Artist
GRiZ
dubstep/hip-hop artist
Southfield, United States • b. 1990
GRiZ is a musician from Southfield, United States, active since 1990. Their discography on Gatefold includes 4 records.
4
Albums tracked
12
In collections
1990
Since
Biography
GRiZ is a Michigan-born electronic music producer and musician who has attracted an enormous live following, regularly playing major festivals and selling out headlining tours. Referring to his music as "future funk," GRiZ produces glitchy, energetic tracks with booming dubstep bass and elements of jazz, hip-hop, and soul. Born Grant Kwiecinski in Southfield, Michigan in 1990, he began playing alto saxophone and piano as a youth, and dropped out of Michigan State University in order to pursue a career as a musician.
The Arc of GRiZ
The pivots — what forced GRiZ to reinvent.
The Free-Download Glitch Era
Between 2011 and 2013, Kwiecinski built his name directly on SoundCloud and BitTorrent with Mad Liberation and Rebel Era. He bypassed labels entirely, stitching raw alto sax lines across mid-tempo funk breaks and heavy wobble bass. The mixes were unpolished and blown out, but the energy caught fire across the midwest college circuit. It established the electro-soul blueprint before festival EDM completely industrialized it.
The Big-Band Funk Pivot
With 2015's Say It Loud and 2016's Good Will Prevail, he stopped relying strictly on chopped samples and started booking live studio musicians across Detroit, New York, and New Orleans. He brought in session horn players, gospel vocalists, and live drummers to turn his project into an actual funk revue. The production got cleaner, the hooks got bigger, and the stage show expanded into a touring circus. It alienated some of the underground bass purists, but it filled amphitheaters.
The Bass-Heavy Double Life
After the slick pop-crossover polish of 2019's Ride Waves, Kwiecinski course-corrected by splitting his output into distinct lanes. He launched the Bangers.Zip series and 2021's Rainbow Brain, loading up on relentless dubstep drops and laser synth design alongside his breezy Chasing The Golden Hour downtempo tapes. He collaborated heavily with the new-school bass scene, proving he could still destroy a sound system without dropping the brass. It kept him vital right up until his announced hiatus, going out on top of the festival circuit.
Influences
- Pretty Lights — Derek Vincent Smith laid down the blueprint of marrying vintage soul samples with massive 808 bass, and GRiZ opened for him on early tours while copying that free-download distribution model. You hear it immediately in the vocal chops and dusty vinyl crackle on Mad Liberation. Without Pretty Lights kicking the door down, electro-soul never hits festival mainstages.
- Parliament-Funkadelic — George Clinton's P-Funk mythology is the DNA of Detroit funk that Kwiecinski cited constantly while building his live band era. The squelching synth basslines and chaotic, layered horn arrangements across Say It Loud are straight out of the Bernie Worrell playbook. It's the grease that kept his digital tracks feeling human.
- The Meters — Kwiecinski traveled directly to New Orleans to track real groove-heavy funk rhythm sections, pulling hard from Leo Nocentelli and Zigaboo Modeliste's pocket. You hear that syncopated, backbeat-heavy drum programming all over Good Will Prevail. It gave his electronic drops actual swing instead of robotic grid stiffness.
- Gramatik — Denis Jašarević brought GRiZ into the Street Bangerz orbit early on, collaborating on tracks and co-founding the short-lived Grizmatik project. That lineage of raw, boom-bap-paced hip-hop beats layered with blues guitar cuts directly across Rebel Era. It was a masterclass in keeping sample flips punchy and unpretentious.
- Maceo Parker — Parker's punchy, staccato horn stabs with James Brown and Prince defined the rhythmic lead style Kwiecinski uses on his own alto sax. Instead of playing fluid jazz solos, GRiZ treats the horn like a percussion instrument on tracks like 'Gettin' Live.' It's funk horn playing built strictly to drive the beat.
Discography
Their records — most-collected first.
Around the web
Follow every record they touch.
Start your shelf and Gatefold tracks GRiZ's new pressings, tour dates, and the whole discography — automatically.
Start your shelf →Free forever. Works with 10 records or 10,000.