Say what you will about Lil Durk, but understand upfront that he’s all about a vibe: Whether bucking lyrical shots or crooning a love song, the drill innovator makes moody, hypnotic songs that relate like one relentless, sinuous trance. Almost always, we’re game for being seduced by Durk’s melodic turnups. But when the languid-to-somber ratios on his albums began to predominate, listening sometimes felt like a chore, despite the self-care sentiments the Chiraq champ has been mainlining since 2023’s trauma-centered Almost Healed. Deep Thoughts, his Jack Handey-evoking new project — 17 lucid, droning ditties — is a vibey, if unremarkable, paean to self-reflection that leaves you desiring more piquancy.
Midway through Deep Thoughts, a mini-documentary simultaneously released with his new project, Durk declares, “I could rah-rah all day. But I wanna show growth.” That gesture is admirable, and Durk’s introspection helmed 2022’s pensive, triumphant “Grow Up/Keep It on Speaker,” one of his fiercest tracks. In contrast, Deep Thoughts‘ sluggish opener, “Shaking While I Pray,” is a heart-on-the-sleeve account of Durk’s recent spars with addiction (“I had to slow down off that drank/I was in Cleveland Clinic, I almost met God for the week”), which falls flat when a hook denouncing Durk’s rivals (“You ain’t even got a title”) resounds with overwrought egoism.
More pointed, “Soul Bleed” is a similarly confessional track, featuring honest lines like, “I’ve been slackin’ lately, I’ve been puttin’ niggas before my team/Ten toes, ask the county how many times my phone ring.” Durk’s recent incarceration makes those bars all the more urgent, as the platinum-selling rapper is now making the prison-siphoned collect calls his lyrics alludes to. The stand-up guy credo is a big part of Durk’s appeal, though the song’s snooze-forcing backdrop (one of many piano-driven dirges) and warbly, Auto-Tuned chorus all but undermine its underlying pathos.
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Granted, the lackluster pallor here may be due to Durk’s incarceration (his team puzzled the album together from various prerecorded structures). The prison opus has, decidedly, been a catastrophe since Slick Rick released his regrettable 1994 album Behind Bars while serving a three-to-10 murder charge. Drakeo the Ruler’s 2020 mixtape, Thank You for Using GTL — recorded on a prison phone — is the notable exception, finding authenticity (not to mention creativity) in the obvious restrictions. Originally spawned as the latest installment in Durk’s emphatic Love Songs 4 the Streets series, Deep Thoughts transitioned into a self-help-style album, which might have benefited from the authentic dynamism of those earlier projects.
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Still, the Lil Baby-featured “1000 Times” — all soulful organs and bright, earnest guitar — is a motivational highlight, picking up where their exciting 2021 collab LP left off. Likewise, the steely “Monitoring Me” is heartily claustrophobic, featuring bar after bruising bar over undertaker chords and a militant drum cadence. But, alas, there’s too many songs like the mawkish “Notebook (No Hook),” with its piggish barbs (“Broke bitch asked for a crib, petty ass, got that bitch a cradle”), demonstrating that not all revelations are welcome. Deep Thoughts doesn’t put you in a trance so much as it puts you to sleep.
