Tase Grip Over Everything

Going Up is a profile series featuring artists we love who are on the verge of breaking through.

If you ask Akai Solo, every show he plays is a Tase Grip show. The Brooklyn rapper is a compelling live presence on his own—his poetic and knotty raps, delivered in a lulling monotone on record, become booming edicts when he’s stagger-stepping across the stage. But no matter where he goes, members of Tase Grip are never far.

That much was clear during a Manhattan gig last August. Backed by Queens DJ-producer-engineer Wavy Bagels and a projection of the hit anime One Piece, a frequent touchstone in Akai’s writing, the rapper was playful but dead serious about his craft and his people. Any moment he wasn’t ribbing audience members for trying to run Fortnite on their Nintendo Switches (“Your TV’s gonna explode!”) was spent bigging up a producer or channeling the collective. Akai jumped into the crowd about halfway through his set, while the audience watched the wizardry unfold. Most everyone was entranced and staring, but the loudest were fellow Tase Grip members Bagels, Long Island rapper Phiik, and Brooklyn rapper S!lence, who cheered him on from the periphery, going bar-for-bar. That moment encapsulates the Grip ethos: Every solo member feeds back into the whole.

The unit consists of 12 core members doing some combination of rapping, producing, and engineering. Along with the aforementioned four, there’s Lungs, Gam, Amani, Ctyzn, Iblss, $hayButtah, Sejibeats, and Elric. Some are more prolific than others, and others have cycled in and out over time, but these are the main artists who currently make up the think tank.

As consistently phenomenal as their music is, it’s that trust, the desire to push themselves and each other without ego or malice, that makes Grip special to me. With most collectives, the seams usually show once one member takes off. But by all accounts, the rising tide continues to lift all boats. They still pop out at each other’s shows; still hold each other accountable for mistakes and making songs that don’t hit; still battle each other in Fortnite. “Nobody’s selfish, and that’s gonna take us the long way,” Bagels says. “If we’re not doing it for each other, then we can’t expect anybody outside to care about us.” That self-sustaining ethos permeates through their catchphrase, one that most of its members repeat ad nauseum at shows, in interviews, and during taped performances: “Tase Grip over everything.”

It makes sense, then, that Grip came about as a result of Akai’s early pangs of isolation. He was already rapping and putting out, by his account, “very bad” mixtapes on SoundCloud by 2014, but even as a soloist, he had ambitions of bringing like minds together on the mic. Many of the first interactions between members of what would become Tase Grip happened at local shows and open mics. Akai, S!lence, and Amani first met at an event hosted by Cypher League in the basement of former Brooklyn DIY institution Palisades in 2014. Shortly after, Iblss hosted a party where the trio, $hayButtah, Seji, and others connected over drinks and more ciphers in Iblss’ backyard.

Lungs and Gam remember first meeting Akai at a Team Backpack show in 2015; his mic had died in the middle of his set and he just kept rapping like nothing happened. Impressed, the duo offered to drive Akai to another show he had that night, where he asked them about joining Grip. Phiik, who had just returned from an extended stay in California, and Bagels, who was ushered in at another of Iblss’ house parties, informally joined the group during a bonfire show in Brooklyn in 2017. Every member was quickly taught the group’s secret handshake, which they still use today.

Their initial bond was strong, but things really began to coalesce in 2018 at Grip Fest, the first show they threw as an official collective. Hosted at Silent Barn, another beloved and now-defunct Brooklyn DIY spot, Grip Fest came about from S!lence emailing venues across the city pretending to be the group’s manager, asking about hosting their own showcase. Silent Barn bit, and all the players assembled for a night fueled by pizza, beats, and bars.

“It was the first real ting we ever pulled off,” Akai remembers. “It was just cool watching everyone know their cues. We were at the center of what felt like an organic New York City moment.” They had a decently sized crowd as is, but at some point during the show, another event in the building ended and brought a large wave of new people to Grip Fest, including New York comedians Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, whose presence was, at the time, a coronation in its own right. “It was a milestone of our ability to cultivate and galvanize community,” S!lence says.

And when they say “community,” they mean it. Grip members record many of their songs at either Bagels, Gam, or Iblss’ studios, a time-honored tradition brought about by the COVID pandemic. (If tracks are recorded elsewhere, they are usually at least mixed and mastered in-house.) Kickbacks regularly transform into brainstorming sessions and, depending on the location, ciphers and, yes, even more recording. It has the air of those old Wu-Tang sessions, where five MCs would fight for space to torch the mic with only limited time to share between them. But unlike RZA’s brainchild, there’s no sense of hierarchy or an invisible caste system dimming any members’ glow. As Bagels explains it: “It’s like being on a basketball team. Everyone has a specific role to play, and if you’re doing your part, it makes it easier for everyone else to do theirs.”

Every member I speak to credits the hivemind with their advancement as an artist—it’s like they’re only ever creating for each other, and we’re all fortunate enough to hear it. Bagels remembers recording Phiik and Lungs before they adopted the spitfire flows they’re known for today, and watching them ease into new styles made it easier for him to experiment and improve as an engineer. Lungs, who also produces under the name Lonesword, credits the group’s determination with inspiring him as a budding engineer as well. S!lence feels that his fellow Tase Grip members are basically the only rappers he needs to keep up with at this point.

But the most apparent growth has come from Akai. As the group’s most recognizable figure—Earl Sweatshirt has produced for him several times, and he’s dropped two projects with indie-rap mainstay Backwoodz Studioz—and label head of Break All Records, through which many of group’s projects are released, he’s had to come to terms with being the the North Star guiding the ship.

“In my heart of hearts, I would rather not be [the leader], but I’ve come to like being the shadow force holding things together,” he admits. “One of the group’s superpowers is that everyone has the qualifications to lead if need be. Everyone passes that test. I’m only here as an innate necessity for the survival and preservation of the idea. Making sure there’s moments set aside to redirect that energy back into the collective is important.” He’s constantly looking for ways to move the needle for his crew without taking up more space than necessary.

And the needle’s been moving more intently lately. Bagels teamed with New Jersey producer Driveby last May for A Carfull, a freewheeling mixtape that recalls the playful mischievousness of Biz Markie and Prince Among Thieves-era Prince Paul. S!lence followed shortly after with Aguadura, a journey through day-to-day thoughts and struggles set to sun-soaked beats. Phiik and Lungs, who rap together as the duo Another Planet, released the technicolor rap collage Carrot Season through POW Recordings in September. The duo’s live performances and freestyles go viral seemingly every other month, with listeners across social media loving and hating on their experimental style. They and Akai took their presence to another level by embarking on their first-ever European tour last fall. And not to be shown up, Akai himself dropped three projects over the past year or so—Verticality//Singularity, Only the Strong Remain, and DreamDropDragon. No angle was uncovered.

For S!lence, it’s important for Grip members to have both group solidarity and individual freedom. “It’s about everyone being strong or capable enough to do their own thing and to also come back and do something larger, to cause an impact and do it in our own way.” Members routinely feature across each other’s albums, songs, and live sets. And like any rap collective worth its salt, they’re currently working on their debut group mixtape. Though it’ll be their first official release as a united front, Grip has already begun to close its fist around the hip-hop world.

Back at that show last summer, as Akai finished his set and left the stage, he quietly greeted and thanked a few eager fans, hoodie draped over his head. He kept it humble at that moment, but the real energy of the night came through later: when he approached every member of Grip in the crowd and gave them the secret handshake.

Below, you’ll find a playlist of Tase Grip’s greatest hits so far, expertly curated by Dylan, for paying subscribers only. If you haven’t signed up yet, now’s the time.