A federal judge ruled Monday that some of Lil Durk’s rap lyrics will be off-limits as evidence at his upcoming murder-for-hire trial. However, the judge added that the rapper’s request to bar all lyrics and music videos from the proceedings is still being weighed.
Durk’s defense lawyers want to exclude all lyrics from trial, arguing they’re hyperbolic “poetry” that carry an “extraordinary risk” of being misunderstood by jurors. Prosecutors, meanwhile, hope to admit lyrics from 12 songs as they allege Durk “used his money for violence” as the alleged leader of a “gang” dubbed OTF. (Durk’s Chicago-based rap collective and record label, Only The Family, is also known as OTF.)
After hearing arguments from both sides, U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald ruled that specific lyrics from the song “Hanging with Wolves” would be barred. In the track, Durk raps, “I’m the type to hop on a flight with a warrant, you gotta catch me.” Prosecutors claim the line bolsters their theory that Durk, whose legal name is Durk Banks, was attempting to flee the country at the time of his arrest. Banks disputes that claim and has pleaded not guilty.
“Particular lyrics [sought] to bolster the government’s argument that there was an intention to flee — which is traditionally viewed as consciousness of guilt — will be excluded because they really are just sheer propensity,” Fitzgerald said Monday, referring to generally inadmissible material offered to suggest someone acted in line with alleged character traits. “Lyrics attempting to show Mr. Banks’ willingness to flee will be excluded from the trial.”
Banks, 33, was indicted on charges alleging he hired a group of hit men to travel to Los Angeles and carry out an execution-style killing in broad daylight on Aug. 19, 2022. Prosecutors say the intended target was Tyquian Terrel Bowman, the rapper known as Quando Rondo, whom Banks allegedly believed was involved in the 2020 shooting death of his friend and protégé Dayvon Bennett, known as King Von, in Atlanta. Prosecutors claim the alleged assassins stalked Bennett in Los Angeles and ambushed him at a gas station near the Beverly Center shopping mall, firing at least 18 rounds from multiple guns, including a machine gun. Bowman’s cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, was struck and killed as he traveled with Bowman.
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Banks was arrested in October 2024 near a Miami airport on the same day authorities detained his alleged co-conspirators. Prosecutors say he was preparing to board a private jet bound for Italy in an effort to flee. Banks’ lawyers have said he planned to travel for “business and spiritual reasons” in the Middle East.
Fitzgerald said he would rule soon on Banks’s broader request to exclude all lyrics and music videos. Arguing for their admission on Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian V. Yanniello said the material was necessary to illustrate the “core members of the alleged conspiracy,” contending that it showed certain individuals were part of a subgroup of OTF engaged in criminal activity.
Among the videos prosecutors want to show the jury is a February 2022 video for the song “AHHH HA,” in which Banks raps: “Don’t respond to shit with Von. I’m like, ‘fuck it, you trippin’, go get your gun.’ They droppin’ locations, I’m getting it done. Fuck tweetin’, we slidin’, the feds are comin.” When the judge asked why the video was needed in addition to the lyrics, Yanniello said the visuals provided necessary context.
“The lyrics in isolation are potentially ambiguous at times,” he said. “The context of what is being displayed visually makes clear what the lyrics are about.”
Defense lawyer Marissa Goldberg pushed back, telling the court she and her co-counsel, Drew Findling, regularly represent rap artists and that this was “by far the most amount of rap lyrics we’ve ever seen proffered” in a criminal case. In filings, the defense cited court decisions and academic studies finding that rap lyrics can be misunderstood and create undue prejudice.
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“This is art, this is music,” Goldberg argued Monday. “But there’s no doubt it’s prejudicial in criminal trials. And the government wants to use it in extraordinary abundance.” She accused prosecutors of “cherry-picking” inflammatory material while ignoring the video for Banks’s Grammy-winning song “All My Life,” where “he’s surrounded by children.”
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“They certainly didn’t choose that one,” Goldberg said. “There’s a narrative they want to portray, and it’s propensity and violence.” She added that actors and musicians regularly deliver scripted lines that do not reflect their real lives. “We would never say, ‘Because you said it and commercialized it, it should be used as evidence against you.’ We don’t make those jumps,” she said. “[Banks] is a performer, somebody doing things because there’s demand and there’s an audience. It’s part of the zeitgeist.”
Banks’s trial is scheduled to begin April 21, though scheduling issues involving co-defendants and their lawyers could delay the start again. (The trial was previously delayed in January.) As he was led away in custody on Monday, Banks acknowledged his large group of supporters in the gallery, including his father, Dontay Banks. He smiled broadly at his wife, India Royale, before he was led away.
