Detroit rapper Tee Grizzley is a Twitch star
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Tee Grizzley performs at Little Caesars Arena in January. Photo: Aaron J. Thornton/WireImage
After first making his name as a rapper, Detroit's Tee Grizzley is now making money as an online gamer with more than 1 million people following his streaming channel.
The big picture: Tee Grizzley is at the forefront of rappers and musicians who are branching out into livestreaming to prolong their careers and earn more money.
Zoom in: On streaming platform Twitch, subscribers and followers watch for hours at a time as Tee Grizzley plays a modified version of "Grand Theft Auto V" and other games.
- Tee role-played a law enforcement officer in one recent livestream, narrating his movements, arresting other players and initiating conversations with them by asking questions like, "You got a gun license for that gun?"
Catch up quick: Tee's rap career exploded eight years ago with the release of "First Day Out."
- He began focusing on gaming during the pandemic, when he was often playing video games at home.
The latest: "I was a gamer before I was a rapper," he said last week during a StockX event at Gilly's downtown. He was there to promote his upcoming album, "Forever My Moment," with the "All The Smoke" podcast.
- Tee acknowledged making good money from gaming, but he wasn't pressed for specifics.
- In 2022, he told the "Million Dollaz Worth of Game" podcast that he was making about $50,000 per week: "I get paid from Twitch. I take the Twitch videos that I already streamed, put it on YouTube, get paid from YouTube … then you got sponsorships, you got ads."
By the numbers: Since April 2019, Tee has streamed for more than 4,800 hours, per twitchtracker.com.
- He has nearly 1.2 million followers and more than 2,000 subscribers. Prices range from $5.99 to $24.99 per month. Subscribers get fewer advertisements and access to chat boards.
- Twitch creators keep 50%-70% of their subscription fees, says Justin T. Huang, a Michigan Ross assistant professor of marketing who studies social media and online ecosystems.
- It's "definitely within the realm of possibility" that Tee Grizzley is making $50,000 weekly with that and money from ads and other revenue sources, Huang says.
What they're saying: "What Twitch offers — and livestreaming more broadly — is the intimacy between you and the creator of that content," Huang tells Axios. "It feels like they're sitting on the couch and you're just chatting, you're just hanging out."