Detroit rapper Tee Grizzley is a Twitch star
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.
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