Are Quavo and Takeoff related? How the uncle-and-nephew duo worked
By the Rap Duo Video team
Are Quavo and Takeoff related? Yes. Quavo is Takeoff's uncle, though only about three years separate them and they grew up together. Offset, the third member of Migos, is usually described as Quavo's cousin. In 2022 uncle and nephew released Only Built for Infinity Links as Unc & Phew, weeks before Takeoff died.
Quick facts
| Quavo | Quavious Keyate Marshall, born April 2, 1991; Takeoff's uncle |
|---|---|
| Takeoff | Kirsnick Khari Ball, June 18, 1994 to November 1, 2022; Quavo's nephew |
| Group | Migos, with Offset (usually described as Quavo's cousin), from Gwinnett County, Georgia |
| Duo name | Unc & Phew (uncle and nephew) |
| Joint album | Only Built for Infinity Links, October 7, 2022 |
| Best-known duo song | Hotel Lobby, and its orange COLORS session from June 2022 |
How they are related
The relationship is uncle and nephew, but the ages do not look like it. Because Quavo was born in 1991 and Takeoff in 1994, the gap was small enough that they grew up more like brothers than like two generations, in the suburbs north-east of Atlanta.
They began making music together as teenagers, and you can hear that shared history in the way they pass a verse from one to the other without a seam. It is also the joke behind their later duo name, where "Unc" stands for the uncle and "Phew" for the nephew.
Where Offset fits in
Offset, born Kiari Kendrell Cephus, completes the trio. He is usually introduced as Quavo's cousin, and some later accounts call him a close childhood friend instead; either way he grew up alongside both. He was part of Migos from its early mixtape years in Georgia and shared the spotlight on the group's best-known records.
He is not on the Unc & Phew project, though. That 2022 chapter was Quavo and Takeoff only, which is why fans searching for the three of them land on Migos and fans searching for the two of them land on the uncle-and-nephew story.
Unc & Phew, the two-man chapter
In 2022, while Migos was quiet, Quavo and Takeoff put out music as a pair. The run had three landmarks:
- "Hotel Lobby (Unc & Phew)", the first single;
- their orange-walled performance of it for A COLORS SHOW in June 2022;
- the full album Only Built for Infinity Links, released on October 7, 2022.
Our page on the Hotel Lobby song explains what the single is about and why that session became so widely copied. If you are looking for other pairs in the same tradition, our list of the best rap duos is a good place to start.
Losing Takeoff
On November 1, 2022, less than four weeks after the album came out, Takeoff was shot and killed outside a venue in Houston, Texas. He was 28. Police said he had not been involved in the dispute that led to the shooting.
He had released a solo album, The Last Rocket, in 2018, and fans remember him as the calm and exact technician of the group, the member who rarely chased attention but rarely missed a bar. Tributes from other artists, and from Quavo, continued for months afterwards.
From the orange booth to the AI trend
Four years later, the COLORS clip of uncle and nephew became the visual template for a wave of AI videos in which ordinary pairs perform together in that same orange room. The respectful way to join is to star yourselves rather than imitate the artists. Our Hotel Lobby AI studio writes a new song for every clip and never copies anyone's voice; the same trend searched under the group's name is on Migos AI.
Read how to do the trend step by step, or give your own pair a stage name with the rap duo name generator. The AI rapper page shows what else the studio can do with two photos.