Federal Jury Acquits Lil Durk on All Counts in Quando Rondo Murder-for-Hire Case

Lil Durk, whose legal name is Durk Banks, is shown in an Oct. 24, 2024, booking photo. A federal jury in Los Angeles acquitted the Grammy-winning rapper Friday on all five counts in his murder-for-hire trial. (Broward Sheriff's Office)

Lil Durk was acquitted Friday on all five counts in the federal murder-for-hire trial that threatened to send the Grammy-winning Chicago rapper to prison for life.

A jury in Los Angeles rejected prosecutors' case that Durk, whose legal name is Durk Banks, helped organize and finance a 2022 plot to kill rapper Quando Rondo in retaliation for the death of King Von.

Rondo survived the attack.

His cousin, Saviay'a Robinson, 24, was killed.

The five not-guilty verdicts cleared Durk of every charge the jury was asked to decide in this trial, including stalking and murder-for-hire allegations stemming from the Aug. 19, 2022, shooting near the Beverly Center.

Durk wiped away tears as the verdicts were read, according to courtroom reporting from the Los Angeles Times.

The decision came after two weeks of testimony and three days of deliberations in a case built largely around whether prosecutors could connect Durk to an attack carried out by other men.

The shooting itself was not the central dispute.

Prosecutors said gunmen tracked Rondo, whose legal name is Tyquian Bowman, through Los Angeles before opening fire near a gas station. Robinson was killed while Rondo, the government's alleged intended target, escaped the gunfire.

The question for jurors was whether prosecutors had proved Durk's criminal responsibility for what happened.

The government argued that the attack grew out of the November 2020 killing of Dayvon Bennett, better known as King Von, after a fight involving Rondo outside an Atlanta nightclub.

Prosecutors alleged Durk sought revenge, put money behind the effort to kill Rondo and used people and resources connected to his Only the Family organization to help make it happen.

Durk was never accused of being one of the gunmen in Los Angeles.

Instead, prosecutors relied on conspiracy and other theories of liability that did not require him to personally pull a trigger. They presented travel records, financial evidence and testimony from three cooperating witnesses who had been inside Durk's circle or involved in the attack.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian Yanniello told jurors during closing arguments that Durk had his "shooters on speed dial," arguing that the attack would not have happened without his money and influence.

The defense told a very different story.

Durk's lawyers argued that former personal assistant Kavon Grant organized the attack himself and had access to Durk's money and other resources without needing authorization for everything he did.

They also attacked the credibility of Grant and two other cooperating witnesses, arguing that each had powerful reasons to help prosecutors after becoming implicated in the case themselves.

Attorneys Brian Steel and Drew Findling repeatedly argued that the government had witnesses who could describe the plot but lacked reliable proof tying Durk himself to an agreement to carry it out.

Jurors appeared to focus closely on that distinction during deliberations.

On Thursday, the panel asked U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald questions involving intent and conspiracy. Jurors had previously requested easier digital access to the evidence admitted during the trial.

By Friday, they had reached their answer.

Not guilty on all five counts against Durk.

The result was different for the two men tried alongside him.

Deondre Wilson and David Lindsey were convicted of conspiracy to commit stalking, stalking with a dangerous weapon and stalking resulting in death. They were acquitted on the murder-for-hire charges.

For Durk, however, Friday's verdict does not resolve every federal allegation hanging over him.

Fitzgerald ruled in July that newly added racketeering-related charges would be separated from the murder-for-hire trial and considered in a later proceeding.

Those allegations broadened the government's case beyond the 2022 Los Angeles shooting and included accusations of other violence connected to what prosecutors characterize as a criminal enterprise associated with Durk and OTF.

Durk has denied the allegations. He remained in federal custody Friday pending the separate case. That means the acquittal represents a complete victory for Durk on the five charges decided by Friday's jury, but not the end of his federal legal problems.

Timothy Joseph, the Original Buc Wild of ‘Star & Buc Wild,’ Dies at 47

Timothy “Buc Wild” Joseph, the broadcaster who helped take “Star & Buc Wild” from Manhattan public-access television to MTV and one of the most visible morning shows in New York hip-hop radio, has died. He was 47.

His older half-brother and longtime broadcasting partner, Troi “Star” Torain, announced Joseph’s death during a livestream Wednesday, saying his brother died Sunday, Sept. 6.

A cause of death has not been publicly confirmed.

Torain described Joseph as someone who was “like a son” to him and spoke about a side of his brother that listeners rarely heard on the air. Joseph struggled with dyslexia, Torain said, and the two worked on his reading while they were at Hot 97, with station executives Tracy Cloherty and Judy Ellis among those who supported him.

For listeners who remember New York hip-hop radio at the turn of the millennium, Buc Wild was part of a name that seemed to turn up everywhere for a while — in print, on television and eventually in morning drive.

The idea started with Torain’s “Reality Check” column in The Source, where he developed the Star and Buc Wild characters during the 1990s. In 1998, the concept became a public-access television show on Manhattan Neighborhood Network, with Joseph beside his brother as Buc Wild.

A year later, MTV brought the pair to “Beat Suite,” a weekday music program that gave the act a national platform.

Radio made the name considerably bigger.

 

By March 2000, Hot 97 had moved Star and Buc Wild into morning drive alongside Miss Jones and DJ Enuff. Contemporary radio-trade coverage identified Joseph as Torain’s partner as the station assembled a show designed to compete in one of the most important and closely watched radio markets in the country.

The timing mattered.

This was an era when New York terrestrial radio could still shape the daily conversation around hip-hop. A record could gain momentum because Hot 97 played it. An interview could become news before the morning show was over. On-air personalities were not merely introducing songs; they were part of the culture surrounding them.

Torain supplied much of the confrontation that made “Star & Buc Wild” famous — and frequently infamous. Joseph played a different role.

Torain later described Buc Wild as the younger voice who helped keep him connected to artists, records and changes in the culture. That dynamic gave the show its balance: Star pushed, provoked and argued, while Buc Wild operated closer to the music and the younger audience the program was trying to reach.

The Hot 97 run lasted until 2003. Star & Buc Wild subsequently signed with Clear Channel and worked in Hartford before the brand returned to New York at rival Power 105.1.

That part of the history is more complicated than many retrospectives suggest.

By July 2005, Torain told the radio trade publication Radio & Records that Joseph had been the original Buc Wild, but another staffer, Kaheem, was then filling the role. By that point, “Buc Wild” had effectively become both Joseph’s broadcasting identity and a character within the larger Star & Buc Wild franchise.

It is an important distinction when tracing Joseph’s career.

The Power 105.1 show ended in 2006 after Torain made threatening, racist and sexually explicit remarks involving the family of rival Hot 97 personality DJ Envy. Clear Channel fired Torain after the broadcast.

Contemporary reports attributed those remarks to Torain, not Joseph.

Joseph eventually reunited with his brother on the air. In late 2007, The Associated Press reported that Torain and Joseph were preparing to return together to New York morning radio, and Pulse 87 launched in 2008 with “Star & Buc Wild” in its morning lineup.

By then, the media environment that had made their name was beginning to change.

The kind of personality-driven, free-form hip-hop conversation that once required space in a magazine, a public-access slot or a terrestrial radio signal was moving online. Blogs, streaming video, podcasts and social media would eventually make that style of commentary available to anyone with an audience.

Torain followed it there, building “The Star Report” online and continuing the confrontational broadcasting style that had defined much of his career.

Joseph became far less visible.

That makes Torain’s remembrance of his brother more revealing than another rundown of radio stations and controversies. Behind the deliberately outsized Buc Wild character was a younger brother navigating dyslexia, learning the business and helping turn an idea that began in a magazine column into a recognizable name in hip-hop media.

“Star & Buc Wild” was never built to be restrained. Provocation was part of the product, and the show repeatedly pushed — and sometimes crossed — the limits of what radio stations were prepared to put on the air.

But Joseph’s place in that history is more specific than the controversies surrounding the brand.

He was there before the major stations and before the national exposure. He was beside Torain when “Star & Buc Wild” was a public-access show, when MTV came calling and when Hot 97 put the pair in front of New York every morning.

The Buc Wild role would eventually be filled by someone else.

Timothy Joseph was the original.

Stevie Wonder to Play ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ From Start to Finish on Anniversary Tour

Stevie Wonder performs at the White House in Washington on Feb. 25, 2009. Wonder has announced an 18-date tour celebrating 50 years of his 1976 album “Songs in the Key of Life.” (Pete Souza/Official White House Photo)

There are anniversary tours, and then there is Stevie Wonder going back to "Songs in the Key of Life."

Fifty years after releasing the sprawling album that gave him his third Grammy Award for album of the year, Wonder will perform it in its entirety during an 18-date tour of Europe and the United States this fall.

The "Songs in the Key of Life Performances — 50th Anniversary Tour" opens Oct. 13 in Birmingham, England, and runs through Dec. 19 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California. The U.S. portion begins Nov. 19 at Madison Square Garden in New York, followed by Chicago, Washington, D.C., two nights in Detroit and the California finale.

Few albums are better suited to the treatment.

Released in 1976, "Songs in the Key of Life" stretched across two LPs and an additional four-song EP, with Wonder moving through love songs, childhood memories, social criticism, spirituality, jazz, funk and celebrations of Black history and achievement.

"I Wish" looked back at childhood. "Sir Duke" saluted Duke Ellington and the Black musical tradition that preceded Wonder. "Isn't She Lovely" celebrated the birth of his daughter Aisha. Elsewhere, songs including "Village Ghetto Land," "Black Man" and "Pastime Paradise" confronted inequality, history and the world Wonder saw around him.

The scale of the record was matched by its reception.

"Songs in the Key of Life" won album of the year at the 1977 Grammy Awards, giving Wonder his third victory in the category following "Innervisions" and "Fulfillingness' First Finale." He also won producer of the year, non-classical, at the same ceremony.

The Library of Congress added the album to the National Recording Registry in 2005.

Its account of the sessions describes a process that sometimes stretched to 48 hours at a time and notes contributions from musicians including Nathan Watts, Raymond Pounds, Greg Phillinganes, Ben Bridges, Mike Sembello and Herbie Hancock.

The album's reach also extended far beyond the generation that bought it in 1976.

"Pastime Paradise" became part of the foundation for Coolio's 1995 smash "Gangsta's Paradise," while Wonder's melodies, arrangements and production have continued to echo through R&B, hip-hop and pop. That makes the anniversary particularly relevant for listeners who may have first encountered pieces of "Songs in the Key of Life" through records made decades later.

Wonder has revisited the album onstage before. He mounted a North American "Songs in the Key of Life" performance tour beginning in 2014, later extending the run into 2015.

The difference now is the calendar.

The music Wonder took on the road a decade ago was already part of the canon. Fifty years after its release, "Songs in the Key of Life" has had another decade to travel through generations, genres and other artists' records.

This fall, Wonder is going back to the source.

Stevie Wonder • 18 Dates

“Songs in the Key of Life Performances — 50th Anniversary Tour”

Europe & United States • Fall 2026

Oct. 13

Birmingham, England
Utilita Arena

Oct. 15

Paris
Accor Arena

Oct. 18

Copenhagen, Denmark
Royal Arena

Oct. 20

Oslo, Norway
Unity Arena

Oct. 22

Stockholm
3Arena

Oct. 24

Hannover, Germany
ZAG Arena

Oct. 26

Cologne, Germany
LANXESS Arena

Oct. 28

Amsterdam
Ziggo Dome

Nov. 1

Dublin
3Arena

Nov. 3

London
The O2

Nov. 8

Manchester, England
Co-op Live

Nov. 11

Glasgow, Scotland
OVO Hydro

U.S. Dates

Nov. 19

New York
Madison Square Garden

Nov. 21

Chicago
United Center

Nov. 23

Washington, D.C.
Capital One Arena

Dec. 8

Detroit
Fox Theatre

Dec. 9

Detroit
Fox Theatre

Dec. 19

Inglewood, Calif.
Intuit Dome