Tay Keith, the Memphis producer who put a gut-punch drum pattern under some of the biggest rap records of the past decade, died on Thursday (June 18). He was 29.
Metro Nashville Police found him unresponsive at his Nashville apartment during a welfare check, Billboard reports. “He was found dead in his Martin St apt this afternoon by officers performing a welfare check,” the department said, adding that no foul play is suspected. Per the statement, Rolling Stone says, his death is “unclassified pending autopsy results.” His family confirmed the loss in a statement that called him BryTavious, the name he was born with.
BryTavious was a visionary producer, songwriter, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and cultural force whose work helped define the sound of a generation.
The family of BryTavious “Tay Keith” Chambers, Rolling Stone
The numbers are only part of his story, but they are large. Billboard counts 11 Hot 100 top 10s and four No. 1s, among them Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode,” which earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Song, and Drake’s “First Person Shooter.” He also holds the record for the most No. 1s on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart this decade, with six. His 2018 breakout, BlocBoy JB and Drake’s “Look Alive,” peaked at No. 5.
His sound ran through Memphis. Pitchfork writes that he linked the distorted synths and drum lines of Memphis rap with the melodic trap of early-2000s Atlanta, and it traces his tastes to Three 6 Mafia, Playa Fly and 8Ball & MJG. “He wanted that Memphis slap,” Tay Keith told The FADER in 2018 about working with Drake. He also made records for Eminem (“Not Alike”), Lil Baby and Gunna (“Never Recover”) and Beyoncé (“Before I Let Go,” on Homecoming: The Live Album).
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He was just as proud of what he built for newcomers. In 2018 he founded Drumatized, a label and creative camp that became the second Black-owned studio in Nashville, per Billboard. He also backed Sexyy Red early, producing her breakout “Pound Town.” In a 2024 Billboard interview he said most people treated it as a joke at first. “People were trolling the shit out of me,” he said. “I saw the potential.”
The tributes started within hours. BlocBoy JB, his closest collaborator, wrote on Instagram, “We talked every day.” Fellow Memphis producer Hitkidd wrote, “I ain’t even got the words, we been doing this since 2010.” Drake thanked him for “your spirit and your contributions to this thing that we all love so much,” according to Pitchfork.
He was so smart and insightful, not only book smart and business smart, but people smart,
Beverly Keel, dean of MTSU’s Scott Borchetta College of Media and Entertainment, Billboard
Keel said she and Tay Keith, who graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in December 2018, had been talking about a scholarship in his name. Memorial arrangements, his family said, will be shared later.
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.
