It’s no exaggeration to say that Lil Durk has been constantly healing from trauma for over a decade. As a member of drill’s first wave in Chicago in the early 2010s, Durk’s music has always been rife with amped-up tales that rumble with intense gun-fueled action and the physical and emotional fallout that follows it. But the sheer amount of hardship and loss he’s suffered, like many from his background, is staggering—to the point where every new project is both a victory lap and a pressure-release valve. Life has not let up on this dude: He’s one of the most popular and successful rappers in the world but the PTSD from a constant drip of lost family and friends keeps him on edge.
Up until Almost Healed, his eighth solo album, the therapeutic benefits of his music have mostly been subtextual, relegated to his tone and the sheer weight of his stories. At least it’s never been as heavy-handed as it is on the opening skit “Therapy Session,” where Alicia Keys stiltedly asks him about the deaths of King Von, his brother DThang, and his ongoing beefs with YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Gunna with the airy chirp of an overeager guidance counselor. It’s a mawkish start to an otherwise engaging and scattershot album.
Whether he’s mean-mugging his way through the trenches or opening up about his broken heart, Durk brings his words to life like a comic book splash page. The proper opening track “Pelle Coat” foregrounds those talents with four minutes of traumatic memories, visceral action, and YouTubers on his shit list. Scenarios tumble out over Chopsquad DJ’s slight keyboards and hi-hats: snitches, bodies in the street, the guilt over the deaths of Von and his cousin Nuski, Durk’s mother suggesting he decamp to Detroit. But one observation near the beginning of the third verse is a one-two knock-out: “I send money to funerals/Even though they goin’ to hell for all them niggas they killed/You know I'm part of my brother 'nem forever ever, I'm goin’ to hell.” The trail of death he’s seen is harrowing enough, but Durk acknowledging that he’s essentially damned himself beyond salvation is chilling. It’s a heartbreaking moment in a discography full of them, the kind that only comes from the darkest forms of experience.
“Pelle Coat” is a hell of an opener, hitting heights that Almost Healed doesn’t reach again for the rest of its runtime. Every song doesn’t need to rip the listener’s heart out, but the rest of the album jumps between these personal revelations, sappy crossover treacle, and standard drill-and-pain tracks. Lead single “All My Life” walks a tightrope between the earnest sociopolitical pleas of Lil Baby’s “The Bigger Picture” and the goodhearted PSA hogwash of Logic’s “1-800-273-8255,” complete with a choir of children singing its hook.