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\n\tThe first time I heard BlocBoy JB<\/a>\u2019s \u201cLook Alive,\u201d<\/a> Tay Keith<\/a>\u2019s now-famous producer tagline simply sounded like background noise, hidden in the shadow of Drake<\/a>\u2019s star power. I was a college student far away from home, and the song was a little piece of my birthplace to take pride in: \u201c901, Shelby Drive, look alive\u2026\u201d<\/em> The biggest rapper in the world at the time was singing my area code and the name of a street I\u2019ve driven down several times, a Memphis<\/a> rapper was being newly hoisted onto the Hot 100, and a producer who would be the foundation of all the hip-hop<\/a> I\u2019d dance to for the next decade was being put on the map.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tJust as J Dilla\u2019s syncopated rhythms helped define much of the best hip-hop and R&B of the late Nineties, and the Neptunes\u2019 bubbly sounds helped carry those genres into the 2000s, Tay Keith was building a time capsule of hip-hop\u2019s late-2010s streaming era before his untimely death<\/a> on June 18. Police found the 29-year-old producer in his Nashville apartment just hours before his imprint was to be heard again throughout fellow Memphian Key Glock\u2019s latest album, Project X<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tMusic taste is often formed by one\u2019s surroundings. Tay Keith was born and raised by a single mother in South Memphis, a neighborhood that became an incubator for hitmakers such as Moneybagg Yo<\/a>, Glock, Blac Youngsta, Pooh Shiesty, producer Hitkidd, and the late Young Dolph<\/a>. The same Bluff City that held the sound of Stax Records\u2019 buttery soul artists like Isaac Hayes and Otis Redding also held the sharp snares and innovative triplet flow of Three 6 Mafia and their record label Hypnotize Minds. Encapsulated in his tag, \u201cTay Keith, fuck these niggas up,\u201d is a city often overlooked in the annals of hip-hop; however, his speaker-shattering bass and quick, sharp, staccato snare, reminiscent of Memphis City Schools lunch-table beats made with Number Two pencils, became the secret formula for the genre\u2019s success leading into 2020.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tTay Keith\u2019s signature sound came into mainstream focus with his work on \u201cSicko Mode,\u201d a song that gave Travis Scott his first Number One hit and took the young producer to the Grammys just months after receiving his bachelor\u2019s degree from Middle Tennessee State University \u2014 a feat that he didn\u2019t need for his success, but a feat he wanted for his legacy. \u201cIt was important for history, not just the history of my family, but the history of the rap<\/a> game. People gon\u2019 remember that,\u201d he told Huff Post<\/em><\/a> in 2019.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n