Griz finds the funk in electronic music's future

Griz went on a funk journey, and Detroit got its newest electronic music star.

Six months after a milestone show at the Masonic, the Southfield-bred producer born Grant Kwiecinski will get the biggest hometown platform of his young career when he plays the main stage at next weekend's Movement festival. Griz, who played smaller Movement stages in 2013 and '14, has earned a plum slot: a Memorial Day set just before the fest-closing performance by headliner Snoop Dogg.

The fast rise is no surprise. Griz is emerging as one of the most talked-about names on the national scene, known for tracks driven by contemporary EDM elements — trippy beats, bottom-end wobble, bass drops — but dripping with the sounds of raw, horn-layered funk.

Topping it off is the signature item that's become familiar at his freewheeling, high-energy shows: a saxophone played by the lanky DJ over his mixes.

Not bad for a 24-year-old self-professed stoner who abandoned Michigan State University as he became increasingly fixated on music-making and DJ gigs, eventually grabbing the ears of electro-funk connoisseurs around the world via his online releases.

"Things could have gone any way," he says. "People just decided this was cool. It was the right music at the right time, and it's worked out."

With the instrumental aspect to his performance, Griz gives Movement something distinct, and fest director Jason Huvaere says it's "what electronic music has been striving for: that live concert recognition."

"His style of music really represents the future of where a lot of this is going," says Huvaere, head of Paxahau Events. "He's got the right sounds — a traditional foundation with his own modern spin — and he interprets everything himself. He's a true artist. He's young, super ambitious and positive."

Griz is proudly independent, a maverick who insists on releasing all his music for free via his All Good Records, including his fourth album, "Say It Loud," posted to SoundCloud in March. (In the spirit of Radiohead, he asks fans to pay whatever they choose, if they choose, and the tracks are also available at iTunes for those who wish to purchase directly.)

Griz moved to Boulder, Colo., three years ago, drawn by the state's mountain scenery, electronic-music counterculture and liberal stance on weed. (Griz's own custom marijuana strain was voted runner-up in the people's choice category at last month's Cannabis Cup in Denver.)

But metro Detroit remains close to his heart, and he returns often to his old stomping grounds. Griz still has fond memories of Berkshire Middle School in Beverly Hills, where cookies were served daily right out of the oven, and Birmingham Groves High School, where he was friendly with fellow future music luminary Mike Posner.

Griz was a musically inclined kid, playing piano and inspired by "Peter and the Wolf" to take up the oboe in fifth grade, though he promptly abandoned it in favor of saxophone. ("Whew — close call," he says now.)

Quickly working his way up to first-chair sax in the school band, he remained in that top spot through his senior year, when he was kicked out of band for a "not very cool reason": spending too much time studying for his advanced placement literature class.

By then he'd already become captivated by digital music technology through the program Frooty Loops, and he dove into the world of beat-making and sound tweaking. Griz's own musical foundation was shaping up: He was a hip-hop fan with a taste for horns — Outkast's "SpottieOttieDopaliscious" was a favorite — and a mom who surrounded him with funk-R&B classics like Earth, Wind & Fire.

"That got ingrained," he says. "I just really liked those trumpets and horns — Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie — and I honed in on that. I always looked for those big horn lines."

At MSU, he continued to hone his mixing skills, increasingly skipping class to spend time crafting tracks on a rudimentary setup that included a small computer so overtaxed he'd stick it in a fridge to cool down.

Performing as DJ GK at house parties and underground gigs, he scored a regular slot at the off-campus Mac's Bar, paid in beer by a bar owner pleased at the growing crowds.

"I was having a great time. I had good friends and I had my head on straight," Griz says. "I knew what I wanted. I just didn't know exactly how to get there. I wanted to be able to make music the way I wanted to, in my own space, uninterrupted."

Griz soon had all the time he wanted: Skipped classes meant failing grades, and MSU placed him on academic probation, he says. He dropped out.

But stuff was already percolating on the music front. His SoundCloud tracks were getting increased attention, welcomed by fans of artists such as Shpongle, Pretty Lights and others in the psychedelic, hippie corner of the electronic music world.

And Griz had made the move that would become his trademark: wielding a saxophone at the DJ desk.

"There was a time in that (East Lansing DJ) community when people were totally cool with new weird (stuff)," he says. "Weird costumes, weird drugs, people just experimenting at being weird. I decided, 'I'm going to pick up the saxophone to weird out really hard and sort of fit in.' But really, I was starting to push my own boundaries."

By 2012, he was touring regularly — eventually landing gigs at big fests like Lollapalooza and Electric Forest — and making industry connections as he tapped fellow metro Detroiter Jordan Kleiman to run his label.

Griz is charismatic and expressive on just about any topic, but his enthusiasm really kicks in when he starts digging into the nuts and bolts of his music. He speaks with a vocabulary you usually hear from jazz guys, describing sounds in visual terms and gushing about "the conversations" among instruments.

For the new "Say It Loud," Griz opted to stop sampling old records — his new stature had raised the legal stakes — and set out across the country to collaborate with assorted funk musicians, including players from New York's esteemed Daptone Records family and Detroit's Will Sessions Band. In the studio, Griz played conductor while giving the musicians ample room to improvise, aware that he's still on a learning curve.

Back in his own studio, he chopped it all up and reassembled the parts into new electro-funk collages, enlisting a batch of vocalists (including Talib Kweli, Ivan Neville and Orlando Napier) to round it out.

For all his outgoing personality, Griz still values space for himself, time to burrow into his gear and focus on the often painstaking process of crafting tracks. He's attuned to the little details, the way sounds interact and flow alongside each other. And he's careful to make sure his stuff swings, often adjusting parts by milliseconds to make sure an organic, funky feel is intact.

"It's like a clay thing," he says. "You cut it up, then you have a square that you want to turn into a circle, and you keep shaping it until it starts feeling good."

Griz is prolific, and his next album is already under way; he'll head to New Orleans soon for a round of recording.

He's content keeping his career in a grassroots mode: He intends to keep releasing his music for free, and would spurn any big-label overtures.

"I don't need more money," he says. "I don't need that to be happy. I was happiest when I was broke (in college) anyways, making music, eating snack packs and smoking cigarettes."

And while Griz is open to going wherever his creative momentum takes him, for now he's satisfied being on the vanguard of electronic music's funky, soulful movement.

"Everyone wants to grow, but I'm not trying to reinvent myself anytime soon," he says. "Maybe I'll do something different, a side project, but right now I'm happy with what I'm doing. I haven't written my favorite song yet, and I hope I never do."

Contact Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

Movement 2015

With Snoop Dogg, Richie Hawtin, Dog Blood, Griz and more

Saturday through May 25

Griz performs at 10 p.m. May 25

Hart Plaza, downtown Detroit

Three-day passes ($150 general admission, $260 VIP), single-day $75