“Jeffrey, Young Thug, is still involved in his own way. “Everybody played a part-from the label, family, friends, producers, DJs,” Dupree confirms. The team quickly grew from an initial six to a larger, rotating hub of creative minds. After taking some time to grieve, they went back to work. Shortly after he passed, members of his teams, including Woods-Reed, his managers Dupree and Charles Baker, and producer DJ Sidereal convened for six hours a day to review every song and take notes to forward to his label, 300 Entertainment. In addition to the album blueprint, Keed left behind the music itself on phones and hard drives that were labeled by year from 2018 to 2022. All the stuff that you’re seeing is stuff that he already had set for it,” she says. It detailed everything from the tracklist to the cover art. There are plans to follow it up with a documentary and a posthumous mixtape, but for now, the focus is on this release, which Dupree says is a result of “his blood, sweat, and tears,” and though he won’t be here for its release, those closest to him take some comfort in knowing the final product was exactly as he had envisioned it.īefore he died of eosinophilia, a rare white blood cell complication, Keed outlined the plan for his album on a sticky note that his mom later found in the pockets of a pair of jeans. The album debuted on March 17, the day after what would have been Keed’s 25th birthday. “Yeah, I feel like he’s still here,” adds Woods-Reed. “It was like, ‘All right, Keed, you want attention.’ Don’t nobody live with me, so why is it on the ground?” And now, Woods-Reed says her son was with them as they prepped the release of his first posthumous project, Keed Talk to ‘Em 2.

“One day, I came home and everything’s on the floor-obituary, records, everything of his was on the floor,” Dupree recalls, smiling. His mother, Tonnie Woods-Reed, says Keed’s 4-year-old daughter Naychur speaks with her dad often: “When she comes to my house, she’ll say, ‘Nana, my daddy told me to tell you something: He misses you and he loves you.’” His manager Zoe Dupree says the late rapper plays little tricks on them.

It’s been 10 months since the death of Lil Keed, born Raqhid Jevon Render, but the people who knew him best-his family and music team-still feel his spirit daily.

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