Lil Durk

Chicago's Lil Durk isn't as famous as Chief Keef, and he's not as prolific as King L, but he is just as talented as either, carving out his own niche in the city's drill scene with a unique, creative, melodic flow and an extremely consistent catalog.

A Def Jam signee and member of the Glory Boyz Entertainment (GBE) clique, Durk's I'm Still A Hitta and Life Ain't No Joke mixtapes are two of the better hip-hop releases this year. The former, in particular, is a tight, focused, and singular document of Chicago rap in 2012.

But who is this 19-year-old Englewood native? We spoke with Lil Durk about where he grew up, his discography, his experience signing with a major record label, and the stresses of success.

"Chicago, Englewood. It was hard growing up. [There wasn't] a lot of money around. [There was] a lot of shooting and killing and all that. It's worse now. There was a lot of killing going on as a kid. Took a lot of stuff out of me growing up. A lot of shootings going on. It was hard growing up, but I made it. But it's even worse right now.

"I'm 100 with my family. Everybody's all cool. No problems. I have two sisters and a brother. Everybody was close.

"I was bad at school. [I had] bad grades, all that. I ain't gonna lie. [I decided to get into music] when I first made "Sneak Dissin." It was like '07, '08. [Before that] I was actually playing basketball. Once I made the "Sneak Dissin" video, got great feedback from it, started taking it serious.

"That was when "drill" first got hot. Everyone kept saying "drill, drill." So I just put up "sneak dissin." That's when I said, "sneak dissin' on your status/Facebook get you damaged," stuff like that. Caught a lot of people's attention, people put it on Facebook with my name with it. And people looked it up. That's how people found out about me."