When he takes our Zoom call, Tay Keith is on the move in Nashville, where he’s set up shop for Drumatized, the multifaceted company he runs with three of his former Middle Tennessee State University classmates. It’s the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend and he’s just dropped an EP primed for summer with one of hip-hop’s leading party girls, Sexyy Red. Keith, 27, who grew up in Memphis, executive produced In Sexyy We Trust, the followup to the rapper’s 2023 EP that many publications (including Rolling Stone) named one of last year’s best. Good thing he’s DJing for the first time in years this weekend – he’ll have some new heat of his own to play.
In Sexyy We Trust is just latest culmination of professional kinship with Sexyy Red, whose breakout hits “Pound Town” and “SkeeYee” he also produced. Keith seems to take the project so seriously that he calls it an album while her publicity team markets it as a mixtape. Yet, he also is well aware that one of Sexyy Red’s biggest gifts is her frivolity. When Rolling Stone also named “SkeeYee” the best rap song of 2023, the decision was met with much backlash, with accusations of “mocking” Black music leveled at us for celebrating it’s clear impact and cultural relevance.
Keith, who knew they had a hit when he first blasted it in his car (and being behind Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode” and much more, knows a thing or two about hits), isn’t surprised. The primary critiques of it (and often, Sexyy herself) are that it’s too simple, crude, or shallow, but Tay Keith flips that framing for the good and calls it “effortless.”
“It’s not like we put fucking three months’ worth of time in one song, where we had writers or crazy mixes on it,” he explains. “This shit was just raw and uncut. It was just a dirty South, Midwest, strip club banger. It became a mainstream song.” He says. In Sexyy We Trust gets even sillier at points. “Sexyy is very unserious,” he says. “She’s having fun and it really inspired me to just have more fun with this shit. She just enjoying herself and that should be the true meaning of music. You don’t have to be serious all the time.”
Since then, Sexyy has gone on to appear on “Rich Baby Daddy” with Drake and SZA, by far her most popular song on Spotify with nearly 360 million streams. Keith didn’t produce it, but it connects Sexyy with the close collaborator of his who provided a huge cosign for Keith early on with BlocBoy JB’s “Look Alive” in 2018, and Drake’s own “Nonstop” soon after. Hits with Scott, Lil Baby, Gunna, 21 Savage, and Beyoncé followed.
On In Sexyy We Trust, she and Drake reunite on the surprising R&B song “U My Everything,” which Keith did produce. Metro Boomin earns a credit because Drake raps over a snippet of the “BBL Drizzy” beat the producer made to humiliate him. “I guess that happened this past week,” Keith tells me about Drake’s appearance on the song, though he says he didn’t have anything to do with the “BBL” sample. “When it comes to Sexyy and Drake, they got they own chemistry, and I got relationships with both of them, so it just kind of all made sense.” Kendrick Lamar evoked Drake’s relationship with Sexyy Redd to demasculinize him in their rap beef that Metro Boomin helped ignite. When I ask him what it was like watching the fight unfold between Lamar and Drake with Sexyy’s name dragged into it he says, “I really ain’t pay too much attention to it. I ain’t feed into it. I just ain’t into that.”
However, he is very into Sexyy. “That’s my sister,” he says. “I love her. It’s real genuine love.” They’re heading down the path of artist-producer duos Keith has long admired, like Gucci Mane and Zaytoven, whose influence on them is clear, to Metro Boomin and 21 Savage, Mike WiLL Made-It and Rae Sremmurd, Young Dolph and DJ Squeeky, Mustard and YG, and even Timbaland and Justin Timberlake. “That shit is timeless,” he says of the latter’s seminal album, FutureSex/LoveSounds. “That’s [a] hometown homie. I talk to Justin every now and then too. I look forward to working with him.”
Here, Tay Keith explains the nitty-gritty of he and Sexyy’s origin story, how she reminds him of his late mother, how he and others strive to protect her, and how he’s trying to make a difference in even more lives.
Tell me about the experience of making In Sexyy We Trust.
To start off, it was very fun. We had hella fun making this project. We made majority of it in Miami; Miami is always fun. Sexyy, she just got good energy to be around. It’s always the same. I never dread going in the studio with her. I know we finna make a hit. I know we finna go crazy. I just carried the energy on. It took us about six months to make this project. We did quite a few different sessions and I decided to bring my producers in on it. Teamwork make the dream work. It has definitely been a journey to get everything done, but it was fun.
Are you working with very fresh producers or people with a lot of experience? Was this a very big project for some of them?
Yeah, most definitely. I have about 10 producers signed to us, Drumatized, like BanBwoi. He has also produced “SkeeYee” with me. We have a lot of new producers that we just signed also that I put on the project, one being Jake Fridkis, and he’s an orchestra player, so he’s very known in his own world. He plays the flute. He did a couple records with [DJ] Khaled and he already had placements with Drake, so when we brought him to the table, we knew where we could plug him in. I had actually produced “Get It Sexyy” with him.
When it came to just the newer producers that we brought in, Oliver [Rio], I did one of the records on the project with him, Luhron and Eza. Eza been one of my main producers for the past two or three years. I just wanted to put all of the producers that I’ve been working with in one project and just make it go.
It’s very cool that Jake is an orchestra player. Do you play an instrument?
Well, I did in middle school. I went to a good middle school, so every student had to either be in band or orchestra. In concert band, I played the tuba.
Just in middle school? You didn’t make it to high school?
Yeah, no, I didn’t. I tried to be too cool in high school. I wish I would’ve learned how to play piano. But my dad, when I had moved in with my father, he actually was trying to get me in piano classes, but I was just trying to be just too cool, trying not to really focus on that as I should have been. But I never got to really learn how to play the piano as I should have.
I really liked “Outside” on In Sexyy We Trust and I know Mike WiLL produced it. Did you work on that? Were you around when that one was being made?
No, I mean, Mike WiLL, that’s a legend. He knows more about this shit than I do. So the thing is about the project, we also wanted her to feel comfortable working on songs outside of me too. So that was one of them. You know what I’m saying? We never forced her to choose.
It made me think that I think that this project is a good showcase of her versatility. I think that that song kind of has this Miami bass vibe; “U My Everything” has an R&B vibe. Was showing Sexyy’s broader range a goal of yours?
Yeah, most definitely. That was one of my goals coming into the project. Sexyy has been going crazy in the club for the past year and a half now, so I wanted to showcase something more like R&B and she was open to it. I had made several beats and she wanted the beat for “U My Everything.” She didn’t hesitate for that one. We did a couple other records too; she definitely been in that bag. It’s just really in her comfort zone. She’s actually doing it because she’s comfortable doing it. [It’s] been cool to see her evolve in this space.
Give me your full origin story with Sexyy Red. How did y’all get together? What was it like when you first locked in? Where were you? What did you do?
This guy named Wikid Films is basically a Memphis legend. He was the hub for so many artists breaking out of Memphis. He’s a videographer, but he’s grown to be a big executive producer. Wikid just co-signed so many people and I had been hearing Sexyy for years before that. I was in Houston showing people Sexyy Red in 2021. This is before my mama passed. I vividly remember talking about her then. I end up following her and she kept reaching out to me when I followed her, but I’m just in my bag. I’m trying to do my own shit, but at the time she was eager to work. I seen her work with Wikid. I was like, oh shit, I see what’s going on. It was vividly clear to me.
Let me pause you. So Sexy was DMing you, did you respond and be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s do it, and it never worked out? Or were you not even responding?
No, I was. So what it was is when I followed her, we was following each other and she was reaching out to me. We was texting each other. It just ain’t never get done. She was sending me songs. So when I finally had sent to her the beat for “Pound Town,” she sent it back in two days. Her team thought she was on bullshit; they was like, “The fuck you playing on his beat for?” type shit. But I liked it. I really liked the shit.
They thought she was being too unserious on it?
Yeah, because you know how it is with my beats. In the South, my beats go really hard in the streets and the clubs and the strip clubs and shit. But I liked it. I asked out the rip, “Connect me with your team. What’s your situation? Are you signed?” I was intrigued by it. So instantly, me and Cambrian, we hopped on the phone with her team. We started chopping it up with them.
We met with them in Nashville. We went to Miami, we just started building from that point on. And mind you, this is over a year ago. It just all made sense as we just started to continue to work together. That’s my sister. I love her. It’s real genuine love. I feel like we come from a similar background for us to be from different cities and it’s just like the natural connection of the music. We grew up listening to a lot of the same artists. It’s crazy. A couple of weeks ago we was in the studio and she played this song…It’s this song called…[hesitates] “Gutta Bitch.”
I like that you hesitated!
Yeah. I ain’t want to say it, but yeah, it’s a song called “Gutta Bitch” and it basically was a whole song I used to hear in elementary school. So we’re just going through songs to sample and shit and when she played that shit, I couldn’t believe it. I’m like, oh my fucking God, how does she know this shit? We just had that chemistry [from] a lot of old songs and shit that we just grew up to.
What were the critiques that you saw of Rolling Stone naming it the best rap song of 2023? What do you think of those?
The music is raw as fuck, the beat is raw, the verse is raw, the chorus is not traditional [for] what you expect for a hit record to be. Of course people going to have their opinion. It’s like a regional record, how somebody would look at a drill song, or a West Coast song, or a Detroit song. This is like a regional sound that was created. The thing is with me and Sexyy, I feel like we blended Memphis and St. Louis sound together, it made its own wave, and people really didn’t, I guess, grab or get accustomed to it before they said what they said.
I mean, it’s raw. I can expect for people to look at it like, “How the fuck did this shit…” This shit is almost effortless. You know what I’m saying? It’s not like we put fucking three months’ worth of time in one song, where we had writers or crazy mixes on it. This shit was just raw and uncut. It was just a dirty south, Midwest, strip club banger. It became a mainstream song. I take it for what it is. It’s an authentic record that was made for the streets and the club.
You know how the internet is. You can’t never win against the internet. You can’t satisfy everybody, with that being said, somebody’s going to have an opinion that you might not like, compared to thousands of other people who might got a good opinion. It’s just the balance of life. I take the good with the bad.
What’s your relationship with Sexyy been like in the face of criticism? Some of it is musical, but she also went through this terrible thing where someone leaked her sex tape, and that’s going further than just critiquing the music. How do you guys work together and handle those types of things?
Sexyy got a wonderful team around her. My team, we handle all the production, but as far as her team, they really care for her. I see there’s a real family around her. They show her so much love and passion. I can tell they go so hard for her every day. I can just tell they really care for her. When she at her worst, she got the support. They’re family to me, so I know they’re really family to her.
That’s really good to hear. I mean, just to broaden it out a little bit, there are these conversations now that have happened, particularly in the past few years, about the way women have been treated in hip-hop and music more broadly. There’s been violence, there’s been harm. What do you think the role is of people like you, men in the industry, as far as the safety and protection of women?
I feel like just me embracing Sexyy in spite of people, how people really feel or felt about her, and showing I really care for her and the women in the industry; showing her it’s possible for her to overcome what she’s been [through] not just as a woman, but a Black woman too. You know, there’s not too many women who the industry accepts. Just me being behind her 110% shows I really care for her.
What do you admire and respect about her the most?
I think what I admire and respect about her the most is the hustle. Just me seeing her pregnant on stage, in front of thousands of people, and she just rocking this shit every time for months, straight pregnant as fuck. That’s the hustle. It reminds me of my mama. You know what I’m saying? My mama did hair, so she stood on her feet every day, Monday through Sunday, Sunday through Monday, just grinding, still keeping a smile on her face, and just making sure she was able to provide as much as she could. I just feel like when it comes to [Sexyy], she really a hustler, an example of what a real woman should be providing for her family and her kids, just standing on business, and going hard for it. You know what I’m saying? But I admire that about her. She was pregnant as fuck on stage, doing her little bop, doing her little dance. It just was inspiring.
And outside of your work as a producer, you’re building a multifaceted business with Drumatized. Tell me about the different arms of your company.
The main thing that we’re doing is the producer aspect. We develop producers, get them placements, help them network, build onto them as far as what they can become – [with] the resources when it comes to travel, monetary things, all of the above. We are a one-stop shop when it comes to producers. Me and Cambrian [Strong], my business partner, and also my other team partners, Nicholas Brownlow and Tyland Jackson have been doing this about six years now. We started off with two producers.
That led to us working with artists and A&R [for] a lot of projects with artists and singles too. We been a little bit more successful with that this past year and a half. So that’s been good.
[We’ve also] been doing a variety of things outside of music. My company’s invested in a lot of companies. [Theres’s] a company called Udio we just invested in. I know you’ve been seeing all of the AI stuff that’s been going on with the music scene. It comes from a company called Udio [Editor’s note: There are other generative AI products, like Suno. Udio, though, was used by a comedian to make “BBL Drizzy”]. So that’s an example of a thing that we’ve been invested in.
Another thing that we’ve been doing is DOA Cares, which basically is our nonprofit that we’re forming. We give back to kids who overcome adversity in their communities and show that it’s people who come from where you come from and understand you; show them that it’s possible to overcome those things.
I just did a personal thing in Memphis with my team [for] women who are battling cancer. I did that with FYI [a branding and publicity firm] also, because my mom passed from cancer three years ago.
I’m sorry.
That’s okay. I did a dinner for them and gave them wigs too for Mother’s Day, just to motivate them and show them that they are appreciated; that they help people like me when they don’t even know it.
What kind of support are you providing to young people?
We partnered with the National Museum of African-American Music this past Christmas to do a give back where we provided them gifts and food. We had a seminar and they got free admission to the museum, just showing them that this is where I come from too, and music was my outlet for my success. So you can always go to school and go to college, but also, you can chase your dreams too.
So you have a background that was similar to some of the kids that you’re helping? Did you also have to overcome a lot of stuff?
Yeah. I had to. I’m working with the city of Memphis where I’m from, to partner up with a lot of the programs to basically help the children in our communities. I was raised in Section 8, I was raised with a single mom majority of my life. I have been put out. I’ve been in situations where we had to get government assistance. I had free lunch and food stamps my whole life. I had to overcome a lot of adversity growing up and I made it a mission to be able to show the youth that it’s possible, weather it’s through DOA Cares [or] just me on a daily basis. I always motivate the kids, the young producers who reach out to me and want advice. I never hesitate to talk to them.
Just before we close out, what do you have coming this summer? What are you working on?
I’m working on a project with me and Key Glock. We started together, so it’s going to be a full circle moment for us to release a project together. Then, I’m working on a Drumatized compilation project. That’s going to be big. Also me, I just started back DJing. I stopped DJing at 2021 after what I had to deal with with my mother, so I just brought it back. I’m finna be traveling the country.
What cities can we expect you in?
I can’t say right now, but because we’re actually trying to come to terms with everything, with the different places we doing. But yeah, I’m DJing this weekend out here in Nashville, Memorial Day weekend. It’s going to be one of my first big gigs I’ve done had in a while, so I’m excited about that.
Is it a day party?
Yeah, it’s a day party.
Okay, fun. Tell me, what’s your favorite type of party?
Day party, rooftop vibe. It’s crazy, because my team wants me to do festivals and shit again, but I feel like I’m not where I want to be to do festivals. It takes a lot out of me. What I’m comfortable with right now has been doing the mixer vibes, like the rooftop cool shit. That’s what I’ve been on.