For much of 2026, pioneering Memphis rap artist DJ Spanish Fly has been traveling the world, playing sold-out shows to adoring fans, many of whom don’t even speak English. This week, he will kick off another monthlong tour of Europe — which will see him perform in Krakow, Paris, Milan, Prague, Bucharest and London — in support of his recent album, "Cadillac Warning."
“Everybody is on fire over there, man, they love Memphis, bro,” says Fly, recalling the details of his recent summer tour. “We came to Berlin, did a really big show and then straight to Antwerp for a festival with like thousands of people. Then a show in Helsinki after that that was really off the chain. The venue we booked was set up for 200 people, and they had to rebook it because
a thousand people showed up. I had all these [Finnish] kids coming up to me afterwards going crazy. That lo-fi sound I have, it just connects across nations.”
For the 56-year-old Fly — born Antonio Kimbrough — there’s a strange triumph in the fact that the music he created in his bedroom as a teenager is still resonating with new and far-flung audiences some 40 years later. The home recorded bass-heavy cassettes he created, were sold out of car trunks or passed along hand-to-hand and would help build the foundation for Bluff City hip-hop in the late ‘80s and eventually see Fly celebrated as the "Godfather of Memphis Rap."
“When I was doing it, I was just having fun. I never had any idea it would be inspiring people like Three 6 Mafia, A$AP Rocky, Travis Scott, Young Dolph, Yo Gotti, and all those guys," he says. "Nowadays, I'm doing these shows, and all the fans are like, 'Wow, you were before your time.'”
“He's a guy who went into his bedroom at age 16, very stoned and accidentally kind of created the bedrock of Memphis rap,” says Fly’s London-based manager William Skeaping. “There's always spikes in interest in what he does, and that usually revolves around a [well-known] artist discovering Spanish Fly for themselves and then telling other people, 'Oh my God, you've got to check this out.' That happens over and over in waves. And those waves are increasingly becoming larger, basically.“
The growing response to Fly's music across the world in 2026 has been a remarkable development. “The thing is that everyone thinks they've discovered DJ Spanish Fly,” says Skeaping. “That’s the beauty of this, because he's like an underground artist who is definitely above the parapet now, and he’s doing everything on his own terms.”
Church, 'Cadillac Warning' and new music
Released in July, Fly’s album "Cadillac Warning" is actually a chronicle of his early days, comprised of tracks recorded several decades ago. “Mostly everything is just songs that I did back in ‘86, ‘87, ‘88, ‘89, maybe a little early '90s,” says Fly.
Despite its hardcore street appeal, Fly notes that his music was always deeply rooted in the church. “That's where I got my inspiration from, from the tambourines, from the organs, from the piano, from the bass guitar, from the repetitive sounds you hear in the church,” he says.
“The spirit of the church definitely flows through my music. When I make tracks, each sound is talking to each other. And sometimes I tear up when I'm making tracks because it's just a feeling. And I think fans get this feeling too, bro.”
In between international tours, Fly has been back home in Memphis performing, where he maintains a couple residences, playing the Shake Rag in Millington on Fridays and Peoples on Beale every Saturday. He’s also been recording new music, making tracks on the same classic if now primitive, equipment he started on.
“I got all of my old equipment back and I'm working on new [material] with my old vintage sounds. At first, I was doing all this for me, just making myself happy. But now I feel like I got a lot of people depending on me to bring them that that lo-fi sound that I created, that Memphis sound that I created. I got a lot of people depending on me to give them that music.”
Fly has already done shows at high-profile contemporary art spaces like MoMA in New York and Bourse de Commerce in Paris, and he’s planning on doing more multimedia programs where he delves into his life and history in the Bluff City. “It’s a cultural thing that goes beyond the music,” says Skeaping.
“He's going to be doing some talks about his life with photos and going back into the archives and exploring that with music in a kind of new format. He’ll be doing these shows that take his music into these cultural spaces to tell the story in different way.”
For Fly, his evolution from bedroom alchemist and street rap pioneer to art world and international darling has been a joyous development. “Back when I started, I was hustling, just trying to feed my family,” he says. “Now I’m really having fun with it. And so are the audiences. We're all having fun together.”
Bob Mehr is the music writer at The Commercial Appeal. Contact him at bob.mehr@commercialappeal.com.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: DJ Spanish Fly's pioneering Memphis rap sound goes global | Exclusive
