Deaf rapper breaks into music industry with major recording deal

The 28-year-old deaf rapper and songwriter from metro Detroit has landed a contract with Web Entertainment, the Ferndale, Michigan production company and label that helped break Eminem.

Sean Forbes has been 90% deaf since infancy, but that never stopped him from loving music. Both of his parents are musicians who played Motor City music in their home while Sean enjoyed the beats and vibrations from the music his ears could not hear, but his body could feel. His MySpace Music page says Forbes is "an accomplished and passionate drummer, rhythm pours out of him, when he breathes, walks, types at his keyboard or hits his drums. Music is in his blood, his cells; it’s just the way he is." In 2006 he cofounded the nonprofit Deaf Performing Artists Network, or D-PAN, to connect the music and entertainment industry with the hearing-impaired community by making music videos for deaf people. Sean told the Detroit Free Press: "It was always my dream to see deaf people involved in music. All teenagers watch MTV. They all have their iPhones. They all want to be able to say, 'I enjoy the same things you do. I listen to the same music you do.' Everybody wants to feel like they belong." D-Pan's videos are polished and professional productions. Most of the actors in the videos are from metro Detroit, with their performances guided by Ronald Dans, an American Sign Language (ASL) specialist with the Michigan School for the Deaf. Cofounder Joel Martin of D-PAN said: "The older deaf community didn't embrace music as much. Technology has changed that. The Internet has changed that. Music is pervasive now. The new generation of deaf kids wants to be absorbed in it." Now the Free Press reports that Forbes has a new deal with the giant Broadcast Music Inc.(BMI), which his associates are calling a new breakthrough for the American deaf community. The BMI deal sets him up to receive royalties for public airings of his original music, including the newly-released video "I'm Deaf." Joel Martin said that Forbes' interpretive performances "had already given him a name in the deaf community as an artist at the forefront. But it's one thing to perform other people's work. It's something else to do your own, and at some point it became apparent that Sean had the ability to write really good music." Charlie Feldman of BMI said Forbes' songs are "emotionally inspirational and musically impressive", and the relationship with BMI will increase exposure to Forbes' work. "He's rapping and signing, and he's spitting pretty impressively, to put it in the vernacular," says Feldman. Sean Forbes said on MySpace: “The world is run by those who show up. And I’m showing up.”