Lil Durk’s murder-for-hire trial is set for April, and his legal team is pushing back hard against prosecutors’ plan to use his own music as evidence.
In a motion filed in federal court on Friday (January 23), Durk’s attorneys argued that a collection of music videos, songs, and lyric excerpts the government wants to introduce should be thrown out. According to the filing, the material poses “an extraordinary risk of unfair prejudice.”
While prosecutors’ reasoning for including the music was submitted under seal and isn’t publicly available, Durk’s lawyers noted that the government has described the content as “direct evidence” and “inextricably intertwined” with the charges. The defense says that argument doesn’t hold up, pointing out there’s no proof showing when the songs were written or even who specifically wrote the lyrics in question.
“The notices [of which musical evidence is being used] do not identify who authored the lyrics, when they were created, whether the defendants adopted them, or how the government connects each specific excerpt to any particular fact in dispute,” the brief states.
“Without this basic information, the Court cannot determine whether the music evidence is temporally connected to the charged conspiracy or ‘too temporally distant’ to qualify as part of the same transaction.”
Durk’s team also argued that the lyrics themselves don’t reference anything concrete, claiming they’re not only “irrelevant” and “misleading,” but also reflective of common themes found across the genre as a whole.
To support that point, the defense enlisted Erik Nielson, a professor and co-author of the 2019 book Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America. In a declaration attached to the filing, Nielson wrote that the proposed evidence mirrors “a large percentage of music produced by other artists in the same genre as the defendants.”
Nielson added that language prosecutors are emphasizing — references to “opps,” rivalries, guns, and violence — is “common, commercial and widespread” in rap music.
Another issue raised by Durk’s attorneys is that prosecutors have repeatedly changed which songs and videos they want to use.
“If the song was so important, they wouldn’t abandon it and replace another at each opportunity,” the brief argues. “It is as if the government sifted through the hundreds of songs of the defendants and just said, ‘we can make this one fit our narrative, let’s use it.’”
The defense also warned that the lyrics, which they described as “objectively offensive in almost every way,” could unfairly sway a jury — something they believe prosecutors are counting on.
Lil Durk is accused of arranging a hit on rival rapper Quando Rondo following the death of King Von, an alleged plot federal authorities say led to the 2022 killing of Rondo’s cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, in Los Angeles.
