Durk Banks (born October 19, 1992), better known by his stage name Lil Durk is an American rapper from Chicago, Illinois. He is signed to the major record label Def Jam as well as French Montana's Coke Boys imprint. In 2011, Banks was arrested on a weapons charge. He was sentenced to three months in jail, was released on bond; he was then sent back to do 87 more days. Durk was affiliated with Glory Boys Entertainment early in his career but never signed with them.

Durk started seriously considering rap as a career after the release of his single, “Sneak Dissin”, which received mostly positive feedback. On December 2012, Durk released a remix to his song "L's Anthem" featuring Yo Gotti, Juelz Santana, Meek Mill and Future. On May 21, 2013, Lil Durk inked a deal on French Montana's label, Coke Boys.

After a couple delays, on October 10, 2013, his fourth mixtape Signed To the Streets got released on DatPiff. It was released under his own label OTF and Coke Boys. It features two guest appearances from Lil Reese and production credits from Paris Bueller, Young Chop and more. There has been released 8 music videos for the mixtape. For "Bars Pt. 2", "Oh My God", "100 Rounds", "Dis Ain't What U Want", "Bang Bros", "Traumatized", "Hittaz" and "Times". Signed to the Streets would be named the eighth best mixtape of 2013 by Rolling Stone. On October 22, 2013, in an interview with XXL Lil Durk said he was working on his debut album with Def Jam and the Coke Boys collaboration album. He was planning to release his fifth mixtape, Fuckery, on January 5, 2014. However, on January 6, 2014, Lil Druk stated on Twitter that Def Jam told him not to release the free mixtape.