DJ Kay Slay, an influential member of the New York hip-hop scene whose raucous mixtapes grew to become legendary, has died from COVID-19 issues.
His household confirmed his dying by means of an announcement launched by New York hip-hop radio station HOT 97. He was 55.
Kay Slay, whose actual identify was Keith Grayson, was a DJ at HOT 97. However he had been a star of the style because the early Nineteen Nineties, when mixtapes he produced featured up-and-comers and celebrity rappers like Jay-Z and later, Eminem.
A younger Kay Slay appeared within the seminal 1983 documentary “Type Wars,” which explored New York’s burgeoning hip-hop scene. Then an East Harlem graffiti artist primarily utilizing the identify Dez, he tagged the edges of subway prepare automobiles, calling himself the “king of the quantity three prepare.”
His depth of expertise as a younger artist rising up in the course of the rise of Grandmaster Flash and the Sugarhill Gang, and later as a producer in his personal proper, launched him to main artists. He launched over 500 mixtapes in 10 years since his first in 1994, per earlier studies, that includes artists going tit-for-tat with one another on tracks not often discovered on the radio.
The mixtapes Kay Slay govt produced reverberated far outdoors New York. In 2003, the New York Occasions stated that “high-profile hip-hop beef within the final three years … started or ended on a Kay Slay tape,” together with tiffs between Nas and Jay-Z. Kay Slay took to calling himself “The Drama King” due to the years-long feuds that started (and later, generally, ended) on his tapes.
His debut album, 2003’s “The Streetsweeper, Vol. 1″ was the primary marketed to a nationwide viewers. It featured 50 Cent, Nas and Eminem, amongst many others, performing songs primarily produced by different artists, together with its followup. He additionally labored carefully with the artist Papoose, with whom he left Jive Data to document independently.
‘The sport was boring till I got here round,” he advised the Occasions in 2003. “I introduced the controversy again. I introduced the sport again to life.”
Grayson launched a number of extra albums and labored with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Jadakiss and Busta Rhymes.
For years, Kay Slay hosted “The Drama Hour” on HOT 97, on which he interviewed numerous hip-hop stars and aired out (or infected) beef between rappers.
In January, Kay Slay’s household introduced he was within the hospital with COVID-19. His brothers later advised HipHopDX that he had a “very long time” to go earlier than he may begin his restoration.
Expertise supervisor Wack 100, who known as Kay Slay his “brother, good friend, enterprise accomplice & mentor,” stated the 2 had been mates for 20 years. For months, he up to date followers on Kay Slay’s well being and progress within the hospital.
In a assertion on its web site, HOT 97 stated it was “shocked and saddened by the lack of our beloved” Kay Slay.
“A cultural icon, The Streetsweeper Kay Slay was greater than only a DJ, to us he was household and a significant a part of what made HOT 97 the profitable station it's in the present day,” the station stated.
Related Press contributed to this report.