AllHipHop

DJ Kay Slay’s Last Track Arrives With 200 MCs “Rolling Deep” & A One-Hour Runtime

DJ Kay Slay
By: Kyle EusticeCategory: Exclusives

Big Daddy Kane, Kid Capri and Van Silk tell AllHipHop what went in to making the ambitious track.

DJ Kay Slay is being honored with the release of the biggest posse cut in Hip-Hop history. Titled “Rolling 200 Deep,” the track is divided into 16 parts spanning 62 minutes and featuring 200 rappers.

Snoop Dogg, Ice-T, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, AZ, Run-DMC, Bun B, Big Daddy Kane, Coke La Rock, Kid Capri, Goodie Mob, B-Real, Memphis Bleek, Twista, E-40, Jim Jones, MC Serch, NEMS and Papoose are among who contributed their voices to the ambitious track. “Rolling 200 Deep” marks the fourth installment in DJ Kay Slay’s Rolling Deep series, which includes Rolling 25 Deep (2005) Rolling 50 Deep (2020) and Rolling 110 Deep (2021).

“I think Papoose oversaw the project once Slay passed,” Big Daddy Kane tells AllHipHop.com. “I’m super glad that someone took this project over and got it out to truly send Kay Slay off with the honor and gratitude he deserves. He has always been a true supporter of authentic Hip-Hop and 200 MCs on the same track is a hell of a way to leave a legacy behind.”

Kid Capri adds, “Slay had ask me to do it, and I shot the video across the street from my house in the park. Then we both got sick at the same time in January. He went in the hospital, I didn’t. When I spoke to him on the phone the next day, he told me, ‘I almost checked out last night kid.’ That was the last time I spoke to him. I kept in touch with his moms all the way until he passed, so I didn’t think the ‘200 Rolling Deep’ was coming out, but I’m glad I did it. He’s getting a lot of praise for it. The song should be out in the Guinness Book of World Records like Daddy O said.”

It’s a fitting tribute to the legendary New York City DJ, who died in April 2022, four months after being hospitalized with COVID-19. Longtime friend and promotor Van Silk said at the time, “Hip Hop lost a real gem. My dear brother is gone. I’ve known him since he was 16 years old. He was my little brother. I introduced him to many and we did a lot of things together. We last talked in December because we were finishing up the ‘200 Rolling Deep’ project. He was gonna do his video part with MC Sha-Rock. From the mixtapes to helping him launch Straight Stuntin‘ magazine and the whole What The Science project, the world not only lost a real dedicated person to the culture of Hip-Hop but a source of bridging the gap in Hip-Hop. I’m gonna miss my little brother.”

DJ Kay Slay was originally a prominent graffiti artist and was featured in the iconic 1983 graffiti documentary, Style Wars. He witnessed the birth of Hip-Hop culture firsthand, including the rise of Grandmaster Flash, Grand Wizzard Theodore and Kool DJ Red Alert. Swept up in the street life, Kay Slay ended up in jail by the late 1980s and was released in 1990 with a new lease on life. He ultimately wound up releasing four successful studio albums: The Streetsweeper, Vol. 1, The Streetsweeper, Vol. 2, The Champions: North Meets South (with Greg Street) and More Than Just a DJ. He later hosted a successful radio show on Hot 97.

The accompanying video for “Rolling 200 Deep,” which arrived on Friday (November 3), was at least partially filmed when DJ Kay Slay was alive as he appears in it alongside Coke La Rock. The clip ends with a graveyard and photos of late MCs like Blackalicious’ Gift of Gab and DMX superimposed on the tombstones.

“‘The Rolling 200 Deep’ is something that we been working on and was supposed to been released in 2021,” Van Silk tells us. “Me and Kay Slay will go over the line up of artists. He went from 50 to 100 and now 200. This is a amazing thing that he did for Hip-Hop. We use to argue about who should be in and not be in at 2 a.m. in the morning. Many may not know I have know this man since he was 15-year-old graffiti writer. Me and Kay Slay created many things that many have no clue about. #Dez. I miss by brother and this was his last project he was working on. I have to give all the credit to Jarrod ‘The General’ Whittaker because without him, none of this would be happening.”

Watch “Rolling 200 Deep” above and find some of the participants’ posts below.