It’s a sad day for underground hip-hop as influential and beloved Atlanta rapper Grip Plyaz has died.
Born Quentin Hood, the prolific musician known for his intense live shows and musical versatility was diagnosed in 2015 with stage three pleomorphic sarcoma, a rare form of soft tissue cancer. As HipHopDX notes, Grip Plyaz underwent surgery that year to remove 80 percent of the cancerous tissue, but the cancer returned and forced him into radiation and chemotherapy treatment. A GoFundMe launched by his friends that year raised nearly $18,000.
A few days ago, according to reports, Grip Plyaz suffered cardiac arrest as the remaining cancer spread through his body. After a brief coma, he died Thursday (June 8).
Many in the hip-hop community have paid respects throughout the day, including Killer Mike, who featured Grip’s 2009 banger “Fuck Dat Hipster Shit” on his Underground Atlanta comp, furthering the performer’s crossover appeal. “Atl Rap underground legend and one of the many backbones the Current Atl art & Music scene has transitioned to be with the ancestors,” Killer Mike writes on Instagram. “He was a drunken unicorn staple and lived in the music, art & street wear world daily. We loved him and he knows.”
Though Grip released a ton of music over the past decade, our favorite track of his remains “Dayee Izz,” a raucous track that first surfaced in the late 2000s and was included on the 2013 Purp x Wind x Fire Screwed & Chopped by DJ Dibiase comp. Hear that and other selections from the self-proclaimed “King of Rachet” and one of Atlanta’s underground rap pioneers below.
#RIP
Featured photo by Diwang Valdez.