Tee Grizzley is one of Detroits most popular rappers.
He blew up with his song First Day Out, which dropped the day he got out of prison
after some dorm room robberies and a jewelry heist gone wrong.
Let’s take a look at the come-up and criminal history of Tee Grizzley.
Tee Grizzley is from the Joy Road neighborhood on the west side of Detroit.
He was raised by his grandma and other relatives, while his parents were in and out of jail.
He watched his uncle’s rap,
which inspired him to start making his own music when he was 11 or 12.
In middle school, he formed a rap group called AllStars BallHard
with some of his homies and they would post their songs to YouTube.
But early on, Tee just saw music as a hobby and ain’t think of it as a legit career.
Growing up with his family in the streets, Tee had to hustle to survive.
But he stayed on the right path and never got in much trouble with the law.
He never smoked or drank and got good grades in school.
So, when he graduated high school,
he went to Michigan State University, where he studied accounting and finance.
But in 2011, Tee’s mother got be arrested
and hit with 15 years in prison for drug trafficking.
A year later his pops got murdered.
So, going into college,
the rapper had no financial support from his family and had a hard time getting by.
Eventually, he went back to street activities to make money.
He and his friend started hitting licks on unlocked dorm rooms in a building called Hubbard Hall.
They would break into the dorms late at night and steal whatever they could get their hands on,
like cash, laptops, cell phones, and other expensive items.
Over 15 days, they hit successfully at least 12 different times.
But their run wouldn’t last long and a few weeks later
they got caught by police with some of the stolen items.
The cops caught them with over $20,000 in stolen products and cash.
But while they were getting arrested, Tee’s homie took some of the stolen items from his room
and moved it into another dorm.
This made it hard for police to prove he was behind the robberies.
So, they had to let him go while they did an official investigation.
Now with his original plan ruined and all his money gone,
Tee had to come up with a new plan to make bread.
That’s when he and two of his homies decided to go out of state and rob a jewelry store.
On July 1st, 2014,
Tee and his two friends, Dwan Harris and Theo Evans
drove down to Lexington Kentucky to rob a jewelry store
called The Castle Jewelry and Pawn.
As they were driving down to Lexington, Tee got a call from the Sheriff’s Department in Lansing.
They told him they had a warrant out for his arrest over the Michigan State robberies.
His co defendant already turned himself in and they suggested that he do the same
to get a lighter sentence.
After getting the phone call, Tee said that his heart was racing.
But he was still broke and now needed money for lawyer fees.
So, he thought he could hit a quick lick in Lexington, then use the bread to fight the case.
But the robbery ain’t really go as planned.
The minute they stepped foot in the store they started to attract attention.
Tee was wearing a hoodie and the store owners questioned him about it.
He told them he was a boxer and was trying to lose weight for a fight,
so he had been out jogging.
They took his word for it, but still kept an eye on him.
Once they got close to the Rolex’s, Tee pulled out a gun and smashed the glass.
But before he could even get his hands on one of the watches,
he heard someone yell freeze.
Without even looking up, Tee already knew someone had a gun pointed at him.
He also had a gun in his hand,
so he thought about testing the store owner to see if he would flinch.
But when he looked up,
he realized he was about to duel with a white dude born and raised in the south,
who wouldn’t think twice about blowing his head off.
So instead he just dropped the gun and got on the ground.
The owner called the police
and Tee and his homies got arrested and charged with first-degree robbery.
At first, he thought it was all over for him.
He was already fighting another case in Michigan and had no money for a lawyer.
But instead of giving up,
he hit the library and went through as many law books as he could.
He and his co defendants ended up doing some research
and found a similar case.
They realized that under the law, they didn’t actually commit robbery,
because they never made it out of the store.
So, the most they were guilty of was destruction of property.
He told his lawyer, who brought it to the judge
and got the charge dropped down to unlawful taking or disposition.
But the only way to get the deal was if Tee got his co defendants to take it too.
At first, they ain’t wanna do it.
But he convinced them that if they brought the case to trail, it was all over.
So, they eventually agreed and Tee got sentenced to 9 months.
But even after that,
he was still facing two counts of second- -degree home invasion for the robberies in Michigan.
After doing his time in Kentucky, he was sent back to Michigan
and prosecutors offered him a plea deal to avoid going to court and he accepted it right away.
So, on February 3rd, 2015, Tee was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Even though he spent several years behind bars at that time, he started feeling optimistic.
When he got caught in Kentucky, he thought it was all over
and he was never getting out.
But now there was an end date he looked forward to.
Plus, unlike in Kentucky,
when he got to prison in Michigan, he knew people from his hood who were there,
so he felt more comfortable.
In an interview with XXL he said
“When I first came in, I used to fight I used to get jumped, jump people,
steal from people, get stuff stolen from me. But I realized that ain’t how I want to do my time,
plus I want to go home.
I realized that I got problems bigger than anything that can happen in prison.
So, I started reading books, talking to people who had a head on their shoulders,
sold my TV and just got a whole bunch of books.
Started talking to old people, people who weren’t coming home,
started figuring out what was important."
That’s also when he first started getting serious about rapping.
Now that college was out of the picture and he had no money,
he had to find a new career path.
So, he started working on music that he planned to drop after he got out.
That’s also when he first got the nickname Tee Grizzley.
Other inmates started calling him that cause he let his beard and dreads grow out
and started wilding out – like a grizzly bear.
He had about 10 songs written
and created a plan for how he was going to drop them when he got out.
As soon as he was released, he borrowed $250 from a relative
to pay for the beat to First Day Out.
He went straight to the studio with the same clothes from jail
and recorded the songs that eventually ended up on his debut mixtape, My Moment.
After that, he shot the video for First Day Out, outside of the Ryan Correctional Facility,
the closest jail.
Then he brought the video to Joseph McFashion,
the owner of a popular YouTube channel and website dedicated to Detroit-based hip hop,
who agreed to share it on his platform.
Tee told himself that if he could get to 10,000 views,
it meant people were paying attention and he was on his way.
But before he knew it,
the video already racked up 250,000 views.
Then he started getting calls that local promoters wanted to book him at clubs for $50,000.
At that point, he only had one song out.
But that was enough to get the crowd going crazy.
Not long after that, he signed with 300 Entertainment
and performed his hit song
in front of 20,000 people after Chris Brown and Trey Songz brought him out
at the Detroit stop of their tour.
What really made First Day Out go viral was the fact that Tee
told his real-life story with detail which is rare in modern rap.
On the song, he raps
“I went to trial back to back ***** I’m 2 and 0
The state of Kentucky banned me from every jewelry store
Say I can’t even be in public with my hoodie on
Michigan State don’t want him here, they don’t know what he on.”
So a lot of the bars in the song were inspired by the events
that happened right before he got famous.
Ever since he blew up, Tee Grizzley has stayed out of trouble
and focused on music.
He must have learned his lesson,
after almost losing everything before his rap career even started.