The Top Dawg Entertainment signee Ray Vaughn not only serves his latest platter, 'The Good, The Bad, The Dollar Menu,' but he's serving his soul on a platter as he goes beneath the surface of a life filled with fight, flight, and focus.
The 11-track mixtape is an honest tour of Vaughn's haunted past and an announcement of his future. On flexing highlight "FLAT shasta," he raps with a razor-edge pen, carving through the glossy veneer of hip-hop posturing to reveal an emotional core beneath. With lines like "Mouth full of pills in front of us could've died," Vaughn doesn't blink but acknowledges the pain and then transcends it.
And that pain, which is embedded in family trauma and personal growth, is not just for show. Vaughn speaks candidly about his mother's drug addiction, mental health struggles, and gambling that influenced his decisions and the clean lifestyle he leads today.
"I don't do none of that s###," he said, referring to drugs and alcohol. "Not just because of her but off general principle, man, after seeing that, you're like, 'OK, it could f–k up something.'"
It gains that clarity not just from watching the chaos but from being inside of it. He recalls his mom blowing through thousands of dollars, money they didn't have, and then returning and doing it again. But Vaughn trod a different path this time with her eyes wide open.
Upon this unsparing point of view, ' The Good, The Bad, The Dollar' Menu is more than a mixtape but a motion memoir. It doesn't just speak of the darkness; it reminds us that light still breaks through. Vaughn has an undercurrent of optimism in his voice, even when he's rapping about suicide, loss, or addiction. He has lived with pain, but he has never allowed it to define him.
And that storytelling talent didn't materialize out of thin air. A Long Beach native born in 1996, Vaughn had a sharp pen early on. An AP English student with a penchant for descriptive writing, he shaped his skills in the classroom and casual living room ciphers. His stepfather would wake him in the middle of the night to perform for his friends, a practice Vaughn would end up charging for. "I used to pray he'd wake me up," he confesses.
Now signed to West Coast institution TDE, the home of Kendrick Lamar, SZA, and ScHoolboy Q, Ray Vaughn's prayers are being answered in far more epic ways. But make no mistake, he's not some random name on a roster but a storyteller, a survivor, and a canny voice who is carving out a space of his own. On 'The Good, The Bad, The Dollar' Menu, Vaughn is undoubtedly not all talk. He is testifying, and every word matters.
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