Tay Keith, the producer behind Look Alive, died of an accidental overdose

Tay Keith, the Memphis producer who shaped a decade of hip-hop from behind the desk, died from an accidental drug overdose. The Nashville medical examiner's office recorded his death as caused by combined mitragynine, 7-hydroxymitragynine, mitragynine pseudoindoxyl and ketamine toxicity, with the manner of death listed as an accident. Mitragynine is the alkaloid found in kratom, a Southeast Asian leaf sold for pain relief and energy.

He was 29. Born Brytavious Lakeith Chambers, he was found dead in his apartment on Martin Street in Nashville on 18 June after his girlfriend asked police to carry out a welfare check. Metro Nashville Police said at the time that no foul play was suspected and that the death was unclassified pending autopsy results, which is where the matter sat for three months.

The two accounts of how the finding surfaced differ slightly. XXL attributes the disclosure to an ABC News report published on 17 September, while Rolling Stone says a source at the medical examiner's office confirmed the toxicology directly and that TMZ published first. The substances and the manner of death are identical in both, and Rolling Stone says it has requested the full autopsy report.

His family had already asked for privacy in a statement issued after his death. "BryTavious was a beloved son, brother, uncle, family member, and friend," it read, drawing the distinction between the producer the public knew and the person they did. The statement said his legacy would carry on through the music he made and the opportunities he created, and that memorial arrangements would be shared later.

The work behind that is unusually concentrated for someone who died at 29. He started making beats as a teenager, building a sound adapted from the Memphis lineage of Three 6 Mafia and 8Ball & MJG, and had his first hit by 21 with Look Alive, cut with Drake and BlocBoy JB. What followed reads like a list of the decade's biggest records rather than one producer's credits: co-production on Travis Scott's Sicko Mode, on Eminem's Not Alike from Kamikaze, on Before I Let Go from Beyonce's Homecoming: The Live Album, and an executive production credit on Sexyy Red's Sexyy We Trust, whose breakout songs Pound Town and SkeeYee he produced as well. He was nominated for a Grammy and never won one.

The BlocBoy JB connection is the one that made him, and that artist has returned this year with a sixteen-track album built on the sound the pair worked out together in Memphis. Tay Keith's death is the second high-profile loss in hip-hop production circles in a matter of months, after the New Orleans rapper Wacko of UTP died earlier in the year.