“The Drama King is in the building!” Last Sunday, the annual Hot 97 Summer Jam took place in New Jersey. The undeniable highlights: An outstanding performance by the City Girls. A message straight from prison by Young Thug. And a heartfelt tribute to DJ Kay Slay, honoring the legacy of the influential DJ who died of Covid-19 earlier this year.
And the legacy of Keith Grayson, the New York DJ’s real name, is a huge one. First known as popular graffiti writer ‘DEZ’ in his teens in the early ’80s, he began his run as a radio DJ in the 90s and became the self-proclaimed ‘Drama King‘ in the 2000s: That’s when he put on countless rappers with his popular ‘Streetsweeper’ mixtapes and slowly became notorious for providing the stage for – guess what – drama. For instance, he premiered one of the arguably hardest diss songs ever – that is “Ether” by Nas, aimed at Jay-Z in 2001. Now that takes some courage to do. Other artists he gave an important platform to? Early Harlem Diplomats, early G-Unit and Papoose, to just name a few.
No wonder, the line-up of his Summer Jam tribute (that you can watch above) reads like a who’s who of 2000s New York rap: Busta Rhymes, Papoose, Fat Joe, Juelz Santana and The Lox, amongst others, performed one NY anthem after another to thank the man who played an integral part in their success – and who never stopped representing rap from the Big Apple, even when it lost some of its shine. Rest in peace, DJ Kay Slay!
