Lil Durk isnât looking back. Two years ago, the Chicago native Durk Banks became affiliated with French Montanaâs Coke Boys imprint, and now, his Def Jam debut is set for release on June 2. The 22-year-old that used to bang with the Black Disciples was realizing his hip-hop dreams. But hip-hop dreams werenât something kids in Englewood held on to for very long, and Durk wasnât exactly walking around with a rhyme book.
âI wasnât really into music. I was into the streets,â he admits. âI was too worried about the streets and how I was going to eat and how I was going to make the streets happen. I was 17 when I first started rapping and 18 before I started taking it seriouslyâwhen I really knew I could rap and have fans and be a trendsetter.â
Recognizing his potential as a hip-hop artist was obviously an important milestone for the then-teenager. Durk makes it clear that, in his hometown, just allowing yourself to believe that you have a talent that could take you away from a lifestyle of banginâ is a feat unto itself. For decades, America has loved sad hip-hop stories, but the violence in Chicago has cast an ominous cloud over the reputation of one of Americaâs greatest cities. In July 2014, 82 people were shot, 16 of them killed, during Independence Day weekend. A generation has grown numb to the death, and Durk says that in Englewood, hope is in decidedly short supply.
âIn Chicago, a lot of people donât really got nothing to live for,â he shares. âEverybody canât ball. Everybody canât rap. Nobody is really doing those activities. Thereâs nothing to do but the streets. The streets or school. A lot of people donât like going to school, so a lot of people are stuck to the streets.â
âGrowing up there is kind of hard,â he continues. âItâs not like Los Angeles or New York, where you can finesse. Growing up in Chicago is hard. Iâd say 80 percent of the people ainât really got no daddies. Their household wasnât right. All they know is the streets and getting some money to support each other and support their family.â
A generation ago, it was a notorious South Central Los Angeles neighborhood that was beginning to draw attention and court controversy, churning out artists specializing in harrowing street tales. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Compton, California-based artists like DJ Quik, Comptonâs Most Wanted, and most famously, N.W.A., brought gangsta rap to the forefront of hip-hop. And very vocal critics with names like C. Delores Tucker and Calvin Butts took aim at those artists for what they viewed as glorification of criminality. Similarly, todayâs South Side rappers are giving voice to the rage and pain of the streets; but there is the constant fear that the music is breeding more animosity and championing a lifestyle that lands too many young black people in the cityâs morgues.
A young Ice Cube wrote songs like âGangsta, Gangstaâ and âBoyz N the Hood.â He grew up in a two-parent household and was studying architectural drafting at the Phoenix Institute of Technology when he connected with his soon-to-be N.W.A. bandmates, Eazy E and Dr. Dre. Chief Keef, on the other hand, was a Black Disciple-affiliated convicted felon under house arrest when his web presence began to grow. There is a sense that there is zero difference between these artistsâ musical personas and the lifestyles they come fromâand that immediacy is worrying.
For Durk, his banging days were all that mattered until he began having children and married Nicole Covone. The young rapper had a reason to refocus: Fatherhood saved him from banging on the streets of Englewood.
âI had buckled down when I had my son,â he recalls. âI really stopped doing everything I did and got my head right, because every night I had to wonder where his next meal was going to come from. When I [thought] about rapping, I saw that it could be different. A lot of people started paying attention to itâand people wanted to interview me, so I started taking it seriously.â
âThat was really a key to getting me focused and seeing if I could do this: my kids,â he says, before adding, âAnd going to jail.â
Durk was arrested on a weapons charge in October 2011 after he was pulled over for drinking in his vehicle and police discovered he was in possession of a gun. He served three months in Vandalia State Prison before he was released on bondâonly to return to prison for 87 more days. In June 2013, Durk was arrested after police said heâd attempted to toss a .40 caliber handgun in his car when officers approached him.
In 2013, Durkâs associate Chief Keef inked a deal with Interscope Records worth a reported $6 million. The Chief Keef deal received a significant amount of attention and scrutiny because of the hefty number, the rapperâs youth and history, and the very real violence rampant on the streets of Chicago. Durk is honest about the fact that the elevation of hardcore rappers doesnât just make hardcore visibleâit makes it fashionable.
âThe people who came out of Chicago first are the trendsetters, so now everybody who comes out of Chicago wants to do the same thing and follow in the same footsteps,â he feels. âEverybody want to be hardcore, they hear about Chicago being hardcore, so they want to come out hardcore. But they canât even find their own self.â
â[Artists] raps make these people believe that they really doing what they say in their raps and theyâre really not,â Durk adds. âItâs 50/50. Even people outside of Chicago who say our words and things that we sayâtheyâre not really about it. Theyâre just going along with whatâs hot. â

That trendiness hasnât bred a sense of camaraderieâat least, not in Durkâs eyes. The bad blood that breeds conflict on Chicagoâs streets is reflected in the music and the way artists interact with each other.
âEverybodyâs not together in Chicago right now,â Durk believes. But heâs decided to keep his distance because of his commitment to telling his own story. That attitude has led to friction. âDonât nobody really want to see nobody win. âIf I donât do no song with you, I ainât cool with you.â But it ainât like that. Iâm more focused on myself right now and people donât really get it. They turn it into hatred or competition. I bang with you for four, five years, but I donât want to do no song with you and you turn it into competition? So being in Chicago right now is all competition. Itâs all hate. Nothing positive and everything negative.â
âTo me, personally, in your own city thereâs always going to be some kind of hatred,â he says. âOutside of Chicago, itâs love. Other artists do some with you, politic, go chill. Hate is everywhere, but you ainât really got to worry about it like that. Itâs Chicago specifically. Itâs something about Chicagoâthat hatred.â
In September 2013, Durkâs friend, rapper LâA Capone, was shot and killed leaving a South Shore recording studio. Just this March, his manager and longtime friend, Uchenna âChino Dollaâ Agina, was killed in Avalon Park.
âChino was my brother,â Durk somberly says. âI grew up with him and he taught me a lot of stuff. His presence was, like, energy in the studio. He wanted me to keep going and work on what we established and focus on music. Heâd always tell me, âYou canât be in the streets and do music.â So with him passing, if I stopped, Iâd let him down. Heâd want me to keep going. Itâs sad and Iâm angry, but I sit in my room and talk to him.â
Remember My Name is the culmination of a long and dark road for Durk. His albumâs release is also validation for the rhymerâheâs reaping the rewards of hard work and walking away from a life that couldâve killed him. But even with his success, that connection to those South Side streets remains an indelible part of who he is. Rising above that hate and showing others from Chicago how to as well have become top priorities for Lil Durk.
âI want them to know the real,â he says. âI just want to paint the picture of Chicago that no one has really painted. Of whatâs going on today. Not 1990ânone of that. 2015. I want to make a statement that this is whatâs going on. This is real. Donât blame us for nothing thatâs going on. I want to stamp my name to it. Positive. Nothing negative. And let them know that Chicago artists can do it, too. Like Durk, too. And just imagine if heâd had a full support system behind him. Even after this album, if it do good or bad, Iâm going to be happy with the project. A lot of people in Chicago who rap never really came out with no album. Unless youâre like a Kanye or Common. So I want to be among the first with the trend in my city, showing them something different other than shoot âem up, bang-bang, rap beefing. I want to bring everybody together.â
Durkâs family and his neighborhood are what push him to aim higher, but they motivate him in polar opposite ways. The warmth of family keeps him hopeful and inspired; the coldness of the streets makes him hungry and sharp. And both sides of that coin have gotten him where he is.
âItâs family first. My kids are what motivate me. Knowing that theyâre on this earth and look at me, family looks at me,â shares Durk. âAnd the violence that goes on in Chicago, and the hate or the rumors I hear, it really motivates me to go in the studio and do better. Sounds crazy, but it motivates me. None of it ever gets to me. I just stay in the studio and I focus and thatâs my motivation. Hatred and family.â