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Currently serving a 55-year-sentence on murder charges at a maximum security facility in Texas, 26-year-old rapper Tay-K is gearing up to release a new album #MonstersUnderMyBed tomorrow. It’s the follow-up to his widely-beloved 2017 mixtape #SantanaWorld, which included “I <3 My Choppa” and “Lemonade” alongside his controversial breakout, “The Race.”
The new album was recorded behind bars over the past three years with the help of producers John Cunnigham (XXXTentacion!, Kanye West, Lil Nas X) and Warpstr (Ken Carson, Babyxsosa, Cannelle). In a new jailphone interview with Jordan Rose at Complex, Tay-K broke down his daily life behind bars, from manga to music, plus the recording process for #MonstersUnderMyBed.
Here are seven takeaways from Tay-K’s first interview in nearly a decade.
Tay-K has been behind bars for nearly a decade, but he only just got to prison
Although the Texas rapper has been incarcerated since his breakout, he’s actually spent most of the past decade in county jail, and a large portion of that time under 24-hour-lockdown or close to it. Several organizations including the United Nations consider that sort of solitary confinement as a human rights violation.
“I kinda just got to prison a year ago. Before that, I had been in the county jail, for eight years,” says Tay-K. “They had me on 24 hour lockdown, where they had the shower in my cell and then, yknow what I’m saying, they brought the tray through the tray slot – it was real restricted. But then I did time on 23 and one lockdown, where, it was like, you get 23 hours in the cell and you come out for an hour a day. That shit’s still kinda fucked up for real for real.”
His life behind bars has become pretty routine since being transferred
Tay-K says he’s settled into a fairly regular schedule of late: waking up at 7 a.m. and working out in the morning before checking in with his management team. He’s been working hard on writing and recording raps over the past four years, in addition to reading and praying.
Tay-K has been reading a lot of manga
Tay-K says the book he reads the most is, "probably the holy Quran,” but he’s also really into manga. “I read all the manga – Chainsaw Man, Full Metal Alchemist, Hunter X Hunter,” he says. “Promised Neverland is probably my favorite one.” While those first three picks are widely known and beloved, Promised Neverland is a little less popular, and far more bleak: the story revolves around a group of literal children attempting to outwit and escape adults raising them as food for horrific monsters.
Tay-K also said he’s been reading self-help books behind bars. “Just something I can take something away from, for inspiration bro. [...] Ever since I was in junior year I loved reading.”
He’s still keeping up with new music from behind bars, including some FADER favorites
During his initial time incarcerated, Tay-K says he didn’t have much access to music in any form. As time went on, he started to hear more contemporary songs, both from his managers playing music over the phone (Tay-K wasn’t a fan of the distorted audio) and from correctional officers playing music in the facility over speakers. He says that experience led him to rock acts like Linkin Park, Nirvana, and Olivia Rodrigo.
Later on, Tay-K would gain access to a communal smart TV and eventually, his own tablet, enabling broader and deeper musical discovery. He says his album of the year is Loaded Honey’s self-titled 2025 album, and that he enjoys listening to FattMack, Baby Kia and EBK Jaaybo as well as jerk music.
He also shouted out a number of artists The FADER is particularly fond of: skaiwater, Rio Da Yung OG, 1900Rugrat, Baby Kia OsamaSon, Nettspend, and Nino Paid, specifically mentioning Paid’s 2025 album Love Me As I Am as a favorite. Tay-K is especially fond of “COOLN” by Paid, BabyChiefDoIt and Plaqueboymax, saying he wished he could rap over the first half of the song.
He doesn’t regret his breakout single “The Race”
Speaking on the single that started it all, Tay-K said in part, “I love that song, bro [...] That shit been used against me in a lot of ways, but at the end of the day, bro, it’s music. That’s just a song, for real for real. I won’t let the fact that people tried to wield it like a weapon at me in these courtrooms make me not like my art, bro.”
A lot of rappers have shown love, but only one has put their money where their mouth is
Playboi Carti, T.I., Kodak Black, and Pi’erre Bourne all called the young rapper at various points during his incarceration, but only one artist has actually put money on his books: Comethazine.
“I actually fuck with Comethazine too, bro. Out of everybody, I ain't going to front – bro really the only rapper that has ever actually put money on my account or done anything,” Tay-K recalls. “Bro sent $500, I never forgot about that shit.”
#MonstersUnderMyBed was written and recorded entirely in prison
While Tay-K is a little fuzzy on the exact timelines, he says the music on his latest album was written over the past five or six years and recorded over the last four to six years – all while behind bars. While he stopped short of detailing his exact recording process, Tay-K boiled it down to this: “Warpstr would send me beats, and I would just hop directly on them.” Keep it simple stupid!
Tay-K also spoke at length about his writing process, saying, “I got so much time to think, which is a beautiful thing bro. I gotta start being grateful to how much time I have to think because it gave me so much time ot really tap into all the shit I’m capable of. Liek when you hear the shit I wrote you gonna be like what the fuck? How you write this!”
