Hip-hop producer Tay Keith has died. In a assertion shared on Thursday, June 18, Nashville police confirmed that the artist, actual title Brytavious Chambers, was discovered lifeless in his condo by officers performing a welfare test. Though a explanation for dying was not confirmed, police don’t suspect any foul play as of this writing. Chambers was 29.
Chambers’ sound linked the distorted, horrorcore synths and drum traces of Memphis rap with the melodious entice that exploded in Atlanta within the early 2000s. His producer tag grew to become synonymous with among the largest hits of the previous decade, together with BlocBoy JB and Drake’s “Look Alive,” Sexyy Purple’s “Pound City,” and Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode,” the latter of which earned Chambers a Grammy nomination for Finest Rap Tune. Chambers additionally contributed to Beyoncé’s Grammy-winning 2019 stay album Homecoming, producing the bonus observe “Earlier than I Let Go.”
Born and raised in South Memphis, Chambers grew up listening to native rap royalty like Three 6 Mafia, Playa Fly, and 8Ball & MJG along with his household. “I at all times knew music was gonna be my outlet,” he informed the Fader in 2018. “I simply did not know when, or the way it was gonna occur.” That reply arrived in his early teenagers, when Chambers first started recording music—geared up with only a mic, his laptop, and a piano—and releasing it on DatPiff and YouTube. It was additionally round this time that he met the rapper BlocBoy JB, who would go on to turn into considered one of his closest collaborators.
Chambers labored persistently with among the most recognizable names in mainstream rap, however he by no means shied from investing in rising, left-of-center expertise. “Pound City,” his 2023 observe with Sexyy Purple, grew to become her breakout single and foregrounded one of many strongest mixtapes of the yr, Hood’s Hottest Princess. However as Chambers defined to Billboard in 2024, most individuals handled the uproarious observe as a joke when it first got here out. “Individuals have been trolling the shit out of me,” he stated. “It wasn’t a lot good suggestions. It was coming from even folks round me, ‘What you doing?’ I noticed the potential. That’s so simple as it was, me believing in her.”
Since information broke of Chambers’ passing, a number of different musicians have shared public tributes to his life and legacy. “Rattling Cuz You Simply Harm Me Dangerous” BlocBoy JB stated in an Instagram story, alongside a photograph of the pair. “We talked on a regular basis.” Fellow Memphis producer Hitkidd additionally expressed disbelief on Instagram, writing: “I ain’t even bought the phrases, we been doing this since 2010.”
