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(AllHipHop News) Just four years ago rapper John Forte was pardoned from a 14-year federal prison sentence, after getting caught trafficking $1.4 million dollars in liquid cocaine through Newark International Airport in New Jersey.

After seven years served, the rapper was pardoned by former President George W. Bush in 2008, with the help of Carly Simon and Utah Senator, Phillips Exeter.

Since then, Forte has spent the last several years piecing his life back together.

The 37-year-old musician recently dropped his new documentary “The Russian Winter,” which premiered in New York.

Over the weekend, John Forte gave fans an introspective look inside his life, as he debuted the new film at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The Russian Winter focuses on a nine-week trip that Forte took across Russia in 2011.

While there, the former Fugees associate performed at select dates across the country with Russian musicians, raising money for local charities.

“I think the knee-jerk reaction of coming home was to make a documentary about my life preceding prison, and what took place in prison, leading up to me coming home. But something about it just didn’t feel right. It felt exploitative,” Forté explained to the New York Times.

“You know, I went to prep school. When I came back to the ‘hood, it wasn’t like people slapped me on the back and said, ‘Wow, you got your stripes now.’ But there were so many guys that went [to prison] for a year, went away for two years, went away for five years. And when they came back, it was almost like they were praised. And that’s the last message I wanted to send. There was nothing cool about my time away.”

For more information on John Forte’s film “The Russian Winter,” visit the Tribeca Film Festival’s official page for the film The Russian Winter.