I am The Illest

Not many people can claim to be The Illest - but when you meet D. Vaughn, you will understand why. D. Vaughn is from Flint, Michigan, an area booming with new and upcoming underground artists.

Hip-hop has always been a staple in his life, but something that is also apart of him is his love for theatre. He said, “Once a theatre kid, always a theatre kid.” Through his production company, ILL ONEZ ENTERTAINMENT, D. Vaughn merges both worlds. 

His brand, Ill Onez Apparel, features a person wearing a theatre mask with a backwards hip-hop hat while smoking a pipe for a “sophisticated edge.” 

Their motto?  

“Through comedy and tragedy, I am the definition of dope and I remain ill.” 

“Comedy, tragedy, and indifference are basically all that this life is,” D. Vaughn explains. “Life isn’t fair - but it is eventful, and through all of that, I am still dope as fuck.” The Illest wants everyone to feel that they are the definition of dope as well. 

When D. Vaughn created ILL ONEZ ENTERTAINMENT, he didn’t just want another label — he wanted a home for artists.

“I wanted to offer a space for artists to grow and offer space for all art,” he says.

ILL ONEZ produces stage shows, live events, and merch collaborations, giving creators a place to evolve and express themselves freely. “It’s a space to grow artistically,” he adds.

The Illest has been a rapper his entire life; he has been dropping bars since he was 10 years old. He started recording his music when he was 18 years old at Eastern Michigan University, where he joined a collective called Tribe, founded by Detroit rapper Asaka the Renegade (currently touring with T-Pain). 

“A lot of my musical ambitions came from working with Tribe,” he says. “That’s where I learned how to record and how to conduct myself in the studio.”

Through Tribe, he met other artists — including Royale Michael — and began building the network that would shape his career.

D. Vaughn said, “Flint built me as a person. I wouldn’t be the same person I am today if I wasn’t from Flint.”

He attributes a lot of his references and what he mentions in his music to Flint. However, he feels that “Flint didn’t really have a sound in the past, but it does now.” He describes the sound from Flint as an “off-shoot of the Detroit sound.” 

Flint rap provides a more homey vibe paired with outlandish lyrics, which The Illest calls “a Flint staple.” Flint music contains outlandish, vulgar rhyme schemes and rhyme patterns that The Illest uses in his music. 

Music has to start somewhere, and The Illest mentioned boom bap. Boom bap is a sub-genre of hip hop that has hard-hitting drum patterns that encapsulate the boom of a kick drum and the bap of a snare. 

The Illest wouldn’t consider himself just a boom-bap artist, but also a “bully artist.” Most of his rhymes are about rhyming and how he thinks he is the illest above other artists. It is a staple of the music that he creates; very “bragadocious” and described by The Illest as “elevated shit talking.” 

His first project, “Three Stripes and a Microphone” (not streaming), was a nod to his favorite shoe brand Adidas. “I’m a huge Adidas fan - I don’t wear any other tennis shoe,” he laughs. “If Adidas made dress shoes I’d wear them. Otherwise, it’s Timberlands.”

His first single, “It’s D. Vaughn”, became a campus classic at EMU. He said, “It was one of those songs that was a local classic, where everyone in the area knows the song.” Although he couldn’t release it commercially (it used a DJ Premier beat), it marked his entry into hip-hop - his official statement of who he was and what he represented. 

D. Vaughn chose his stage name because it gave off a maniacal, supervillain vibe; it comes off as very cartoonish. The Illest gives “Wu-Tang and supervillain vibes where you have to say the full name.” 

The first album that The Illest ever streamed was “Napolean Complex”. The Illest defines real rap as what the forefathers laid down for hip hop and it has to stick to the core principles of what hip hop is. 

The Illest’s core principles of hip hop are “dope ass beats and dope ass rhymes.” That is his cornerstone and the pillar of hip hop. 

He said, “When everything else is not there, when all you got is the DJ and yourself - is the rhymes still there and is them beats knockin’.” 

D. Vaughn’s latest album, Out The Way (released March 9), includes his favorite track, “Illest Alive.”

“Illest Alive is the first song I fully produced,” he says. “It’s the culmination of why I think I’m the Illest alive.”

Busta Rhymes and Wu-Tang are huge influences on The Illest Alive’s music when it comes to “Putting belt to ass when it comes to writing verses.” 

No one has had a bigger impact on how he performs on stage than Busta Rhymes. “The imagery, wildness, and freeness of me being on stage and just the dedication to murder everything movin’ is most definitely Busta Rhymes.”

As he grows, D. Vaughn hopes to collaborate with more local and national artists — especially Bruiser Wolf, a fellow Detroit native.

“Right now is such a special time for underground hip-hop,” he says. “There’s this echelon of underground acts that don’t get radio play but still sell out tours.”

With hip-hop now 52 years old, The Illest reflects on what it means to age in the culture: “We’re finally seeing hip-hop artists get older. It’s going to be interesting to see what comes next.”

For D. Vaughn, hip-hop is more than just a sound — it’s a mission.

“Hip-hop isn’t about how many people you sleep with or how many cars you have,” he says. “It’s about social activism, speaking truth to power, and helping people heal.”

“We have to represent the best form of hip-hop with quality,” he says firmly.

And that’s exactly what The Illest does — keeping it raw, real, and undeniably dope.