Lil Durk, 33, got the verdict he had been waiting for Friday (9/11): not guilty. A Los Angeles federal jury cleared the Chicago rapper in the murder-for-hire case over an alleged plot to kill fellow rapper Quando Rondo. The jury also cleared his two co-defendants, Deandre Dontrell Wilson and David Brian Lindsey, of every charge before it, including murder-for-hire, conspiracy and stalking resulting in death. Wilson and Lindsey were both 33 when charged in 2024. All three faced life in federal prison if convicted.
But regardless of the #DurkFree hashtags popping up on Twitter, yr boy is still the opposite of free for a little while. He remains behind bars with separate racketeering-related charges still hanging over him. Those counts fall under the federal Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering Activity statute, known as VICAR, and concern allegations of violence involving his Only the Family collective.
Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald separated the newly added counts from the murder-for-hire trial in July, leaving them for a separate proceeding. Those charges weren’t tossed. They were split off for another trial, so Friday’s win didn’t end his legal troubles.
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The Feds accused Durk of putting up the money and calling the shots for a revenge attack on Quando Rondo. Durk’s real name is Durk Banks; Quando Rondo’s is Tyquian Bowman. They said the August 2022 shooting in Los Angeles was payback for the November 2020 death of Durk’s friend and collaborator King Von, born Dayvon Bennett. Bennett, 26, was fatally shot by someone in Bowman’s entourage after a physical fight outside Monaco Hookah Lounge in Atlanta.
In the later California attack, gunmen fired at the black Cadillac Escalade carrying Bowman at a gas station near the Beverly Center, the iconic eight-story shopping mall near The Grove and Cedars-Sinai hospital in LA. Bowman survived, but his cousin, Saviay’a “Lul Pab” Robinson, 24, was killed.
Much of the case came down to whether the jury believed three men cooperating with the feds: Kacey “OTF Jam” Hester, 34; Keith Jones, who was 33 when charged in 2024; and Durk’s former assistant, Kavon London Grant, who was 28 when charged that year. Prosecutors argued that Durk supplied the money and direction behind the attack. Defense attorneys Brian Steel and Drew Findling said the men were pointing the finger at Durk to shave time off their own sentences. Grant, they argued, had access to Durk’s money and his own reason to want revenge: King Von was his cousin.
Steel and Findling had been down this road with famous musicians before. Steel helped secure Young Thug’s release in October 2024 after the rapper entered guilty and no-contest pleas in Georgia’s sprawling gang prosecution. The sentence allowed him to leave custody and begin 15 years of probation. Findling was among the attorneys representing Cardi B when Las Vegas police closed a battery investigation without charges in August 2023, citing insufficient evidence after she threw a microphone into an audience.
Outside the courthouse, Ceddy Nash, who calls himself the “hood lawyer,” took his victory lap. “I called this from the beginning,” he said in a video posted by journalist Meghann Cuniff. “I’m the only hood lawyer. Only one.”
Durk’s actual attorneys had questioned the government’s evidence long before the trial began. In April 2025, they asked the judge to toss the indictment, saying prosecutors had twisted his verse on Babyface Ray’s “Wonderful Wayne & Jackie Boy,” from MOB (2022), as a boast about the shooting even though it had been recorded seven months earlier. They also challenged an altered version circulating online that incorporated footage of Bowman reacting to his cousin’s death.
“He’s looking forward to his day in court and for truth to prevail,” attorney Jonathan Brayman told the Chicago Sun-Times in April. Durk expressed confidence during a call to DJ Akademiks that month: “I’ll be back out there, you hear me.” He also discussed concentrating on his family and learning Arabic while incarcerated, according to The Source’s account of the conversation.
The feds also used “Pissed Me Off” against Durk. Its video, embedded above, has racked up 50 million views. The song came out in October 2021, about 10 months before the Los Angeles shooting, and later appeared on 7220 (2022). Prosecutors argued that its references to paying for weapons, a car and bail showed Durk was willing to bankroll revenge. His lawyers said that interpretation ignored the song’s other subjects, including his brother’s death and a home invasion. Fitzgerald allowed the song and video into evidence.
Prosecutors pointed to “Put up money for a hot car” in “Pissed Me Off,” from 7220, to support their claim that Durk would finance retaliation. They had also cited “Look on the news and see your son” from his verse on Babyface Ray’s “Wonderful Wayne & Jackie Boy,” from MOB, as a boast about the shooting. Durk’s lawyers disputed that claim, pointing out that he had recorded the verse seven months before the attack.
This wasn’t Durk’s first run-in with the law. He had served time in custody and had weapons convictions. In August 2014, he pleaded guilty to two weapons charges stemming from a 2013 arrest, receiving 18 months of probation and 50 hours of community service. He got credit for time already served, so that sentence didn’t send him back to jail. A separate 2014 gun case was dropped in 2016. In 2019, he surrendered to authorities over an Atlanta shooting and was charged with attempted murder and other offenses; prosecutors dropped those charges in October 2022. He was arrested in the federal murder-for-hire case in October 2024 and remained detained through the trial.
Ye showed up on August 27 to support Durk, sitting with the rapper’s family during testimony. Outside the courthouse, he posed alongside OTF artist Doodie Lo holding a shirt reading “Free Durk.” Their collaborations include “Jonah,” from Ye’s Donda (2021), and “Vultures,” from Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 1 (2024). Both also appeared on Cardi B’s “Hot Shit,” released in 2022 as a standalone single.
Born October 19, 1992, Durk grew up in Englewood on Chicago’s South Side and emerged during the city’s early-2010s drill movement. Drill took trap’s heavy bass and rattling hi-hats and paired them with dark, stripped-down melodies. The lyrics dealt with neighborhood rivalries, violence, grief and making it through another day. Chief Keef and Durk helped put that Chicago sound on the national map. Durk brought a melodic touch that made the pain stick. His mixtape Signed to the Streets (2013) helped establish his reputation, and XXL named him to its 2014 Freshman Class. He also built Only the Family into a collective and record label that provided a platform for artists including King Von.
Durk reached #1 on the Billboard 200 with The Voice of the Heroes (2021), his joint album with Lil Baby, then earned his first solo #1 with 7220. The Voice (2020) peaked at #2, while Almost Healed (2023) and Deep Thoughts (2025) reached #3. Released during his incarceration, Deep Thoughts became his seventh top-10 album on the Billboard 200, opening with 64,000 equivalent album units. Billboard also counted it as his 10th top-10 project on its Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
He finally took home his first Grammy in 2024, when “All My Life,” featuring J. Cole, from Almost Healed, won Best Melodic Rap Performance. The single reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Recording Academy lists one win from four nominations, including two nominations in 2021 for Drake’s “Laugh Now Cry Later,” a standalone 2020 single featuring Durk, and an Album of the Year nomination for his contribution to Donda.
“All My Life,” from Almost Healed, also earned Best Collaboration and Best Impact Track at the 2023 BET Hip Hop Awards, followed by Best Collaboration at the 2024 BET Awards. The plaques kept coming, too. In March 2025, the RIAA announced 53 new certifications, the most awarded to a hip-hop artist that year up to that point.
