Say what you will about Lil Durk, but understand upfront that he’s all about a vibe: whether bucking lyrical shots or crooning a love song, the drill innovator makes moody, hypnotic songs that relate like one relentless, sinuous trance. Almost always, we’re game for being seduced by Durk’s melodic turn-ups. But when the languid-to-somber ratios on his albums began to predominate, listening sometimes felt like a chore, despite the self-care sentiments the Chiraq champ has been mainlining since 2023’s trauma-centered Almost Healed. Deep Thoughts, his Jack Handey-evoking new project — 17 lucid, droning ditties — is a vibey, if unremarkable, paean to self-reflection that leaves you desiring more piquancy.
Midway through Deep Thoughts, a mini-documentary simultaneously released with his new project, Durk declares, “I could rah-rah all day. But I wanna show growth.” That gesture is admirable, and Durk’s introspection helmed 2022’s pensive, triumphant “Grow Up/Keep It on Speaker,” one of his fiercest tracks. In contrast, Deep Thoughts’ sluggish opener, “Shaking While I Pray,” is a heart-on-the-sleeve account of Durk’s recent spars with addiction (“I had to slow down off that drank/I was in Cleveland Clinic, I almost met God for the week”), which falls flat when a hook denouncing Durk’s rivals (“You ain’t even got a title”) resounds with overwrought egoism.
More pointed, “Soul Bleed” is a similarly confessional track, featuring honest lines like, “I’ve been slackin’ lately, I’ve been puttin’ niggas before my team/Ten toes, ask the county how many times my phone ring.” Durk’s recent incarceration makes those bars all the more urgent, as the platinum-selling rapper is now making the prison-siphoned collect calls his lyrics alludes to. The stand-up-guy credo is a big part of Durk’s appeal, though the song’s snooze-forcing backdrop (one of many piano-driven dirges) and warbly, auto-tuned chorus all but undermine its underlying pathos.
Granted, the lackluster pallor here may be due to Durk’s incarceration (his team puzzled the album together from various pre-recorded structures). The prison opus has, decidedly, been a catastrophe since Slick Rick released his regrettable 1994 album Behind Bars while serving a three-to-10 murder charge. Drakeo the Ruler’s 2020 mixtape, Thank You for Using GTL — recorded on a prison phone — is the notable exception, finding authenticity (not to mention creativity) in the obvious restrictions. Originally spawned as the latest installment in Durk’s emphatic Love Songs 4 the Streets series, Deep Thoughts transitioned into a self-help-style album, which might have benefited from the authentic dynamism of those earlier projects.
Still, the Lil Baby-featured “1000 Times” — all soulful organs and bright, earnest guitar — is a motivational highlight, picking up where their exciting 2021 collab LP left off. Likewise, the steely “Monitoring Me” is heartily claustrophobic, featuring bar after bruising bar over undertaker chords and a militant drum cadence. But, alas, there’s too many songs like the mawkish “Notebook (No Hook),” with its piggish barbs (“Broke bitch asked for a crib, petty ass, got that bitch a cradle”), demonstrating that not all revelations are welcome. Deep Thoughts doesn’t put you in a trance so much as it puts you to sleep
