Forty2's Success Counts on the Ladies

Say what you will about slick, radio-ready hip-hop hybrids; if you've got the desire to party at a club where ladies run rampant, you ought to have a soft spot in your heart for Forty2. Over the past year, the South County duo took the phrase “This one is for the ladies” and made a career out of it, combining Chad Galati's [1] technically sound, Lotharian flows with singer Kody Kropp's emotional R&B crooning. Add to that a cocktail of good looks and Kropp's heart-tugging backstory, and it's possible these guys could give Drake a run for his money.

 

OC Weekly: Your hip-hop/R&B sound is mostly focused on getting chicks. Does the name Forty2 have any romantic connotations?

Kody Kropp: When Chad and I met about a year ago, as we started to work together more and decided to form a group, the album we started was all about the whole “get the girl” idea. Our main fan base tends to be women, so our R&B feel is great for that. We were going to call the album Room for Two, and that name eventually morphed into Forty2. The phrase “room for two” could be used to describe the two of us, as we can each individually talk about ladies, or when we we're together as a group, there's still enough room over here for two girls.

 

Have you ever had any interesting responses to your music at shows?

Kropp: During our last show at Marquee [in Corona], we had these crazy girls flashing us while we were onstage, throwing their clothes at us. I remember Chad, right after the show, had these girls come up to him and asked him to sign their tits. But that female response, that's what we're chasing.  So obviously, we know what we're doing is working.

Chad Galati: We've played at three venues that had backstage green rooms, and ladies definitely are of a different nature once they get back there.

 

Are there any songs in your set that aren't about girls that resonate with you?

Galati: We have a song called “Get Up” that's just about realizing whether you're tired of sitting down or you haven't caught on to what you want to do with your life, there's a way out of that for everyone. It's a real motivating song.

Kropp: Our song “Music” really speaks to me. Down to every lyric, it's about what music means to us. It talks about where we've been in life. About eight months ago, when I really started to get into the group with Chad, my mom and my siblings moved to Arizona. My mom has been really sick; she's had two heart attacks and two strokes in the past two years. One of my sisters was already going to school out there, and the rest of my family moved there for the cheaper cost of living. They asked me if I wanted to move back with them, and I said I wanted to stay here and pursue my dream and my music. But when they left, I was here by myself; I just had a backpack and a motorcycle to my name, and I've been sleeping on friends' couches. Thankfully, I've had a lot of support from people around me to keep going with this. I still talk to my mom almost every day.

 

Are you looking to expand your sound moving forward?

Galati: We're definitely going to add some more live instrumentation with drums, bass, guitar, our DJ and maybe someone on an MPC [sampler] making beats.

Kropp: We're at a point where we feel we need to give more to the performance. Even if people think they're getting enough, we want to show them we have something new to add to the sound and feel we've already given them.

 

This column appeared in print as “Lady Killers.”


[1] Chad Galati's last name was misspelled as Galanti. Corrected June 19, 2012.

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