House Call with Moses Forman
For the past five years Moses Forman has been making music videos and clothing collections under the nonsensical name Belrok. Moses is an old friend of ours and one of the most motivated kids we know. As his journey with Belrok clothing comes to an end, we caught up with him in his home studio to learn more about the roots of the company, being inspired by Missionary Jack, and more.
Bonus video HERE.
Who are you?
Moses Forman, 20 years old from Louisville, Kentucky. I make a lot of different things.
What do you do?
I make music videos and ads, really anything I can get my hands on. I also make clothes. The videos came first, like 2017 or 2018, it started as a joke. My friends and I were messing around with our phones at first. When we got our hands on some cheap cameras we shot fake videos for songs that already existed and they actually got some decent views. Then this artist, shout out El Stephens, hit us up to make a video for him. The clothes probably came roughly a year after that. We just wanted to do merch for the videos but it was never really merch. It just ended up being stuff that we wanted to make, Max Pickett gets the credit for that.
Photo by Sean McInnis.
Oh, don't even ask me that bro. I bet it was Drake [Laughs]. Listen, I'm graduating from that. So Drake last year, hopefully it's not Drake this year. I still listen to him, but it gets corny. I just can't keep doing that. It's crazy. It's childish dude. It's so childish. I swear to God he just plants himself in people's top artists.
Most underrated thing?
Just chilling with people that you want to be with. Like, spending valuable time with valuable people. Maybe that’s actually pretty well rated, I don’t know. Like, not doing anything, you know what I'm saying? Chilling and talking and hanging out. People are always like, I wanna go out and do something. Me? I'm cool sitting on a porch and talking. That’s been my top priority recently.
Louisville legend Bonnie “Prince” Billy for Belrok, 2023.
Where did the name Belrok come from?
The name was an existing thought before the brand itself was a thing. The very first videos we were making were like freshman year of high school. I'm now a junior in college. Wow, thats fucked. Six years and I’m still not that good. [Laughs] But it’s still progress, you’ve gotta think about what you’ve done, not what you haven’t done. I think I was coming home on the bus one day with my friends, I can't remember if it was Max or Clay [Greenlee] but someone just said the word and we were like, “that kind of sounds good.” I don't really know what it means but it sounded cool at the time so we ran with it. It became a collective and how my friends and I identify ourselves. Clay doesn't really do videos with us anymore, but he does the clothes. Max does both. Sean [McInnis] doesn't do clothes, but Sean does videos and photos with us. And I get help from everybody else. I'll have Tobin [Kreft] help me on the shoot sometimes, all my other friends might do PA work for me or you know, just like whatever they can. They all give me ideas for clothes, or tell me if something sucks, or tell me I need to do this or do that. Tobin really gave me the idea for the From Kentucky stuff. So shout out to him for that. But yeah, I mean everybody kind of just contributes in some way or another.
I remember hearing people refer to y’all as the Belrok boys all through high school. How do your boys inspire you and your work?
It was just a community thing. It really started out as me, Sean, Max and Clay. The original name was MCMS, (Moses, Clay, Max, Sean) isn't that crazy? We had a whole logo and everything. We were just making videos, like shooting videos with a little terrible camera and all of our friends were in 'em. That was kind of the start of getting everybody together. Like, “You guys want to go out and shoot a video for this Jack Harlow song that came out two years ago?” And everyone was like, hell yeah, let's do it. One day, Sean was like, “Dude. Jack [Harlow] wants to be in one of the videos.” We went out with him and he kind of drove us around because we were too young at the time. He wasn't super famous yet but everybody in the city knew him. It wasn't like driving around with your buddy who makes music and has like a thousand plays on Spotify. He was already a big deal to Louisville kids then. But yeah, we shot like a 15 second segment after driving around for maybe six hours that day. It was just crazy, we were so excited about it at the time.
Since moving out of the city I’ve noticed Jack Harlow has a very mixed reputation with a lot of kids, especially with people not from Louisville. When I tell people I fuck with Jack they look at me crazy and there’s not really a good way for me to contextualize it. He’s only a little older than us and he was the man for a lot of kids here when we were in high school. You just gave a great example of it, but I’d like to hear you elaborate on why he was so inspiring to Louisville kids coming up in the late 2010s.
In high school, I would wake up at 6 AM and put his music on during the bus ride. If he dropped a new album, I would stay up til midnight with all my friends and listen to it. That's the connection that people don't get. He’s this guy from our neighborhood, who we saw at our neighborhood pool, who we would say what’s up to, who everybody knew, who finally became this incredibly famous person. It was mind blowing to me. People are never really gonna get it and you could never sit down and explain it to them. It’s about growing up in the same area as him and having nobody from there ever having done what he's done. Especially as a person that creates, that's like the most inspiring thing ever. You're like, “Okay, he did it, I can do it too.” Seeing somebody that you watched grow into that person is more inspiring than anything you could ever imagine. It’s not even about him putting the city on, it’s really just showing kids from the Highlands that we could do something that big too.
Exactly. I really connected with his old music, especially the Gazebo tape, because he was writing bars about exactly what I was feeling at the time. On that project he’s name-dropping the same places I’m chilling at with my friends and rapping about the exact feelings I was having as a high schooler in Louisville. I understand why other people don’t have that same connection but I have to give him credit for being a huge inspiration for us at the time. Plus, he was on the old New Balance runner swag before anyone else. Anyways, tell me more about the From Kentucky project and the stuff you're working on. Where does the inspiration for your designs come from?
Going away to college makes you realize that nobody here has that much pride about where they’re from. People are shocked when you’re like, I'm from Kentucky. They don't really see that as a positive thing. My friends and I are proud to be from Kentucky. And I’m especially proud to be from Louisville. So we wanted to make shirts that people can wear so they can share that same feeling with us. Same with the new horses graphic, it was kind of derby inspired, but you don't have to really care about that. It just looks cool.
How has your process changed from when you first started making clothes back in the day?
I mean back when we first started making clothes, it was just a face on the front and words on the back. I think I got my inspiration from some vintage tee I saw and I was like, I'm just gonna simplify that 'cause I don't wanna have to do too much work. When I first started screen printing, I had one screen, one color ink, and it was on a white T-shirt. Like, white T-shirt with black ink on both sides. I was thinking that people would wear the to support me as my friend or if they just thought it was cool. A lot of people in high school really supported us by copping that original tee. Even if that stuff isn’t that cool now, it’s cool to see how I’ve evolved from that. And as I've evolved, I've grabbed inspiration from everywhere I look. I'll see a big brand do something and I'm like, “I like that but there's something I don't like about it and so I'm gonna change it and just use a little bit of this and a bit of that.” Obviously Kentucky Boy Tyler does a lot of stuff that inspires me. I try not to really lean into his stuff too much 'cause it's pretty obvious when you borrow from that. But you know, just little things here and there and then I find a lot of references on my own, lots of inspiration from simple vintage tee graphics.
I know dude, I came to school one day with a backpack full of 'em. I'm not even kidding. I think I had like one book in my backpack, the rest of the bag full of tees and they were gone by the end of the day. I don't even remember who bought 'em but I remember being so stoked that I sold them all. Belrok is probably making its last turn around the corner with the clothes specifically. I have more plans for clothes in the future, it just won’t be under the same name.
“Firstly, to all friends, family and followers—thank you so much for your constant support throughout the years. We’ve watched Belrok clothing transform and change throughout many phases. From asking friends ‘who would buy if we made shirts with this on it?’, to trying new graphics that honestly never should have seen the light of day. Organizing popups at local stores that sold out in just a few hours, just to name a few. It was always trial and error and quite the process, as it was with each other. Yes, the brand grew over time, but most importantly, Belrok provided a space where we could create and explore freely. Growth also requires change. This isn’t to say we are leaving forever, think of it as a break. Sometimes you have to shift focus, and that is what we feel is necessary. The video side of things will be up and running as usual, even stronger than ever. Don’t worry, we still have some stuff in store for y’all. Love you guys❤️🔥 — Max, Moses, and Clay”
via @belrokclothing 9.21.24
Looks from the final Belrok collection.
You also spend a lot of time behind the camera, tell me about the video work you do.
My typical clientele is rappers but I want to work with other kinds of artists. I usually do music videos but I've been doing ads for different companies, short little videos, you know, promotional stuff. The bottom line is if someone comes to me with an idea and I'm like, I don't really want to do that. Like, no offense to that person, but I don't really think I'm going to just, 'cause I don't wanna, I don't know, I don't want to build my portfolio on something. I mean like, if I could have everything I wanted, I'd probably be directing either large, large scale music videos for my own production company. Doing movies would be cool but I really just don't know how committed I am to that. I don't know if I want to be on that Hollywood schedule, waking up at 5:00 AM going to bed at like 2:00 AM every day. But, if I was given the opportunity I'd probably do like four movies and then just tap out.
Why do people like Louisville so damn much?
It’s so tight knit, everybody knows everybody. You have connections to like every single person and everybody's got their own version of home here. It just feels homey to me. I can't imagine any other place being home. So, you know, it's just everything about it. I don't know. It's not too big and it's not too small. You don't feel like you're confined to one small area, it’s a perfectly sized city.
Dream scenario in five years?
What I'm doing right now. But like, making a ton more money. I don't wanna work for the big man. So doing what I'm doing on a bigger scale, ideally.
How are you going to get there?
Keep doing what I’m doing. There's one thing that everybody has in common that makes it. They just don't stop. There's nothing better to do than just keep doing it. Whatever works, works. Whatever doesn’t, doesn't.
@mosesforman
@belrokco @belrokclothing
Music that keeps Moses going. Tap in below.
Louisville, KY.
Photography & Interview by Isaac Barnett
@iebcam