An unreleased music video filmed by Grammy-winning rapper Lil Durk was shown to jurors at his Los Angeles murder-for-hire trial Wednesday, with prosecutors claiming it was evidence of a revenge motive and defense lawyer Brian Steel dismissing it as creative speech by a “grief-stricken” poet.
“It was an expression of art that never got released,” Steel said in a courtroom in downtown Los Angeles. The lawyer known for defending high-profile clients including Young Thug and Sean Combs called Banks the “type of genius” who paints “pictures with words” through his music.
Lil Durk, born Durk Banks, filmed the video in January 2021. In it, he appears as himself, reading news coverage of the 2020 shooting death of his close friend and musical protégé King Von in Atlanta. Banks, styled with his then-signature blond dreadlocks, was shown on screens in the courtroom chasing and shooting an actor whom prosecutors say was portraying rival rapper Quando Rondo.
In opening statements Monday, prosecutors said Banks blamed Quando Rondo for King Von’s shooting death because the two men were involved in a fistfight outside a hookah lounge on Nov. 6, 2020, seconds before an associate of Quando Rondo’s fatally shot King Von. They said Banks was so “consumed with revenge” that a year-and-a-half after filming the “Redman” video, Banks allegedly hired a group of hitmen to stalk and kill Quando Rondo, born Tyquian Bowman, in Los Angeles.
According to prosecutors, Banks paid for the plane tickets, hotel rooms, ski masks, cars, and guns that were used when the men followed Bowman around L.A. on Aug. 19, 2022, and eventually opened fire on his vehicle at a gas station near the Beverly Center mall. Bowman survived, but his cousin Saviay’a Robinson, known as Lul Pab, was fatally struck. Prosecutors say one of the weapons used in the shooting was a semiautomatic firearm modified to function as a machine gun.
Banks, 33, has pleaded not guilty. One of his lawyers said in her opening statement that the “All My Life” rapper “had nothing to do with” the killing and never offered or paid a bounty. On Wednesday, Steel used his cross-examination of FBI Special Agent Jarron Farmby to challenge prosecutors’ decision to cite the unreleased “Redman” video as an overt act in the federal indictment charging Banks with conspiracy, stalking resulting in death, and murder for hire.
With Banks watching from the defense table, Steel asked Farmby whether investigators had contacted the video’s producer or videographer about how it was conceived. Farmby said he had not been involved in that part of the investigation. Asked whether anyone had contacted Banks’s record label about the video’s artistic concept, Farmby said he was not aware of such outreach.
“You know that Durk is a musical artist, a poet, true?” Steel asked after establishing that the professionally produced video used a “toy gun” and was staged so that “nobody got hurt.”
“That’s what he does,” Farmby replied.
Steel then turned to Banks’ grief after King Von’s death and some of the messages he exchanged with his associates. He asked whether people mourning a profound loss that “severs their entire being” might become so “grief-stricken” that they say or do things they would not do after having more time to process the loss. Farmby said that was “possible.”
The lawyer also used his line of questioning to suggest prosecutors weren’t giving jurors the whole picture about how Banks processed the tragedy. He claimed investigators discovered communications in which Banks discussed King Von’s death with his associates and said, “You need a therapist.”
Steel also pointed to a 2021 music video released by Quando Rondo titled “Soul Reaper,” in which a blond-dreadlocked actor resembling Banks is kidnapped at gunpoint and shot.
“Mr. Bowman never got prosecuted?” Steel asked after eliciting testimony that there were no convictions stemming from King Von’s death. The agent said no.
“That was art,” Steel replied.
In opening statements Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Weiner called the case one of “revenge, stalking, and premeditated murder.” He said the evidence would show Banks used coded language to dispatch the group of gunmen. He pointed to an Aug. 18, 2022, text in which Banks wrote, “Don’t book no flights under no names involved wit me.”
On Wednesday, Steel suggested the text had nothing to do with the flights booked using one of his management company’s credit cards for the men charged as his co-defendants in the government’s first indictment. Steel said that at the time, Banks had a friend getting married in Mexico who was expecting his attendance. The lawyer asked the agent if he knew Banks had recently suffered an injury that caused him to cancel his tour in August 2022. The agent said he did not.
The government’s case relies heavily on cooperating witnesses, including Banks’ former employee Kavon “OTF Vonnie” Grant, who has pleaded guilty. Prosecutors said Jerome Kacey “OTF Jam” Hester and Keith Jones also pleaded guilty and are cooperating.
Hester began testifying Wednesday afternoon, telling jurors he was a member of Chicago’s Black Disciples gang and rose to a leadership role through “violence,” including an attempted murder that led to a 12-year prison sentence. After his release in February 2022, Banks bought him clothes and welcomed him home, Hester testified.
The day before Robinson’s killing, Hester received a call from an associate who told him to get on a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles that day, he said. According to Hester, he could hear Banks’ voice on another call with the associate in the background. Hester told the jury he flew to San Diego without even packing a bag and only learned after he landed that the plan was to find and kill Quando Rondo.
Hester testified that Kavon Grant provided guns and cars to him and the other men who traveled from Chicago to San Diego that day. Asked if Grant was giving him orders to carry out the shooting, he said that wasn’t the case, calling Grant a “nobody.” Hester’s testimony is set to continue Thursday, with a cross-examination by Steel.
Banks’ lawyer Marissa Goldberg told jurors in her opening statement that Hester started cooperating with authorities shortly after he was arrested in May 2023 “because he was desperate.” She said he “couldn’t go back to jail another day in his life” and “became a massive cooperator.”
According to Goldberg, Grant was the one who organized the August 2022 shooting plot on his own. She said Grant was extremely “tight” with King Von, was with him in Atlanta the night he was killed, and became consumed with a desire for revenge. Banks, by contrast, “channeled” his anger and frustration into “his artwork,” she said.
“Mr. Banks had nothing to do with it,” Goldberg said. She argued prosecutors have no evidence he paid anyone for the shooting. “This is a murder-for-hire allegation where nobody gets paid,” she said.
An LAPD detective testified that GPS data from a rented white BMW helped investigators track members of the group to an In-N-Out Burger after the shooting. Surveillance footage and other evidence were then used to identify several suspects.
The judge has ruled that beyond the “Redman” video, jurors will be able to hear lyrics from several of Banks’ songs, including “Pissed Me Off,” “Who Want Smoke??,” and “Ahhh Ha,” in which he raps, “Don’t respond to shit with Von. I’m like ‘Fuck it, you trippin’, go get your gun. They droppin’ locations, I’m gettin’ it done. Fuck tweeting, we slidin’, the feds are comin’.”
The use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials is controversial, with critics saying the practice chills creative expression and allows prosecutors to distort hyperbolic art in ways that reinforce racist stereotypes.
Banks’ trial is expected to last three weeks. His wife India Royale and father Dontay Banks Sr. were in the audience on Wednesday. The judge started the proceedings by calling for a moment of silence to mark the death of beloved entertainer and philanthropist Dolly Parton, who died Tuesday at age 80.
