Fortilive

Have you ever noticed how these artist “biographies” can become kind of redundant, cliché and cut and paste? It’s always some dude referring to himself (or crew) in the third person, when they know damn well they typed that whole thing out themselves. Since we’re not really that big on someone speaking for us, we decided to tell you ourselves exactly how “Fortilive” (pronounced: For the lyve) came to be and let you in our world, because at the end of the day….if you don’t believe we’re really talking to you, how can we expect you to ever listen to us? Most people know us as Slo-Mo, Illmind, and Mushmouf (wether they say the whole name or just slo, ill, and mush) of the group Fortilive. We all met each other, by what seems to be fate or what some people would call “the natural order of things’. I don’t really know how natural it is for 2 emcees all the way in the middle of nowhere (Waianae, Hawaii to be exact) to meet some Philipino cat in Bloomfield, New Jersey over the internet, on an underground hip hop forum (Ughh.com to be exact) who makes beats…but hey, what do I know?. Things just kind of happen and this how our journey began. Slo and I were a part of the now defunct hip hop collective “eyesoulated mindz” that consisted of Slo, Me, and our good friends Teo and Jik (now of jeytik). Much of that era seems like a blur to me, so I’ll let the Uce man take it from here. So where do I start? Well, This Is SLO (Slo-mo, Slo-motion, Slo-motionopolis, Big Uce, The Uce Man) and let me start off by saying, “We Out Here Mayn”. I am a man of many names and little words, but I been rhyming seriously since I became a part of “Eyesoulated Mindz”. When I was still living in Hawaii, and Mush was out east in Philadelphia, he told me about the idea of joining him and Big Trouble (illmind), in a group called “Fortilive” that they were starting. We had already been working with each other from jump so it was a no brainer. Before the conception of Fortilive we literally had about 70 tracks done with illmind (most of which are long gone due to computer crashes, or just stuck in someones Cd player somewhere in Vanuatu) so we already knew the chemistry was there…Fortilive just made it official. Ever since then, we been trying to combine our forces on some voltron type hype, to make a unique sound, but more importantly good music. Keep listening and keep looking out….we got a lot more in store. That’s all I can say for now so im going to pass it back to mush and let him fill the rest in….Mush take it away. Now a lot of people are curious as to how we came together with Illmind (Big Trouble, Jr, Junebug, Illmeezy) seeing that we are all the way from Hawaii. Since Ill isn’t here to break it down for you guys he’s asked me to step in and tell you guys how it all came to be. Around 1999-2000 Ill was posting up beats on various hip hop forums, that I used to frequent one of which was www.Ughh.com . At the time we didn’t have a producer who could produce for us and honestly we didn’t really even have a sound that defined us. We were pretty much making music just for our friends to listen to at that time. So one day I came across some dude named illmind who was posting what seemed like a million beats a day on Ughh and I was blown away. I decided to hit him up and give him a few of the songs that we had recorded to see if he would like to work with us. Honestly I didn’t really think he would hit me back, because I figured he was probably getting a million of those messages at the time, but to my surprise he responded back that same day. We exchanged information and we stayed in contact just about everyday exchanging beats, songs, and basically just doing what guys do when it comes to hip hop….having fun. We recorded one song in particular (matter of fact it was the first song we ever recorded!) called “Klymatic” for this project Slo and I were working on called “The Grain”. The response for that track was so big, that we all knew that we had something special and truthfully…even though we didn’t have a name yet, that was the start of Fortilive. Since then separately and as a collective we have gone on to work on various projects and with various artist. Illmind has now become an in house producer for Sha Money XL’s Money Management camp, that host some of the biggest names in the hip hop industry. He’s produced tracks for everyone from LL Cool J to Little Brother to Erykah Badu. He’s considered amongst the elite of Hip Hop producers in the world and his stock is rising daily. Not bad for a guy who was banging beats out from an upstairs room in his parents house and posting them up on websites just to get some feedback. Slo and I have gone on to work with various artist such as Little Brother, Saffir, Mistah F.A.B., Planet asia, Rasco, 84 and many more. We all feel blessed that the music that we put our heart and soul into has managed to take us places that we never would’ve imagined growing up in Hawaii and we thank God everyday for the opportunity to keep doing this. Our sound can only be summed up in one word “honest”. We feed off our emotions, we’re inspired by our lives, by our thoughts and fueled by our dreams. We are not here to change the game, but rather keep the game going. We feel that something that has given us so much hope and given us the opportunity to give others hope should be held in the highest regard and we never take what we have been given for granted. That’s where the name Fortilive comes from. We are for the ones who live the music. We’re for the ones who live for the music. We’re for the thinkers and the dreamers. For those who eat, breathe and bleed hip hop…We’re for you.We’re Fortilive…..welcome to our world. PUT YOUR BIO SECTION HERE! Changes may take up to 2 mins to show on your profile[LOVEMYFLASH]