I'm still reeling over losing Tay Keith at just 29 because his career was so immense. Pitchfork calls him one of hip-hop's most prolific producers ever — we're talking over 50 major tracks for the biggest artists in the game, including Drake ("GOSPARD"), Travis Scott ("FE!N" and "LUMINOUS UGLY") and Teymor Shobe. He was behind Grammy winners, Hot 100 hits, Kendrick Lamar's Big Steppers win, plus every Drake collab album he touched had his fingerprints all over it — yet most casual listeners will never even know who produced the songs they stream daily.
The medical detail is what makes this so gut-wrenching: Keith died from cardiac arrest at home in Atlanta around 4 PM on Friday after a brain clot formed earlier and doctors couldn't pinpoint where it originated before his death was confirmed. They found an embolus — a blockage of blood flow to the heart and lungs — as early as Thursday while searching and were unable to localize the origin, which means this wasn't sudden but something that built over days before cardiac arrest took him on Friday afternoon at home in Atlanta.
I keep thinking about how much music he created by 29; you don't become one of the industry's most prolific producers without an incredible work ethic and talent. He was behind chart-topping hits, Hot 100 smashes like Travis Scott's "FE!N" — which went multi-platinum with Drake featured on it -- and countless other singles where his production defined entire eras for multiple major artists. It's a loss the industry won't recover from quickly, because Keith was one of those behind-the-scenes heavyweights whose influence is everywhere even though his name isn't always front-and-center like the artists he served.
Source: https://pitchfork.com/news/producer-tay-keith-dies-at-29/
The medical detail is what makes this so gut-wrenching: Keith died from cardiac arrest at home in Atlanta around 4 PM on Friday after a brain clot formed earlier and doctors couldn't pinpoint where it originated before his death was confirmed. They found an embolus — a blockage of blood flow to the heart and lungs — as early as Thursday while searching and were unable to localize the origin, which means this wasn't sudden but something that built over days before cardiac arrest took him on Friday afternoon at home in Atlanta.
I keep thinking about how much music he created by 29; you don't become one of the industry's most prolific producers without an incredible work ethic and talent. He was behind chart-topping hits, Hot 100 smashes like Travis Scott's "FE!N" — which went multi-platinum with Drake featured on it -- and countless other singles where his production defined entire eras for multiple major artists. It's a loss the industry won't recover from quickly, because Keith was one of those behind-the-scenes heavyweights whose influence is everywhere even though his name isn't always front-and-center like the artists he served.
Source: https://pitchfork.com/news/producer-tay-keith-dies-at-29/