Ray Vaughn, one of Top Dawg Entertainment’s more recent signings, released The Good, The Bad, The Dollar Menu mixtape on April 25, an 11-track trek through Vaughn’s past, present and undeniably bright future. One of the lead singles, “FLAT shasta,” dives into the nuanced realities of living with a mother who struggled with both drug addiction and mental health issues.
“Mouth full of pills in front of us could’ve died,” he raps. “The world know your show died heavy and suicide?/If God took you then, I wouldn’t wanna be alive.” The song, albeit it heavy, reveal a son who’s still brimming with hope and refusing to give up. It’s a big reason Vaughn lives a relatively clean lifestyle. Watching his mother wrestle with substance abuse isn’t the sole reason he decided not to do drugs, but it’s a part of it.
“I don’t do none of that s###—not just because of her though—just off general principle, just off the regular,” he tells AllHipHop. “I don’t do it just because after seeing that, you’re like, ‘OK, it could mess up stuff.’ It can turn into a mess. My mom used to gamble. I’d watch my mom gamble away $5,000, $6000—she’d get it back—but when she gambled all the money, we was cooked. It was just a lot of stuff. So as far as like drinking and smoking, I’ve never smoked and never popped no pills, never done none of that.”
Vaughn’s latest effort for TDE further illustrates his innate ability to craft captivating stories through his rhymes. An AP English student, Vaughn has mastered the art of descriptive writing, painting a vivid portrait of life experiences it in every breath. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the majority of the mainstream rap being shoved down our throats. But Vaughn was made for this.
Born in Long Beach, California, in 1996, Vaughn started honing his craft both in school and during rap sessions with his stepfather, who would routinely wake him up in the middle of the night to perform for his friends. Soon, Vaughn began charging $100 every time.
“I used to pray he’d wake me up,” Vaughn says with a laugh. “That’s when I first started hustling.”
Vaughn has come a long way since then. Before signing with TDE in 2020, he was living in his car with his daughter, whose mother had died giving birth. It was an understandably dark time for Vaughn, but the TDE deal changed his life nearly overnight. Two weeks after inking the contract, he had his own house and was back on his feet.
“My story is crazy because I had money, but I didn’t have credit because I’m a felon,” he explains. “My daughter’s mom died while having her, but she was the one with the credit and I was the one with the money. When she died, it just f##### me up.”
For now, Vaughn is focused on promoting The Good, The Bad, The Dollar Menu mixtape and finishing up his debut album for the label.
“The dollar menu to me symbolizes balance,” he says of the project. “There’s the good, when you get steaks. There’s bad and broke, when you get noodles and the dollar menu. If you got the dollar menu, you good. To me, I’m just telling stories about my life before TDE; the good, the bad and the kind of in-betweens when you’re figuring things out.”
It’s that type of raw honesty that’s largely missing from a lot of the bigger raps acts dominating the charts, making Vaughn’s vulnerability enticing in today’s climate. Listen to it above.
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