Griffin Bars

Griffin Bars was born in Toronto, Ontario on July 30, 1997. Griffin’s family relocated to the United States in the year 2000. He has dual citizenship with the United States and Canada. Griffin Bars spent a majority of his childhood years in DeKalb and Sycamore, Illinois. At age 8, Griffin found himself extremely drawn to hip hop music and the culture surrounding it. So much so that by age 12 he had begun writing his own lyrics and recording them in his bedroom on a voice memo app. Griffin’s aspirations of being a rapper was immediately met with criticism from his peers at school and lead to the young rapper being ostracized for his dreams. Ironically, Griffin Bars is no stranger to trouble. In 2010, Griffin was expelled from Sycamore Junior High School after he was charged with possession of alcohol by a minor. Later that same year, Griffin Bars was enrolled in an alternative school when he released a diss track on YouTube, talking directly to many of the kids that were ridiculing him. This ultimately would cause the alternative school to expel him as well. In an attempt to keep Griffin out of trouble, him and his father set out to rural Walnut, Illinois. With this fresh start, Griffin excelled both academically and socially. Tragically that would all come to an end in October 2011. Griffin woke up to find his father suffering from a medical emergency and immediately rendered aid and called 911. His father unfortunately passed away hours later due to a brain aneurysm. He was 56 years old.

Foster Care

Falling into a deep depression after the death of his father, Griffin blamed himself and spiraled out of control. Experimenting with drugs as a way to cope, only added fuel to the flame. Worried about the dark path he was embarking on, his mother sent him to live with an aunt in Ottawa, Ontario in 2012. Only for Griffin to be sent back three months later. After almost a dozen hospitalizations, incarcerations and stints in rehab. In 2013, Griffin Bars was officially remanded into the custody of the Illinois Department and Child Family Services. After months of waiting for a placement in a DCFS facility located in Lee County, he was moved to a group home in Addison, Illinois. Griffin Bars spent most of his time as a foster youth at Lutherbrook. Lutherbrook was a group home for troubled teens and has made several headlines for allegations of abuse and poor living conditions. Lutherbrook has since been shut down by the state in 2017. During his time at Lutherbrook, Griffin Bars attended Addison Trail High School for one full school year. However for unknown reasons, Addison Trail High School refused to let him attend the following year. This would lead Griffin to drop out of high school and obtain his GED in 2015. Shortly after, Griffin was relocated to another group home in Arlington Heights, Illinois and began taking classes at Harper College. Now at age 18, Griffin struggled to balance the day to day stress of living in a group home, paired with working and going to school full time. He finished one semester at Harper College and did not re-enroll for a second. Instead, Griffin continued to work in the food service industry and rediscovered his passion for making music. In the spring of 2016 Griffin Bars began recording and uploading his music online under the name “GriffGotBars”. On June 16, 2016, Arlington Heights Police were dispatched to the group home in reference to a psychical altercation between Griffin Bars and another resident. During their investigation it was discovered that Griffin Bars threw at punch at the other resident, when he missed and punched a hole through the drywall. Griffin Bars was then arrested and charged with criminal damage to government supported property, a class 4 felony in the state of Illinois. He was transported to the Cook County Jail and released on election monitoring that same week. After being released from Cook County Jail, Griffin Bars emancipated himself from DCFS custody just days before his 19th birthday. Now completely free from the foster care system, Griffin continued to work full time to support himself and his music career.

Music Career

Griffin Bars first received online recognition in 2017 and started booking shows across Northern Illinois. In 2018 Griffin Bars toured the United States with fellow Illinois based hip-hop acts Jaytekz, Lito Garcia & El Hitta on the One Night Only tour. That same year Griffin also toured with Los Angeles based artist, OHNO and was also a supporting act for Jarren Benton. In 2019 Griffin re branded as Griffin Bars and dropped his single “Next” in 2020. “Next” would pick up traction online after gaining attention on TikTok. The following year in 2021, he put out many independent hits such as “Bother Me” , “Breaks Off”, “MTV” and “Dividends (feat. Rockie Fresh)”. As far as future plans the young MC is set to release his first project, “Lamborghini Day Dreams”, in the summer of 2022.