Hip-hop producer Tay Keith has died. In a statement shared on Thursday, June 18, Nashville police confirmed that the artist, real name Brytavious Chambers, was found dead in his apartment by officers performing a welfare check. Although a cause of death was not confirmed, police do not suspect any foul play as of this writing. Chambers was 29.
Chambers’ sound linked the distorted, horrorcore synths and drum lines of Memphis rap with the melodious trap that exploded in Atlanta in the early 2000s. His producer tag became synonymous with some of the biggest hits of the past decade, including BlocBoy JB and Drake’s “Look Alive,” Sexyy Red’s “Pound Town,” and Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode,” the latter of which earned Chambers a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Song. Chambers also contributed to Beyoncé’s Grammy-winning 2019 live album Homecoming, producing the bonus track “Before I Let Go.”
Born and raised in South Memphis, Chambers grew up listening to local rap royalty like Three 6 Mafia, Playa Fly, and 8Ball & MJG with his family. “I always knew music was gonna be my outlet,” he told the Fader in 2018. “I just didn’t know when, or how it was gonna happen.” That answer arrived in his early teens, when Chambers first began recording music—equipped with just a mic, his computer, and a piano—and releasing it on DatPiff and YouTube. It was also around this time that he met the rapper BlocBoy JB, who would go on to become one of his closest collaborators.
After people began offering to pay for the beats he uploaded online, Chambers went all in on producing, and eventually counted Drumma Boy and Memphis Track Boy as early mentors. Although his earliest credits date back to 2012, he broke out properly in 2015 after producing Black Youngsta’s mixtape Fuck Everybody. In recent months, he had worked on albums from Key Glock, Megan Thee Stallion, Offset, and Westside Gunn, among others.
This is a developing story.
