Biography
Sean Forbes stands out among hip-hop performers as a Detroit native who channels his profound deafness into creating space for hard-of-hearing listeners within mainstream music. Born on February 5, 1982, in Detroit, Michigan, he entered a household steeped in melody, where his father performed with a local country-rock band and his mother accompanied on piano, surrounding him and his siblings with daily exposure to sound. Spinal meningitis struck when he was just a few months old, stripping away nearly all his hearing—he places the loss at roughly 90 percent—yet he retained the ability to sense vibrations through his hands and body, prompting his family to recognize an innate rhythmic sensitivity. While still in grade school he mastered drums and guitar, assembled a group with his siblings, and began composing original material.
Following graduation he enrolled at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and earned a multidisciplinarian degree covering management, accounting, and communications. An engineering internship in Chicago brought an offer of graduate funding, which he declined in favor of pursuing a career as a rock star, telling a reporter, “He laughed at me right there. And I was kind of saying it in like a jokingly manner, but I was also pretty serious about it ’cause I knew that was what I wanted.” During a visit to a Detroit recording studio he started layering rhymes over a demo of beats created by Jake Bass, son of producer Jeff Bass, and soon secured a recording agreement with Web Entertainment Records, the label operated by Jeff Bass and his brother Mark Bass. Working alongside Jake, Forbes crafted tracks that accommodated his dual approach to delivery, rapping both aloud and through American Sign Language.
In partnership with deaf filmmaker Adrean Mangiardi he produced several music videos, among them one for “Let’s Mambo” that starred Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin. The year 2012 saw the arrival of his debut album, Perfect Imperfection, issued with an accompanying DVD containing videos for seven songs so that both deaf and hearing audiences could fully experience the project. Beyond performing and working as a motivational speaker and advocate, Forbes established D-PAN, the Deaf Professional Arts Network, an organization that supports hearing-impaired musicians and creates American Sign Language interpretations of popular tracks by artists including Imagine Dragons, John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, and the White Stripes. Reflecting on the White Stripes collaboration during a 2012 interview, he observed, “It was the first time that we had an artist actually really help us. That’s what we want—to share your music with a community of 30 million people. That’s how many are missing out on your material.”
Following graduation he enrolled at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and earned a multidisciplinarian degree covering management, accounting, and communications. An engineering internship in Chicago brought an offer of graduate funding, which he declined in favor of pursuing a career as a rock star, telling a reporter, “He laughed at me right there. And I was kind of saying it in like a jokingly manner, but I was also pretty serious about it ’cause I knew that was what I wanted.” During a visit to a Detroit recording studio he started layering rhymes over a demo of beats created by Jake Bass, son of producer Jeff Bass, and soon secured a recording agreement with Web Entertainment Records, the label operated by Jeff Bass and his brother Mark Bass. Working alongside Jake, Forbes crafted tracks that accommodated his dual approach to delivery, rapping both aloud and through American Sign Language.
In partnership with deaf filmmaker Adrean Mangiardi he produced several music videos, among them one for “Let’s Mambo” that starred Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin. The year 2012 saw the arrival of his debut album, Perfect Imperfection, issued with an accompanying DVD containing videos for seven songs so that both deaf and hearing audiences could fully experience the project. Beyond performing and working as a motivational speaker and advocate, Forbes established D-PAN, the Deaf Professional Arts Network, an organization that supports hearing-impaired musicians and creates American Sign Language interpretations of popular tracks by artists including Imagine Dragons, John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, and the White Stripes. Reflecting on the White Stripes collaboration during a 2012 interview, he observed, “It was the first time that we had an artist actually really help us. That’s what we want—to share your music with a community of 30 million people. That’s how many are missing out on your material.”
Albums