2025 11 12

Lil Durk’s childhood home. Chicago, Illinois. October, 2025. © Clayton Hauck

While driving around the south side after a photo assignment, my car’s navigation alerted me I was passing Lil Durk’s house. While I was previously engaged with documenting Chicago’s music scene in my younger days, I mostly got out of the scene during the rise of drill, so missed a lot of what Chicago is largely known for these days. I’m not very familiar with Durk, but a quick read of his wiki page is, if anything, fascinting:

On May 31, 2014, Durk's cousin OTF Nunu also known as Nuski was shot and killed.[101] Then, on March 27, 2015, Uchenna "OTF Chino Dolla" Agina, Durk's friend and manager, was also shot dead.[102] On November 6, 2020, Lil Durk's affiliate and fellow rapper King Von was fatally shot outside a nightclub in Atlanta.[103] On June 6, 2021, Durk's brother, Dontay "DThang" Banks Jr, was shot and killed outside of a Chicago nightclub.[104][105]

Chicago has a bad reputation for crime, guns, and murder. Of course these things happen here, but the city is so much bigger and broader than these headlines. That said, reading Durk’s wiki page is a sad reminder of the paths so many of our children take after catching a wave of success through music. So many lives cut down too short. This isn’t something I aim to focus on with my photography, however, it’s also impossible to fully avoid and is a subject worth much closer examination in hopes of finding ways to avoid these violent spirals in future generations.

Summarizing someone’s life through a single sentence on wikipedia does not do him justice, but today Durk sits in prison awaiting trial for murder-for-hire. They took away his key to the city. His childhood home sits, as it has for decades, visibly unaffected by the transcendent highs and brutal lows cast into this world by one child who grew up inside of its walls.

[check out the video below if you want more backstory]

-Clayton