Lil Durk is one of the hottest artists in the game right now
and has been around for almost a decade.
But only real fans know that before Lil Durk was running the rap game,
his father Big Durk was running the streets of Chicago.
Here's a closer look at the story of Big Durk,
Lil Durk’s Legendary Father.
Lil Durk grew up in the Englewood neighborhood in the Southside of Chicago.
His father, Dontay Banks, aka Big Durk,
was sentenced to life in prison when the rapper was only 7 months old,
for running a major crack empire.
Eventually, Big Durk would get a second chance at life
and be released in time to reunite with his superstar son.
But, not before spending more than 25 years in a federal prison.
Big Durk also grew up in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago.
He was one of 10 children, including 7 boys and 3 girls, and growing up,
his mother was addicted to drugs.
They moved around a lot and never found a stable place to live for too long.
His grandmother lived in Englewood,
and that’s where he was first exposed to the street life.
In an interview with CREDTALKS TV,
Big Durk said that growing up in Englewood
was both hard and exciting at the same time.
Uh, but over all,
you know, coming up in Englewood was.
Coming up in Englewood was hard and exciting at the same time
He saw all the hustlers, gamblers, prostitutes,
and everyone else doing what they had to do to survive
and young Dontay would become fascinated with that lifestyle.
He said that he used to watch gamblers like it was a TV show
because he knew if he sat there long enough
someone would get shot, stabbed, or beat up.
Cuz I knew if I sat there and watch them long enough it was just like TV
Someone in the end gonna get shot
someone gonna get stabbed someone gonna get whooped
Because in the end someone is gonna be cheating
His older brothers would fall victim to that lifestyle before he did
and would end up getting locked up, leaving Big Durk to be the man of the house
when he was only about 12 years old.
He said that, the moment he turned from Dontay Banks into Big Durk,
was when one day he came home from school
and all of his family’s stuff had been moved out onto the front lawn.
He saw his mother crying and begging the neighbors for a place to stay
and that’s when he decided that he had to learn how to make his own money and become successful.
But growing up in a wild neighborhood like Englewood,
there weren't many ways to make money
especially when you’re still just a kid.
So, he got involved in the drug game to support himself.
He had a cousin who was a plug,
so he went to her and asked for some work so he could start hustling.
He was only about 13 or 14 at the time, but she still started him off with an 8 ball of coke.
As he stood on the corner in the freezing cold trying to sell that 8ball,
he says that was the moment he transformed from Dontay Banks into Big Durk.
He attended Paul Robeson High School on 69th and Normal,
but he only went to please his grandmother and just barely graduated.
But high school was also where he started getting exposed to gang culture.
He said that the school was mostly BD, but his neighborhood was primarily GD’s.
Plus, there were some Black P Stones and Vice Lords on the outskirts.
He ended up joining the GD’s because they were the people he hung around the most.
He was already in the streets hustling
and had built a crew that was respected in the neighborhood.
But after linking up with the GD’s,
Big Durk was able to bring his operation to a whole new level.
He had so much influence in his neighborhood
that he was selected to be the main shot caller for the area.
This meant that he got to meet with the founder of the gang, Larry Hoover.
The Gangster Disciples were founded in the Southside of Chicago in 1965
by Larry Hoover and David Barksdale.
Hoover had a gang called the Supreme Gangsters
and Barksdale was one of the founders of the Black Disciples.
They united in 1969 to form the Black Gangster Disciple Nation.
But eventually broke off from each other and formed two separate gangs,
the Gangster Disciples and the Black Disciples
who are now bitter enemies.
Larry Hoover maintained control over the Gangster Disciples,
who now operate across 110 cities in 31 states primarily in the South and Midwest.
In 1997,
Hoover would be sentenced to 150-200 years in prison
for the 1973 murder of a 19-year-old drug dealer named William “Pooky” Young
also for his role as leader of the Gangster Disciples.
The 44-year-old acknowledged leader of the Black Gangster Disciples
has been in prison since 1973 for a drug-related murder
He’s currently serving 6 life sentences at the ADX Florence Prison
a maximum-security prison
that also houses inmates like El Chapo and the Unabomber.
But even while behind bars,
Larry Hoover continued to run the massive gang empire
he built before his incarceration.
So Big Durk was taking direction from the very top of the food chain.
The two would meet to discuss business and ended up forming a solid relationship.
This relationship would allow Durk to take his drug operation to a new level
and brought a lot more structure and manpower to his organization.
But the increase in volume also came with more risk
and Big Durk had a few close calls even before he was locked up.
He described one incident where there was a drought – or a shortage of product
so he had to pick up from a source that he knew was a bit sketchy.
Police ended up catching on to him,
but he was driving a suped-up 64 Malibu and was able to lose them by speeding off.
He says that he was driving so fast down a one-way street,
that if anyone stepped outside or opened a door he would have been finished.
He also had his sister with him at the time and after the police chase,
he felt bad about risking her life along with his own.
Big Durk also claims that the war between the BD’s and GD’s
actually started in his neighborhood.
He says that it all started over a dispute over territory.
He grew up with one of the leaders of the BD’s, Jerome “Shorty” Freeman,
so they had been cool with each other, even though they were part of different gangs.
But eventually, it came time to divide up the neighborhood
because of their affiliations
and the Freeman’s felt they were entitled to more territory than Big Durk and the GD’s.
They wouldn’t negotiate when Big Durk and his people pushed back
and this is what sparked the deadly war t hat continues to this day.
But despite all the violence and close calls with the police,
Big Durk says that he never thought the money would ever stop
because he was running an airtight operation.
He said that he was on the street 24/7,
but the cops were only out there 8 hours a day.
So, there was no way they could ever catch up to him,
because he was always a step ahead.
He thought that maybe he’d eventually retire from the game
but never thought he’d actually get caught.
Despite his careful planning and hustler mentality,
the police would eventually catch up with him.
Big Durk would be arrested for distribution of cocaine
and sentenced to life in prison in 1994.
He was accused of being the primary organizer of a crack cocaine empire
that lasted from the fall of 1991 to May of ’93.
Durk would even go as far as sourcing the cocaine
and then cooking it into crack himself,
which he would then bag for individual sale.
He had a huge network of dealers
who would help him push the product on the streets
and even count the money for him.
His top men: Robert Shipp, Mario Dunlop, and Alton Mills
would be arrested along with him and also receive life sentences
for their participation in the drug trafficking ring.
Their empire all came crashing down after a woman named Tosha Woods
who was involved in overseeing the street sales of the crack
agreed to testify against them in court.
What made the snitching even worse was that Tosha was Mario’s girlfriend
and Big Durk’s blood cousin.
After learning about Big Durk’s massive drug operation
they began following his top men.
This eventually led them to get into a high-speed chase with Alton Mills,
who allegedly threw half a kilo of coke out the window of his car.
In addition to that, the police were able to intercept a phone call
made by Big Durk on the day Mills was arrested,
where he repeatedly asked if he “had the candy”.
This phone call was enough for the Feds to get a warrant
to search a storage unit being rented by Big Durk in Lansing, Illinois,
where they uncovered $1 million in cash and 10 kilos of cocaine.
Durk and his associates were immediately arrested
and were charged with two counts of knowingly and intentionally
conspiring with others to possess cocaine with intent to distribute.
At the time, the punishment for selling crack cocaine
was way more severe than selling powder cocaine
so Big Durk was looking at a mandatory minimum of 30 years in prison.
Authorities were able to learn even more about the scale of Big Durk’s operation
after two of his suppliers also snitched and testified at trial
that they had delivered more than 85 kilos of cocaine to Big Durk
between fall 1991 and May 1993.
As a result, the two suppliers were handed sentences of 11 ½ years and 9 years,
while Big Durk and his people were given life sentences.
Lil Durk later suggested in interviews
that the reason his father got such a harsh sentence
is that they wanted him to flip on Larry Hoover, but he refused.
Throughout his career, Lil Durk would praise his father for staying solid
and not ratting his people out, even if it meant spending the rest of his life behind bars.
So, Big Durk kept it solid and took the life sentence he was given at just 25 years old.
Even the judge said that he felt bad
about handing down such a harsh sentence
for a non-violent drug crime.
But in the early ’90s the Feds were going hard trying to shut down crack dealers.
So the judge was forced to go along with the mandatory minimums set by the law.
Even Big Durk’s girlfriend ended up getting sentenced to 10 years
for her involvement in the operation.
But while he was locked up, he never abandoned his kids.
Lil Durk has said in interviews that growing up
he wanted to be just like his father and that he used to talk to him on the phone every day.
Big Durk used to encourage his kids to stay out of the streets
and avoid the mistakes that cost him his own freedom.
That’s part of the reason that Durk went so hard with his music career
and tried his best to avoid the path that his father went down.
Growing up in a wild city like Chicago,
sometimes you get sucked into the street life, even if you don’t want to.
But Durk could always rely on his father for advice
when he was caught up in a situation.
While in prison, Big Durk eventually converted to Islam
and did his best to distance himself
from gang culture and the activities that put him in prison in the first place.
All his good behavior would eventually pay off and in 2019,
he would be released from prison on an appeal,
after spending nearly 25 years behind bars.
On February 12th, 2019,
Lil Durk tweeted Big Durk Home!!!,
letting the world know that his father was finally free from jail.
He and his sons would reunite for the first time
outside the confines of a federal penitentiary
and could finally enjoy all the success that had come from his son’s music career.
Since his release,
Big Durk has stayed away from the spotlight
and has instead dedicated his time to mentoring the youth as a Life Coach
with Chicago CRED,
a non-profit aimed at reducing gun violence in the city through outreach,
counseling, and mentorship.
So Big Durk is taking the second chance at life he’s been given
and using it to do something positive.
Even though he couldn’t be there for his son physically because of his prison sentence,
he still helped Lil Durk make it out of the streets of Chicago
and become a rap star,
by teaching him the lessons he learned at the top of the drug game,
and how to avoid the fate that took his freedom.
It seems to have worked because Lil Durk is now one of the hottest rappers in the game,
who was recently credited
with having more entries on the billboard hot 100 for this year
than any other artist in music.
Big Durk ran the streets so that Lil Durk could run the music industry
and in the end, they were able to reunite
and share all the success together.
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