Yeat is onto something. The rapper broke out in a big way with 2093, and now he’s back with a new batch of songs in less than a year. He confirmed to The Fader that LYFESTYLE was an attempt to lean into his rap side, and now that we have the album, we can confirm this is the case. Don’t worry, the wild rage elements that made Yeat such a sensation to begin with are still here. “SPEEDBALL” and “LYING 5 FUN” are peppered with the frantic synths and Autotuned riffs thats characterized 2093. The thing that helps distinguish LYFESTYLE, though, is the way Yeat plays off his collaborators.
The title track fuses a rage style instrumental with knocking drums more akin to a trap song. This blend of sounds is complimented by Yeat and Lil Durk swapping verses. These two do not really gel on paper, but they sound fantastic together. Don Toliver also shines on “NEW HIGH.” It turns out that Toliver really sounds like his mentor, Travis Scott, when his voice is given the distorted Yeat treatment. “NEW HIGH” has one of the best grooves on the whole album. On the solo front, “SO WHAT” and “GEEK TIME” are showcases for Yeek’s wildest vocal inflections. There’s a lot of music here, and fans are going to love it.
Let us know what you think of this brand new album, in the comments section down below. Additionally, stay tuned to HNHH for the latest news and updates from around the music world. We will continue to keep you informed on all of your favorite artists and their upcoming projects.
Yeat’s buzz is bigger than ever. The rapper has been steadily building his following up, and refining his sound. LYFESTYLE, his upcoming album, is poised to be his commercial breakthrough, though. All the information we’ve heard surrounding the album has only served to increase the excitement for what’s to come. Yeat recently sat down for an interview with The Fader, and he not only spoke on the sound of the album, but released the list of artists who will feature. It’s about time.
Yeat already released the tracklist for LYFESTYLE, which sits at 21 songs, but the features were initially hidden. It was assumed that we would all have to wait until the album dropped to find out who was on the album, and who wound up on the cutting room floor. Thankfully, Yeat took mercy on us and revealed who will appear. The list did not disappoint. Yeat will have guest features from rap superstars like Kodak Black and Lil Durk. There will also be hooks from Don Toliver and acts like Summrs and Lazer Dim 700. Yeat is known for his rage style, which often blurs genre lines, but he told The Fader that he’s going full hip hop this time around.
“LYFESTYLE [is] basically just my normal rap sh*t,” Yeat explained. “It’s not futuristic, it’s not like a whole different world. It’s the most polished I’ve ever came with the rap sh*t.” The features Yeat chose serve to support this narrative. Lil Durk, Kodak and Don Toliver are some of the most conventional rappers that he has worked with to date. Yeat has worked with stars like Drake before, but even then, the 6 God adapted to his rage style. It’ll be fascinating to hear how people like Durk and Kodak sounds on Yeat beats.
Those who prefer Yeat’s more experimental sound needn’t worry. The rapper told the outlet that his next album is already in the works. It will departure from LYFESTYLE in that it will sound like a refined version of 2093. “I don’t know when it’s going to come out, but it’s kind of like 2093,” he noted. “But a lot more refined. We’ve been spending a lot of time creating that sound in tandem with the LYFESTYLE sound for a couple months.” We can’t wait to hear it all.
Lil Durk was riding a monstrous way of momentum into October 18. The rapper was dropping a series of stellar buzz singles in the lead up to his new album, Deep Thoughts. Unfortunately, the release date for the anticipated album has been tweaked. An official announcement has yet to be released, but a subtle change was made on the Apple Music page for Deep Thoughts. Instead of reading October 18, the page claims that the album has been delayed by over a month.
Eagle-eyed fans noticed that the release date for Lil Durk’s new album now reads: November 22. This is a pretty devastating delay for fans, especially given how long the rapper has been hyping up the release. Lil Durk first announced Deep Thoughts in December 2023. The aforementioned singles have been well received by fans, especially “Turn Up a Notch.” The subsequent buzz songs, “Monitoring Me” and “Late Checkout,” have drawn less attention but maintained an extremely high quality. The former, in particular, is one of Durk’s hardest releases to date.
The Deep Thoughts delay is the latest is a series of rollout controversies. The tracklist for the album was seemingly leaked on October 1. It spread like wildfire on line, with such unexpected names as Kai Cenat, Morgan Wallen and Sabrina Carpenter being listed among the features. A debate surfaced among fans as to whether Lil Durk was selling out and abandoning his traditional sound. Fortunately, the drama was cleared up. The rapper confirmed that the tracklist was fake. A proper one has yet to be released, with the only three confirmed tracks being the singles.
Fans are also hopeful that “Discontinuing Wockhardt” will make the cut. The Drake collab was teased by both Adin Ross and DJ Akademiks. The latter even played a preview of a music video for the song. It was theorized that Drake had been removed from the song, because the 6 God’s name was nowhere on the aforementioned tracklist. Once it was proven fake, however, confidence in the superstar collab was restored. Fingers crossed that Deep Thoughts doesn’t suffer any more delays along the way.
Last week saw Lil Durk announced Deep Thoughts, a new album that follows his 2023 LP Almost Healed. He shared the news alongside the new song “Monitoring Me,” and now he’s back with another. This time, he teams up with Hunxho on “Late Checkout.”
The tune sees Durk infatuated as he raps, “It ain’t nothin’ like the first day I put my lips on you / It ain’t nothin’ like the first date you let me kiss on you / Missionary is gettin’ scary when I lick on you / Strict the first night ’cause I tried to put the dick on you.”
Hunxho expresses a similar sentiment in his verse: “Oh, Lord, why it feel like I already know her? / Why it feel like she been ’round before I blowed up? / And I don’t fuck with n****s at all / So it’s like every time you roll up the only time I show love.”
This comes after Durk popped up on Hood Poet, the latest album from Polo G, this summer. Hunxho, meanwhile, embarked on The One Night Only Tour this past summer, which spanned from May to June.
Listen to “Late Checkout” above.
Deep Thoughts is out 10/18 via Alamo. Find more information here.
It really feels like Lil Durk is gearing up for his best album yet. The rapper has already proven himself to be a Grammy-winning and chart-topping talent. The rollout for his upcoming release, however, has seen him be even sharper than usual. The singles have been excellent. The tracklist, despite being hampered by feature rumors, is sprawling without being too long. And with “Late Checkout,” Lil Durk proves that he is going to show fans every facet of his musical talent. Previous single “Monitoring Me” was a vicious cut, but “Late Checkout” is a smooth, R&B-inflected bop with a slick feature from Hunxho.
Lil Durk is best known for his emotive and hard-hitting trap songs. He understands that different sounds and vibes are crucial to making a great project, though. “Late Checkout” is proof that he’s striving to put out a classic. The song sees Lil Durk deliver some haunting vocals over the intro, before slipping into an effortlessly catchy flow. The rapper laments a relationship that has fallen on rough times, which is pretty standard, topic wise, but he gives it specificity and passion. It helps that “Late Checkout” is just catchy. Hunxho slides through on the backend of the song with a mumbly, charisma-driven verse that keeps it from every getting monotonous. Another winner.
Let us know what you think of this brand-new track, in the comments section down below. Additionally, stay tuned to HNHH for the latest news and updates from around the music world. We will continue to keep you informed on all of your favorite artists and their upcoming projects.
You ain’t gotta worry ’bout me off the sex pills Only honey I need is for the tea She told me laser hurts, she’d rather go with V Off the liquor, it’s a high chance she ski
The Dinizulu Law Group filed a civil lawsuit today in Cook County Circuit Court seeking to hold rapper Lil Durk (Durk Derrick Banks), his record label Only the Family Entertainment (OTF), and several other music companies accountable for the fatal shooting of Chicago rapper Carlton Weekly, known as FBG Duck, on August 4, 2020. Weekly was shot outside a Gold Coast retail store, and the lawsuit also represents two bystanders who were wounded but survived the attack.
The lawsuit, announced during a news conference by Attorney Yao Dinizulu, brings multiple charges, including wrongful death, civil conspiracy, negligence, and failure to render aid. The plaintiffs seek damages not only for Weekly’s death but also for the injuries suffered by bystanders Davon Brinson and Cashae Williams. The suit names additional defendants, including Alamo Records, Sony Music Entertainment Inc., Universal Music Group Recordings Inc. (Interscope Records), and Empire Distribution Inc.
The lawsuit claims that these companies profited from the violent rivalry between OTF and FBG Duck by promoting “diss tracks” that escalated tensions. It accuses Lil Durk, the head of OTF, and other members of the group, including the late King Von, of orchestrating a campaign of intimidation and violence against FBG Duck, placing a $100,000 bounty on his life. OTF is described as a criminal enterprise that used music and social media to promote gang-related activity.
The suit also alleges misconduct by the City of Chicago, claiming police and emergency services failed to promptly aid FBG Duck, who lay alive for over 17 minutes without receiving medical attention. Dolce & Gabbana and its security firms are also named for negligence, accused of failing to take adequate safety measures.
This lawsuit follows the January conviction of six gang members in connection with FBG Duck’s death. Federal prosecutors linked the murder to a gang war fueled by social media and rap music.
Chicago-based visionary Cole Bennett started out shooting for up-and-coming teens and twenty-something blog favorites, but in the past five years, he has become one of rap’s foremost music video directors, working with top names like Eminem, J. Cole, Lil Durk, and more. He’s even shot for actor Jack Black, delivering a colorful video for Black’s Super Mario Bros. Movie crowd-pleaser, “Peaches.”
“I was a very visual person, but I never knew that I loved music videos,” Bennett said in a 2021 XXL interview. “I always had this idea since I was super young of what it would look like if I made a music video.” For nearly a decade, Bennett has been bringing these ideas to life to the praise of the artists he works with and his growing fan base.
With that being said, we decided to scour Bennett’s Lyrical Lemonade page for his best work. Here are the 10 best Cole Bennett-directed music videos.
Honorable Mention: JID & J. Cole — “Off Deez”
Okay, it’s a pretty basic concept with workmanlike execution, but it might be the best song Bennett’s ever done a video for. JID and J. Cole are left turns for Cole Bennett, if you take in the entirety of his filmography, so it was pretty meaningful that the Dreamville cohorts teamed up with him on this standout from JID’s DiCaprio 2. It’d be nice to see them do it again.
10. Ski Mask The Slump God — “Catch Me Outside”
An early standout from both Bennett and Ski Mask The Slump God, “Catch Me Outside” perfectly illustrates the possibilities of a limited budget when you’ve got unlimited imagination. Awash with eye-popping visual effects, “Catch Me Outside” offers a prime example of Cole’s early style; it’s raw, but flashes of his future brilliance shine throughout. Many of the techniques Bennett used here eventually became hallmarks of his style, and with polish, set off the concepts of his future videos with Cordae and Eminem.
9. Central Cee — “Doja”
As “Doja” is one of Bennett’s more recent videos, its simplicity might seem out of place in a list featuring so many brain-bending, colorful visuals. But it also marks Bennett’s transition from colorful collaborator to kingmaker; Central Cee is a star stateside after working with Bennett, making the most of essentially an indie budget to secure the coveted director’s services and show he belongs on the biggest stage.
8. Jack Harlow — “What’s Poppin”
While the visuals are pretty tame for a Cole Bennett production, Harlow’s “What’s Poppin” video is still representative of the elements that have made Bennett’s videos so eye-catching and amusing. Even the low-key imagery mirrors Jack’s tongue-in-cheek humor, highlighting and elevating it with some juxtaposed elements as bottle service and satin sheets at a late-night diner and a woman “smoking” a french fry like a cigarette. It’s also impossible to discount what the video did for Harlow’s career, taking him from an indie unknown to a potential chart-topper with 170 million views.
7. Drake — “Another Late Night” Feat. Lil Yachty
Say what you want about Drake, but “Another Late Night,” at least visually, has been the height of his last couple of rough years. Drake and Yachty have great chemistry, and despite the relatively straightforward treatment, the video manages to be eye-catching and stand out from the rest of Drake’s admittedly wonky catalog.
6. Lil Durk — “Kanye Krazy”
Bennett’s referential style comes to a head in Durk’s “Kanye Krazy” video. Pulling from infamous clips from the titular auteur’s oeuvre and public outbursts, Durk reimagines the videos for “Runaway,” “Bound 2,” and “I Love It” — specifically, the moments in which Kanye’s mental illness seems to have gotten the better of him, for better or worse. This was just after Drake’s “Laugh Now Cry Later” had put Durk back on the national map, so to speak, so the cheeky visuals helped aid in lending mainstream audiences a better sense of Durk’s personality outside his harrowing drill stories.
5. BabyTron — “100 Bars”
BabyTron, like Central Cee’s “Doja,” is a more recent addition to Bennett’s filmography, albeit one with a much higher concept. It’s executed deliriously well, with a new BabyTron outfit/persona for each of the titular “100 Bars” and seamless transitions between each. It’s a format that Bennett would return to with Eminem’s “Tobey,” but it’s impressive that the Detroit and Chicago natives were able to make this work without the benefit of a huge star (and the accompanying budget). BabyTron, for all the lethargy of his flow on the song, also appears to be having a ball, as does comedian Andy Milonakis in his cameo role.
4. Eminem — “Godzilla”
“Godzilla” is the moment Cole Bennett “made it,” in the sense that he began working with established megastars like Eminem in addition to the SoundCloud standouts in his own DIY cohort. Fittingly, the increased budget came along with some stunning visual effects to spice up the flow of the video’s narrative while enhancing Bennett’s trademark surrealism. Em gets punched in the face by Mike Tyson, breathes fire, vomits Legos, and performs surgery alongside longtime collaborator Dr. Dre. And speaking of collaborators, “Godzilla” is a hallmark moment for Marshall too; it’s the first time he really embraced the SoundCloud rappers he’d formerly spent huge segments of his albums belittling.
3. Polo G — “My All”
Of all Cole Bennett’s most frequent collaborators, he most frequently turns in his best work with hometown artists like Juice WRLD and Polo G. In the video for “My All,” the Chi-Town natives tone down the usual comedic elements of Cole’s catalog in favor of something more emotionally resonant. It looks simple, but it’s not; a seated Polo performs the lyrics as a montage of memories both celebratory and traumatic, scroll behind him. The fourth wall break at the end is a fun surprise.
2. Cordae & Juice WRLD — “Doomsday”
My personal favorite out of the videos presented here, “Doomsday” takes a simple concept and adds stupendous visual flair with the aid of facial overlay technology. This is how you pay homage to departed artists; Cordae puts on a clinic as both himself and his late friend Juice WRLD, while Cole puts deepfake algos to an actual artistic use that doesn’t require stealing the work of real artists.
1. Juice WRLD — “Lucid Dreams”
The video that put Bennett on my personal radar, “Lucid Dreams” is far from his most stunning. But it’s hard to argue with a billion views; “Lucid Dreams” is the song that made Juice a star, it’s still his biggest song to date, and the video displays Cole’s gift for dreamlike visuals, which also fits the theme of the song.
Through the release of “Monitoring Me,” Lil Durk kicked off the rollout for his next album Deep Thoughts, which drops on Friday, October 18. He also shared the cover art with his social media followers: a black-and-white image of the Chicago rapper rising up from open water into the sky, adorned by an almost-fully covered crescent moon. Fan reactions were divisive, with some urging Smurk to get down from his high horse and others finding it to be quite the engaging image. It kind of reflects the overall reception to his music as of late, but he’s never backed down from the washed allegations.
However, some die-hards might be disappointed that Lil Durk isn’t coming out with two brand-new projects soon; just one. He called out a fake tracklist that circulated online for a hypothetical Love Songs 4 The Streets 3. It was quite an eclectic feature list, too: Future, Lil Baby, Rod Wave, Morgan Wallen, Sabrina Carpenter, and… Kai Cenat? And iShowSpeed? Well, we don’t blame fans for wanting to hear what this cocktail would’ve resulted in. Maybe later down the road…
Also, Lil Durk might not be giving these cover reactions much stock, as he has a lot of praise to fall back on from his Power Book II: Ghost costar, LeToya Tonodeo. “I thought he killed it!” she told TMZ of his performance. “And I hope he keeps going with it. Like, you know, it’s the series finale… *sighs* it’s coming to an end. At least Power Book II: Ghost. But you know what they say, power never ends. So we shall see. […] I think [Lil Durk has a magical quality]. I think so, I mean, he was dope to work with. Super cool, super chill. Yeah, I hope he keeps it going. I hope [we’ll see a lot of him in the future in Hollywood]. I hope so. You’d have to ask him, but in my opinion, I hope so.” Check out reactions to the Deep Thoughts artwork down below.
More Fan Takes
That album cover is fire! Lil Durk’s about to drop some heat that’s gonna have us vibing all fall! Can’t wait to see what he’s cooking up!
Meanwhile, DJ Akademiks recently previewed a collab between Lil Durk and Drake that many hope will end up on the former’s new album. Let’s see what the future holds…
Grammy-winning, chart-topping hip-hop superstar Lil Durk today announces his highly anticipated ninth studio album, Deep Thoughts, on October 18 via Alamo Records. He heralds the LP with the release of a brand new track and visual,“Monitoring Me.”
“Monitoring Me” stands out as classic Durk. He bulldozes the 808-driven soundscape with bold and braggadocious bars. In between a hypnotic, paranoid piano loop, he takes back control and disregards any and all opposition, “I ain’t ever seen you do nothing.” Directed by Jerry Production, the accompanying visual matches the track’s high-octane energy. Durk takes over a gas station and performs from on top of a roof, his trademark charisma and style on full display.
“Monitoring Me” comes hot on the heels of the recent banger “Turn Up A Notch.” Beyond stacking up millions of streams and YouTube views, “TUAN” earned widespread critical acclaim. XXL named it among “The 13 Best New Hip-Hop Songs This Week“.
These new tracks foreshadow what’s to come on Deep Thoughts. With a reputation for unparalleled honesty, Durk opens like never before and delivers an epic straight from the heart.
DJ Akademiks is on the short list of streamers who get to play exclusive music. He’s on there with Adin Ross and Kai Cenat. This makes sense, given his connections to numerous high profile rappers. DJ Ak is someone who regularly claims to have messages from Drake to relay to the fans. This link seemed to be in full effect on Friday, October 4. DJ Akademiks played the full music video version of the upcoming Lil Durk and Drake “Discontinuing Wockhardt.” He didn’t even realize it hadn’t been released until halfway through.
DJ Akademiks threw the song on and started vibing to it during his live stream. The stream window was partially in the way, but it appears as though the streamer threw up the unreleased music video for the song on stream as well. It’s difficult to tell for sure, but it definitely looks like Lil Durk is rapping along to the lyrics. Ak then second-guesses whether the song is out or not. He stops the song, googles the drop date, and realizes he’s playing “Discontinuing Wockhardt” early. The internet personality shrugs and puts the song back on. He gets especially excited when Drake’s verse kicks in.
Drake’s inclusion on the song has actually been a point of contention in recent weeks. The song was first previewed by Adin Ross back in September. It turned heads because Drake alluded to quitting lean, and then people quickly forgot about the snippet. “Discontinuing Wockhardt” then appeared on the tracklist for Lil Durk’s upcoming album, Love Songs 4 the Streets 3. All good, right? Well, not quite. Drake was the only artist seemingly not listed as a feature. The tracklist boasted appearances from the likes of Sabrina Carpenter and Kai Cenat, but “Discontinuing Wockhardt” was listed as a solo song.
Rumors began to swirl that this was yet another instance of Drake running into clearance issues. The rapper previously had to take Playboi Carti off the song “No Face,” and he allegedly removed Lil Boat from the final version “Supersoak.” Some even theorized that the exclusion meant there were issues between Lil Durk and Drizzy. Fortunately, Lil Durk came out and claimed that the tracklist circulating online was fake. When taken into consideration with Akademiks previews, it seems like Drake will be making the final cut.
Don Toliver
Lil Durk’s about to drop some heat that’s gonna have us vibing all fall! Can’t wait to see what he’s cooking up!
(@Jaylabun) 
(@droppuh) 
