Who is Lil Tay-K?
Tay-K 47 is a seventeen-year old, Long Beach-born, but East Arlington-based rapper. His presence has been growing heavily online for the past couple of weeks, thanks to his song “The Race” taking off on Soundcloud (currently #2 on Soundcloud’s top 50 chart, only under Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow”). He is getting equal exposure due to his involvement in a number of murders, amongst other crimes, including robbery. He’s currently being held at Fort Worth, Texas.
His Come Up
Prior to his initial arrest, Tay-K was a member of a rap crew called the Daytona Boyz alongside members Santana Sage and Pimpyz, both of which are dealing with their own separate murder charges. As a collective, they would perform at various parties in order to build their presence within the local rap scene.
Lil Tay-K has been steadily putting up numbers on Soundcloud since 2015, from his earliest songs “Sly Cooper” and “BIFF XANNEN,” to the most popular song on his page “Murder She Wrote”. While “The Race” is his biggest song to date, all of his songs have over 100,000 views on his Soundcloud.
Origin Story
During an interview with Say Cheese TV, Tay-K stated that before moving to Texas, he lived with his parents in Long Beach, California. During that same interview he recalled being heavily influenced by his mother, a Baby Insane Crip, while stating that his relationship with his father, who is a Compton native, is not the best. He rated his overall relationship with his parents as a 6/10, and claimed that growing up, his parents did not give him much, leaving him to fend for himself.
Insofar as musical influence, Tay-K revealed that he got a lot of his flows from Chief Keef, before calling Soulja Boy his favorite rapper.
The Case
Tay-K’s issues with the law began following a house robbery on July 26th ,2016, in Mansfield, Texas. This altercation, which ended with twenty-one year old, Ethan Walker being murdered, led to Tay-K being placed on house arrest. At 10:59, March 26th ,2017 Tay-K posted this tweet, after which he proceeded to cut off his ankle monitor.
This all culminated in him releasing “The Race” on Youtube, but was later arrested in New Jersey on Friday, June 30th, 2017, on the very same day. Following his most recent arrest, he had been identified as a suspect in a number of crimes, one of which occurred after his self-liberation from house arrest. These crimes were a robbery of a sixty-five year old man in Arlington Craven Park, which occurred on May 25th, 2017, and his involvement in another murder in San Antonio, TX following a performance with the Daytona Boyz, at a New Year’s Bash, on December 31st, 2015.
Why did he go viral?
His notorious track “The Race,” which was released on the day of his arrest, has since become a viral hit. Within the song, he stated that if he killed someone and he got caught, he would run. The fact that Tay-K was involved in so many crimes helped propel a narrative that the internet simply couldn’t resist.
Since his rise to fame, he’s received a number of shoutouts from artists ranging from XXXtentacion, Lil Bibby, and Lil Yachty. Numerous artists have dropped their own versions of “The Race,” including Rico Recklezz, Trill Sammy, and Lil Yachty.