Review Summary: Durk has fallen on rough times in more than one way.
Lil Durk’s fall from grace has been immaculate. He still is one of the biggest rappers in today’s game, known for his incredible storytelling and grimey, authentic hood tales. Lil Durk was a pioneer of the Chicago drill movement along with Chief Keef, King Louie, Fredo Santana and others. In case you didn’t know, Durk was recently indicted on murder charges (along with several of his crew) for hiring a hitman to kill Quando Rondo’s cousin. He’s currently sitting in a federal prison and yet his newest album
Deep Thoughts is hitting shelves and streaming services everywhere. Unfortunately, the album fails to live up to the hype in every way possible.
Let me preface this by saying that Durk is one of my favorite rappers of all time. So the fact that I even think this album is garbage is saying something.
Deep Thoughts is a messy, autotune filled pop rap album to the core. Gone are the banging drilltastic 808s and tales of mischief in the hoods of Chicago. Gone is Durk’s insane self-snitching lyrical mastery, weaving stories of real life crimes he and his crew were committing at the time of recording. I guess the name of the album should’ve been a clue.
Durk attempts to rap conscious lyrics, tries to right the wrongs he has made in his life. Stories about drug addiction and loss. Durk knows loss. You probably need 10 hands to count the friends/family members he’s lost to the streets. But it just doesn’t work for him. Every single beat sounds the same. It’s like the producers were going for a smooth, jazzy sound but really it sounds like boring modern cloud rap beats for the entire duration of the album. The entire aura of the album is inauthentic. It just isn’t Durk’s style and it’s plainly obvious.
I respect what Durk was trying to do with
Deep Thoughts, it just doesn’t go well. I also respect the message he’s trying to relay throughout most of this album, but again, it’s just not authentic to who he is. Go back and listen to
Life Ain’t No Joke and/or
Signed to the Streets. That’s the real Durk. Even his 2020s output up until this point showed Durk modernizing his sound yet staying true to his core. Now he’s in jail and he just released by far his worst project. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
