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September 24, 2026 - Memphis, TN

Memphis is turning Tay Keith’s musical legacy into infrastructure for the next generation.

Memphis Public Libraries has dedicated the music production room at Cloud901 inside the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library as the Tay Keith Music Lab. The space was established with support from the Tay Keith Legacy Foundation and is designed to give young creators access to music-production tools, education and a place to develop their own sound.

The larger tribute includes a City of Memphis proclamation recognizing September 20 as Tay Keith Day, along with a Key to the City. The lab itself was formally dedicated on September 21.

Programming around the space is expected to include a Tay Keith Beat Making 101 curriculum, a permanent archival collection and participation in the 901Voices oral-history project. Together, those pieces connect technical training with cultural preservation.

The project follows Keith’s passing earlier this year, but its focus is intentionally forward-facing: keeping production knowledge, local history and creative opportunity active in Memphis.

For KOLAK Archive, this is where music and technology become community infrastructure. A studio is not only a room full of equipment; it can also become an archive, a classroom and a launch point for the next producer who has not yet been discovered.

Sources: City of Memphis · Complex

Featured photo: Tay Keith in 2023, MILLION DOLLAZ WORTH OF GAME, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. The Complex article’s lead image is credited to Getty/Frazer Harrison and was not re-hosted.