2020 was quite the year for Chicago rapper Lil Durk. Not only did he deal with personal loss with the death of fellow Illinois rapper King Von but the Chiraq native also experienced a massive career elevation. After spending eleven years in the game, the rapper finally received major mainstream exposure. Thanks to the success of his mixtape, ‘Just Cause Yall Waited 2’, and a collaboration with one of rap’s biggest heavy hitters, Drake, on the 2020 smash “Laugh Now Cry Later,’ Lil Durk emerged out of 2020 as one of rap’s biggest stars and at the height of his success, he gifted his fans with an unexpected six studio album entitled ‘The Voice’.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems like whenever an underground rapper hits the mainstream circuit, their music quality declines. The same passion that you hear in their earlier projects is not heard on their newer ones and as a hardcore Durkio fan, I have to admit this definitely applies to him.
Don’t get me wrong ‘The Voice’ was a decent listen, but compared to earlier releases like ‘300 Days 300 Nights’ and ‘LilDurk2x’, ‘The Voice’ just doesn’t hit the same. As a day one Durk fan, it’s one of those situations where I know personally that he can do wayyy better, but is settling to be mediocre. I can’t blame him though, the auto tune seems to be more accepted by newer Durk fans.
Just to reiterate, ‘The Voice’ wasn’t a horrible album by any means. There were a couple of bangers on the album such as “Still Trappin”, “Free Jamell”, and “Redman” but there were also several skippable songs on the project such as “India Pt. 3”, and “Lamborghini Mirrors”. The worst song on ‘The Voice’ is definitely “To Be Honest”. I mean that track has to be the worst Lil Durk song that I’ve heard mainly because the beat of the track combined with Durk’s autotune is just awful. As far as the best track, I have to give that to “Still Trapping”. I think we all can agree that that track is pretty fire.
Overall, the album was very mid. Listenable? Yes. But if you guys plan on listening to it, don’t go into the album with high expectations because you will be disappointed.