In 2017, Tay-K recorded “The Race” while he was a fugitive. Its video came out on June 30, the same day U.S. Marshals arrested him in New Jersey. The song reached No. 44 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was later certified platinum. Prosecutors would play it during his 2019 sentencing and return to its lyrics at his 2025 sentencing.
Now 26 and serving an 80-year murder sentence, he’s preparing to release his first full-length project since 2017’s Santana World. Announced on November 5, #MonstersUnderMyBed is scheduled for November 13. His team says most of the album took shape through roughly three years of calls from prison to outside producers.
Tay-K, whose legal name is Taymor Travon McIntyre, is incarcerated at the John B. Connally Unit in Texas. His team says his involvement went beyond recording vocals: He helped shape the sound, artwork and visuals, and shares executive-production credit with John Cunningham. Warpstr was among the producers involved in the calls.
The unusual recording process has prompted questions about whether his new vocals are AI-generated. In August, he shared a screen recording of raw BandLab vocals for “Punch You Down.” His management also released raw vocal stems containing prison background noise in response to the skepticism, although the team hasn’t fully explained how the phone recordings became finished tracks.
The album announcement arrived with an Instagram trailer and the SoundCloud release of “F**K U,” a lead single addressing his childhood and incarceration. A press release says he hopes the project will “reclaim his right to artistic expression that was manipulated by the justice system.”
His 80-year sentence stems from the killing of Mark Anthony Saldivar, a 23-year-old photographer who prosecutors said was promised a photoshoot for Tay-K’s music as part of a plan to rob him of his camera equipment. Saldivar was shot in a San Antonio Chick-fil-A parking lot on April 23, 2017, while Tay-K was 16 and on the run.
Joanna Reyes, Tay-K’s then-girlfriend and the driver, testified that Saldivar was on the hood of the vehicle, kicking the windshield and calling for help, when Tay-K leaned out and shot him. Surveillance footage and a 9mm casing were among the evidence presented. Reyes later took a plea for tampering with evidence.
A jury convicted Tay-K of murder rather than capital murder on April 14, 2025. He received the 80-year sentence the following day. It runs concurrently with the 55-year murder sentence he received in 2019 for his role in another killing.
That case concerned the death of 21-year-old Ethan Walker during a 2016 home robbery in Mansfield, Texas. Tay-K, then 16, helped recruit participants but was not identified as the shooter. Texas law allows participants in a felony to be held responsible for a resulting death.
At his 2025 sentencing, his sister described a childhood marked by abuse and separation. She testified that they were removed from their home by CPS when they were around 5 to 7 and spent time in foster care and an orphanage. She also described their father beating Tay-K with a 2×4 and tying him to an ironing board. A psychologist discussed ADHD, their mother’s substance use and trauma across generations.
Tay-K has spoken about parts of that childhood in his recent music appearances. On “SPOTLIGHT / INNER CHILD,” the closing track of Dominic Fike’s 2026 project How to Quit Smoking, he appears through a prison phone call, talking about his mother’s past addiction and trying to stay connected to his inner child.
He is appealing the Saldivar conviction. A brief filed by his lawyers on September 29, 2026, raised 13 issues, including challenges involving a phone search and Reyes’s credibility and bond-related history. No appeal decision has been reported. Texas prison records list his parole eligibility date as August 7, 2049.
