Tay Keith's death has a cause now. The Nashville Medical Examiner's Office found ketamine and mitragynine, an active compound in kratom, in the producer's system when he died, TMZ reported Thursday, with The Shade Room and Hollywood Unlocked confirming the finding through the same office. He was 29.

The examiner also noted nicotine and ethanol in his system, along with mild coronary artery disease, a detail several fans online called out as unsettling for someone so young. Keith, born Brytavious Lakeith Chambers, was found surrounded by drug paraphernalia, according to TMZ.

What's still murky is how he came into contact with the kratom compound. It's a plant from Southeast Asia, legal at the federal level and sometimes used to manage opioid withdrawal, per the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Nobody's saying whether Keith was using it deliberately or picked it up some other way. Ketamine, for its part, has real medical uses but turns dangerous fast when it's not.

What happened in June

Metro Nashville Police found Keith unresponsive on June 18 during a welfare check at his Martin Street apartment, after his girlfriend hadn't heard from him in more than a day. She'd gone by twice, knocked both times, got nothing back. In the 911 audio, she told the dispatcher he had breathing issues and high blood pressure. Police ruled out foul play from the start and listed his death as unclassified pending the autopsy that just came back.

The producer built his name out of Memphis, still in college when his beat landed under Travis Scott's "Sicko Mode" in 2018, the song that also carried Drake and Beyoncé. He went on to rack up four Billboard Hot 100 number ones, including Drake's "First Person Shooter" in 2023, and helped shape Sexyy Red's breakout with "Pound Town," later producing its Nicki Minaj-featuring sequel that became his first chart entry as a lead artist himself. He also worked with Eminem, Lil Baby, Latto and Moneybagg Yo.

Drake posted a tribute after Keith's death broke in June. His family called him, in a statement at the time, "a visionary producer, songwriter, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and cultural force whose work helped define the sound of a generation." His last Instagram post, up before he died, was a shoutout to fellow Memphis producers landing placements on Euphoria's soundtrack.

A memorial drew Sexyy Red, Murda Beatz and hundreds of fans to Memphis's Cannon Center on June 30. TMZ reports Keith left behind a sizeable estate and no will, which means the question of who handles his catalogue and his money now heads into probate, a process that could run considerably longer than the wait for this autopsy did.