think from a music perspective we were all in shock,” said Forbes’ friend Liz Hammond. “I think that Nick is always going to grieve [Mac’s] death.”
Forbes is a senior sports media major at Susquehanna, and although he’s working on his degree, his true love lies in music. He uses his last name, Forbes, as his stage name, and has performed in the area around campus, where he hopes to do the same thing as his now-late idol.
“We had a similar background growing up,” Forbes said. “When [Mac] released his backpack rap, it showed us that we all could make music, that I could make music.”
That was important to him, as his childhood was the opposite of what most rappers have.
Forbes was born in Quincy, Mass. and lived there until the age of four when his family moved to Colorado for two years, then finally to Middletown, Md. While no longer in the Boston area, Forbes still considers himself “from Boston,” and shows it with his love for New England sports.
He spent 12 years in Middletown, which was not exactly the booming metropolis that most successful rap stars seem to come from. The 2010 census reported that the population of the town was 4,138.
“It’s a small farm town,” Forbes said. “We’re talking like two-stoplights-and-Friday-night-lights-are-the-most-important-thing kind of town.” Football, as with most small towns, draws in most kids like religion, and he was no different. During Forbes’ time on the sidelines, the creative seeds were planted.
“While I was younger, I listened to a lot of rap music on the sidelines before games to get hyped,” Forbes said. “I could listen to it there because my parents were not the most approving of the music.”
By doing that, he discovered a whole new world of emotional connection to music and put the wheels in motion for his future music career.
Forbes would continue to play football throughout middle and high school, where he would win three-straight Maryland state titles that spanned from his freshman to junior year. Going into his freshman year at Susquehanna, he decided to hang up his cleats, thanks in part to four concussions during his playing days.
After Forbes stopped playing football, he would fall back on his second love: rap.
While at Susquehanna, a friend of his encouraged Forbes to try and record some tracks.
“I always loved hip hop and listened to music devoutly, but during my freshman year of college I started writing my own lyrics,” Forbes said.
“My friend hooked me up with some recording equipment from a guy he knew and I recorded my first song.”
Forbes’ first few songs were never released, but he eventually found a break over the summer in the form of his first track. In the time between his freshman and sophomore year, he recorded “301 Reppin,” which currently has around 11,000 views.
“I still get 12 plays a day on it and I’m like, ‘How?’” Forbes said. “This is the shittiest track out.”
Those words are from Forbes’ worst critic: himself, but he’s not alone. Getting involved in the rap game comes with hate from others who can attempt to smother your creative flame before it really gets to burn.
“I got all the usual criticism when I started,” Forbes said.
“‘Oh, you’re a white rapper,’ ‘Oh, you’re from a small town, what do you know about rap.’ As an artist, you are drawn to your strictest critiques.”
Yet the support came in from the most unexpected places, including his parents and girlfriend Erin Riley.
“It really meant a lot,” Forbes said. “I used to have to sneak out to record, but once they saw how happy making music made me feel, they were completely behind it.”
“[When] we dated and I found out the background stories of what inspired him in the songs is really what made me love it,” Riley said. “I see how passionate he is about it and how he comes up with it so naturally.”
Being able to devote time as an artist was big for him and then he got to experience a new world while studying abroad in Italy during his junior year.
“I was constantly in search of inspiration and the feeling of being completely new to the region on top of being in an unfamiliar place really allowed me to connect to something more,” Forbes said.
This inspiration eventually led to the song “Jet Planes and Goodbyes,” which was written after returning home from the semester-long trip.
“I started writing once I got back home to America and I saw a bunch of planes flying overhead and that gave me inspiration,” Forbes said. “What if those people were in the same situation as me? What stories could they tell?”
The song was one of few things to come from his own Italian renaissance.
“I was around all these incredible things: clothes, architecture and the rich culture,” he said. “It was a huge inspiration for content.”
Forbes has released multiple songs and an EP and plans on performing more, in addition to working on unreleased tracks.
“We currently have plans to perform at a house show every month, … I should be involved in a lot of them,” Forbes said. At a house show in September, Forbes was a part of a set that included other bands from campus, including the band BrokenStar. Lead singer Seth Schilling noted what Forbes brought to the table when he performed.
“Nick performed some originals and really set a good tone for the rest of the show,” Schilling said. “Transitioning from the band to his set really let the place vibe.”
While still small on the grand scale of artists, the sky is the limit and Forbes sits in the pilot seat of his own musical career.
Not too bad for a kid from a two-stoplight town.
