Singer, Millie Forte, has been on my musical radar for months now. Blending electro, soul, trip-hop and dance with heartfelt lyrics about life, love and heartbreak, Millie's created an eclectic mix of compelling records in the Out music scene. A couple of weeks ago I had a phone interview with him to discuss his music, his hopes, his random experiences and his life. Here's what he shared with me.
To start off let’s talk a bit about your various aliases. You go by Millie Forte now but you’ve gone by Milano Bradley, Alti Omega, Oswald Fitzgerald, and Stinky The Love Pirate. Where do all of these names and personas come from?
They’re just random characters. Millie Forte is kind of like a summary of them all at one time so it’s just a big old happy family of randomness. *laughs* There’s no real artist, like, I wouldn’t say that the artist I am is Millie Forte. It’s just everything that I incorporate into what I do is Millie Forte.
When you were going by Alti Omega I read that you were a rapper then and now you’re style has changed. What inspired that change form Hip-Hop to what you have now?
*laughs* I realized I can’t rap *laughs* It’s not that good but I don’t really remember when I decided to switch over. It was random, as most things that I do are. I mean, I always sang. It was always something I thought I did pretty well or decent but at first I didn’t want to be a singer, I just wanted to rap. But my sister told me I couldn’t rap and that just crushed my dreams *laughs* We keep it real with each other like, "You’re horrible so just scrap it." Mind you I was like thirteen I was so young. But it’s cool.
I read that you helped form the group The Forte Fam. Was The Forte Fam a family affair?
Oh no. The Forte Fam is no blood ties. The Forte Fam is a group of us [kids] from when we were little. We lived in a little neighborhood and it was a lot of older people that lived the neighborhood. There was this old lady, she was like creole or something, I don’t know, but her name was Esther Forte and she would call all the kids living in the cul-de-sac over to her house and she would teach us all music and her last name was Forte fam. And she actually was the first person to say Millie Forte, like dub me Millie Forte I guess you could say. So the kids that I’m still in contact with that are all grown up now, we’re the Forte Fam. Like keep the little dream alive I guess. But my family, my blood family, no. My dad can sing. He’s been to the studio with me a couple of times but as far as actual family, no.
Your dad he is a singer. How has that influenced your relationship with him and your music?
I can’t say it’s influenced anything. I mean, it’s brought us closer together because my dad was incarcerated all of my life until I was 18 and that was always kind of something we always talked about when we wrote back and forth or talked on like the telephone or something. It’s just something that we had in common that’s…just…I guess use it to keep us close or something? *laughs* But, I mean, he’s interested so. I mean he’s always all ears whenever it’s something about music...I love my dad. *laughs*To kinda continue with the stories of the past I saw that you opened of for Tower Of Power and The Sugar Hill Gang. What type of impact did that have on you as an artist and a performer?
At the time I didn’t know who Tower of Power was and I knew who Sugar Hill Gang was but I was young. I was in a performance with a group called The Downtown Music Clan it was like this corporation run up with teenagers that did music and we got opportunities to open up for people. I didn’t know who they were. Now that I know who they are it’s like it makes you hold your head up a little bit. *laughs* It’s the Sugar Hill Gang, they’re legendary. I still don’t really know who Tower of Power is. I’m familiar with songs but I don’t know who they are. That’s bad I guess. *laughs* It’s terrible. When did you realize that music and performing was seriously something you wanted to do?
When people paid attention. It’s weird because I grew up as kind of the weird kid in my family so I would do stuff that was entertaining or fun to me and I would always get the raised eyebrow like, “You’re a weirdo.” But music was something that I guess people paid attention and were like, “Oh wow.” It was like everybody just wanted to do music. Like, everybody wanted to be a singer. Everybody wanted to do something entertainment wise, you know what I mean? Like a dream for everybody in some weird way. But that was the first thing that people actually paid attention to me in like a positive light. Not because everyone was telling me, “You’re a total loser.” You know what I mean? When you’re little and you get attention like that it means something to you.
I know that you’re a former fellow ATLien. Talk with me about that time.
Okay, here’s my thing. Atlanta, the experience of living there, I can’t say it was pleasant but it changed everything, sound wise, as far as my music was concerned because I met so many people before and um while living in Atlanta. It changed everything. I think that’s when the whole electronica aspect of my music first started coming in with the more programmed noises in my music. It was fun, musically. I mean it was a good experience. I’ve actually, possibly, I’m going to say possibly, we’re in talks of relocating back to Atlanta later this year.
Oh, we?
Yes…and me. *laughs* They are my team.
Oh okay and who is a part of the Millie Forte team?
It’s not a Millie Forte team is just like a group of us. There’s my big brother, Leon, and a friend of ours, Marcus, and then there’s this songwriter that’s working with us, her name is Myra.
Is Leon your actual bio big brother?
No he’s just a good friend and I’ve known him since I was like 11 so he’s my big brother.
You do write and produce your own sound and music?
Yes.
But you do have your team with you?
Well the thing with the team is, we have a certain amount of connection with each other’s different projects. As far as me, my team really just throws the idea of what I could make it sound like or what I could sing about. It’s not really more so them sitting down with me and programming the sounds and writing the lyrics. It’s just that I don’t really work well like that. I’m the type of person that has to work on it alone and get it down and figure it out myself. There can’t really be um, I don’t want to say opinions, but I can’t really….for some reason it just doesn’t really click when I have that second idea along with my idea. Because once my idea is formed it’s like it’s written in stone, that’s what it’s going to be and I have to just work on getting that developed so two ideas is just too much. They don’t really have too much of a say so in what I do but their opinion is pretty appreciated.
What would be the reason for the relocation to Atlanta? What inspired that?
Because lately we’ve all just been networking with people in Atlanta, like, it seems to be the place where the sound that we’re working on lives. Plus, Atlanta, it’s just colorful. You can say all the bad things you want to about Atlanta but it’s so diverse if you’re the kind of person that can tap into it and not look at all of the negative stuff about it. At first it was talk about New York and I was like ugh. It just didn’t work out because I’ve been to New York and I just don’t feel that I could live in New York and operate out there. Atlanta seems to be a good place so that’s where we’re going. I’m just down for the ride I guess.
Where do you see the music taking you in the future? Do you see yourself ever having to make that move to another major city for the sake of your music?
It depends because I don’t, per se, have these dreams to be this major phenomenon artist. That’s not my goal. I just want to do music and make stuff that people enjoy, I guess. I’d much rather just be respected than worshipped *laughs* if that makes any sense. It just depends on where and how I change and how the sound changes and like I said the sound we’re working on is in Atlanta. So if it moves I guess we’ll move too or I’ll move.
No “Stans” for you. No “Stans” and lace-fronts. Awww
*laughs* Damn! *laughs* No “Stans” I’d rather not.
Besides being an artist, I know that you’re in college and you work. Are you part-time or are you full time?
I work full time and part time.
How do you balance all of that and still satisfy your creative needs.
Sleep. *laughs* I mean I work one job, my part-time job. I work that throughout the week. I’m also a dance teacher. That’s my full-time job. I do that over the weekend. School work is usually done in between work and night time or late night, which is when the music is made. But I guess the idea of the music is kind of made throughout the day when I’m doing whatever I’m doing and then I can actually make it what it is or make what it is in my head official like at night. And then there’s random days like today where I’m just off from everything. I won’t do anything because I’m lazy. *laughs*
Is dance something you’ve always been interested in?
Yeah I’ve been dancing since I was six years old. My mom threw me and my sister into ballet and tap and jazz and modern interpretive, hip-hop and all these crazy dance things from a young age just so we’d have stuff to do. It’s just always been around. Before actually, this is funny and so gay *laughs*. But before I wanted to be a singer I wanted to be a ballet dancer.Oh a Baryshnikov. I mean it’s a little gay but that’s okay.
It’s very gay. *laughs*That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. *laughs*
It’s okay to dream. I’ll dream it, whatever.Well besides the music and dance you also enjoy body art and piercings. What about those draws you to them?
Umm not so much piercings. I used to have a lot of piercings when I was like 16, 17. I don’t have so many piercings anymore, just my ears and my nose are pierced. But tattoos…well you’re a Cee-Lo fan. But on his first CD, I can’t remember which album it was, he said this line and it always stuck with me. He said, “What I believe within I engrave upon my skin.” And I just took that and ran with it I guess. So everything that like means something to me or has some kind of significance in my life like as a whole or even just at that moment, I’ll get it tattooed on.
For your latest tattoo you got leopard print on your arm. What does that signify then?
It signifies where I’m going musically. I very, I’m pretty sure you can cosign to this, I’m usually just pretty tame for the most part. I’m not really a wild kind of artist or anything like that. And that’s me in real life, I’m really laid back. It’s just, I feel myself taking the wall down block by block and just exposing who I am and kind of being free and an animal I guess. *laughs* Which is a mark of just self exposure I guess. Here I am, this is me, all of me. It’s just how I feel.
A little leopard roar. Rrrrr!
Rrrrr! Let it burn, bitch. Let it burn. *laughs* But yeah as far as music goes I’m working on more sounds, more wild type things so it kind of ties into that.
You once said that you don’t make music, you make feelings. Can you talk with me a little bit more about that?
When you make a song you don’t really necessarily have to mean what you’re doing or mean what you’re saying or singing or rapping or speaking or whatever. Like it can just be something that’s going to work best for you and you just put it out there and it’s just nothing and you can sell your records and you can make your money and all that stuff and it doesn’t mean anything to you. But if I make feelings it’s like everything that I put out for people to hear is like something that means something deeply to me or it could mean something deeply to who ever is hearing it. But that’s where it came from, I’m just putting my feelings on audio and then people will hear them.
You’re definitely an artist who puts his heart on his sleeve and on his records. Specifically you put your broken heart on your records. On “Good Day” you had a line that said, “And love is not a part of this story / ‘Cause all it will ever do is die.” Is it ever difficult for you to lend such a part of yourself to your music and your audience?
After the fact, after it’s like done. When I’m writing it, I’m just writing it. I’m just getting it out and when I’m recording it, it’s like I’m not really thinking about it when I’m recording it. Then when I hear it played back or two or three days after I’ve posted it on the internet I think about it and it’s a little, “That was a little deep. That was a little too far.” *laughs* I mean, it’s cool I’m human. What do you expect? I feel things, everybody does so why not put it into audio?
Are you appreciative of the heartbreak in the way that it’s inspired your music or would you rather the inspiration come from another place at times?
I guess I can be grateful for it if, to me, people like it. I guess that will make me grateful for it. It’s weird because I guess my music makes me seem like I’d be this really depressed or this woe is me type person and I’m not. I just usually write songs or write music or work on music when I feel a need to work on it, if that makes sense? So if I’m happy I don’t want to stop doing what I’m doing and write about it, you know what I mean? It’s in the moment I guess because I have happy songs too. It definitely has a big role to play. I guess that also makes me grateful for it. So people liking it and it just being something like, If I ever have writers block, heart ache will get the song out of me.
On a personal level, are you and cupid on speaking terms? Are you open to the idea of love, again?
Me and cupid? I don’t like him. I don’t like him *laughs* I mean it depends. All things have to be right. All things have to be cool. I mean I meet people and they’re cool but it’s just sometimes I don’t feel it. So I don’t go any further unless they just blow me [away]. I mean why go further and they’re getting on my nerves? It’s just me. It depends on how I feel and who the person is and what kind of person that person is.
To talk about your happier songs you do have happier ones. You just released “Show Me Your Love” with Baron. How did that song come about?
The song is actually like almost a year and a half old, from being started. I wrote it, produced and then I wrote the song to the beat. I couldn’t write a second verse and something just kept telling me to have someone sing on the second verse which is odd for me because I really don’t collaborate a lot with people. So I was thinking of people who would sound good on the song and initially Sir Ben Marx, who I had in mind, and I don’t know, I just got in contact with Baron first and he told me he liked it. He sent me a rough copy and I loved it and I recorded some more and sent it to him and a couple month later he sends me back the finished version and we put it on. I put it on the internet immediately like 10 minutes after he sent it to me I posted it on the internet. *laughs* I liked it that much so.
Besides releasing “Show Me Your Love” you also released “Sex Pot Mon-Star” and with your other song “101” you definitely expanded a bit more with your sexual side, musically. Do you see yourself as potentially becoming something of a musical sex symbol?
*Laughs* Ummm Do I see myself? I mean I guess to each his own. I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t think I could live up to the sex symbol status. I don’t think I could live up to it because I’m kind of a shy person at the same time. I blush. I’m too light skinned, I blush. *laughs* The light skins blush in public like that. But I mean that would be cool. I’ll take that too, yes. I’ll be a sex symbol.
You have an underground sound but you also seem to have an ear for what’s commercial. You want to be more so respected but if the opportunity came around for you have commercial success, would you do it…even if it was for writing or producing for other artists?
Oh sure, writing and producing for other artists, definitely. But if it was for me as like the main idea um really I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it on that level because I try and take a look at every opportunity that comes when it comes to the music thing and I have to think about it. How is it going to benefit my mission, whatever my mission is because I haven’t come to realize what the mission is, of it all. But right now I’ll say yeah I would.
There is a trade off, like so many artists before have said. Does the play into your reasoning for wanting the respect more than the commercial success?
No I think the respect part is so big to me because I put in a lot work to be where, and this is going to sound weird, but I put in a lot of work to be as far as I am now. I wasn’t the kid that was born with a pretty voice and I wasn’t the kid that learned how to harmonize like the first time. It took a long time to learn to do everything that I know how to do, musically. It’s all self-taught. It took so much time and effort to get to being as decent as I am. So the respect, to me, means so much more…and people just throwing panties and boxers. *laughs*
*laughs* Man-panties!!!
I made sure I threw boxers in there too. *laughs*Moving on past the man-panties and the boxers, let’s talk a bit about Millie as a youngster. On “Fearless Little Bird” you sang about owning your individuality and showing it proudly. Tell me more about your own individuality and growing up as a kid. How were you?
I was very reserved and quiet and I was geeky. *laughs* I was the only boy, when I was a kid, of three. I was the middle child and I just lived up to every stereotype there was the middle child could possibly be. I just did. I didn’t play with other kids, I wasn’t a very social kid. I’d much rather sit in the window and watch kids play then actually go partake and play. It actually wasn’t until I met Ms. Forte that I even started interacting with other kids but I was just reserved and quiet and random and just weird. I had an obsession with Jim Carrey and I would reenact everything of Jim Carrey that I ever saw. *laughs* Just a simple, simple little childhood in simple little Roanoke, Virginia.
Has your hometown of Roanoke, VA inspired you, musically?
Well yes, to a certain extent. I don’t know if it’s a good place to get my work done because I’ve lived a lot of places and I’ve noticed that every time I move out of state I always am beginning to start a project. But once I get to that state I can’t record the project. Something in me just won’t…the right words just won’t come, the right music won’t come. But the idea of the album can be like born somewhere else and I never actually finish or even begin to work on it until I come back to Roanoke. It’s probably some weird connection, I don’t know. Like in Atlanta, the last album, The Beautiful Disaster, on every song the production was made in Atlanta but I couldn’t record any of it, like I couldn’t even think of words to write until I got back to Roanoke. Virginia is interesting, just because all of the people that have come out of Virginia and how creative all of them are. I don’t know what it is about Virginia.
What’s the next project for Millie?
I’m working on it. I’m working on it. I’ve been playing around with titles. I’ve been calling it The Rise and Fall of Milano Bradley. I don’t think that’s what it’s going to be at the end of it though. It changes like every five minutes of every day. I’ll record songs and then I’ll love them for like two days and then I’ll play them back on the third day and then I won’t like any of them. So I’ll record more songs and then I’ll like those, then I won’t like those, then I’ll like the old ones. It doesn’t have a sound, a signature sound, right now. It doesn’t have a title, it has an idea of what I want it to sound like but I don’t want it to be….basically I don’t want it to be anything that people would think I would do.
Breaking the mold, a bit. Keeping the gurls on their toes!
There you go! Keep bitches surprised. Shit! *laughs* I don’t know. I mean “Mercury”, “101” and “Healing Time”, “The Fall”, they’ve all been recorded for the album and I like them all and certain people like them and all. Some people like certain ones and don’t like the others but everybody has an opinion on them, which is cool. I was actually thinking about doing two albums, at one time. A little B’Day thing going on there.
I was going to say Christina. Damnit! The gays can’t go a day without talking about Beyonce!
Bitch! Gotdamn! *laughs* I mean, who knows? I don’t know. I had this discussion with my brother, randomly, to just literally release every song that I record was the idea of the album. That might be possible too, we’ll see.
Once you release this project will you be hitting the road to promote it?
I want to this time. I kind of did on the last project but I want to branch out, like branch out, be places, see people and try out new music and see what it’s like. So we’ll see. It’s all a part of the big plans with this project so hopefully it will be a part of it.
You’re an artist that’s still discovering and developing his sound. Do you enjoy that sense of freedom and looseness?
Yes, I do. It’s because…I am still working on it? *laughs* I’m definitely not anywhere near being a perfected sound but then again I don’t think I want to be the kind of artist that has a certain stamp, a certain sound. I don’t want to be the artist that has that particular sound. I want to just do whatever feels right at the moment and I think a lot of that comes from the different things I listen to at all times.
Those are all of the questions that I have for you. Is there anything that you want to add?
What do I want people to know? Just pay attention. That’s as good as it could get. If you’re interested now, you should pay attention.
Do you have a certain time frame for when we should pay attention to that new release?
It’s still like in the early stages but we’ve been in the studio like we literally live there. But I would say around late April, maybe, with the way we’re going. So hopefully late April.
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