Lil Durk’s mother, LaShawnda Woodard, has opened up about the grief and guilt she carries after losing one son to gun violence and watching the other face years in prison.
Woodard recently sat down for an interview on an episode of the “If You Knew Better With Amber Grimes” podcast.
During the emotional conversation, Woodard reflected on decisions she made as a young mother and wondered if her children’s lives might have been different if she had followed her own mother’s advice.
“I blame myself for my son getting killed, and I blame myself for my [other] son being locked up,” Woodard said through tears.
Her oldest son, Dontay Banks Jr., performed under the stage name “DThang” and was part of Lil Durk’s Only The Family or OTF collective. He was fatally shot in Harvey, Illinois, on June 6, 2021, WGN-TV reported. The station said he was 32 years old when he died.
Lil Durk, whose legal name is Durk Banks, was found not guilty on all charges in Los Angeles federal court on Sept. 11, in connection with an alleged murder-for-hire plot targeting rival rapper Quando Rondo.
Banks, 33, remains jailed as he awaits an October trial on additional racketeering-related allegations. The chart-topping rapper has been in federal custody since he was arrested in October 2024.
The podcast episode featuring Woodard, who is known as “Mama Durk,” was published on YouTube Sept. 10, just before jurors acquitted her son.
Woodard recalled growing up on Chicago’s South Side and raising her family in the area.
“If I would listen to my mom then on what to do and how to do it, how to go finish school, how to get your career going so that you can get out the neighborhood that we’re living in, which is 7220, so I just kept putting it off,” she said.
In her 2021 memoir titled 7220, she reflected on the choices she made growing up. She said her mother was strict, caring and offered guidance, but she ignored her mom’s advice.
“I became a young mother, dropped out of school and fell into a downward spiral until I finally made the decision to break the chains and turn my life around,” she wrote in the book.
During the podcast interview, Woodard said she was sexually assaulted and dealt with trauma and depression for years.
Looking back, she said she wishes she had taken her mother’s advice for the sake of her sons.
“If I would have listened like I was supposed to, we would have been somewhere totally different,” she said. “They would have been raised different, and I felt like everything would have been better.”
“I take accountability for everything,” she added.
Her sons’ father, Dontay Banks Sr., spent over two decades in prison on drug charges and has since turned his life around.
Grimes asked Woodard why she was being so hard on herself.
She responded, “Because I know I could have done better.”
Urban Hollywood 411 was in the courtroom as Lil Durk’s verdict was announced. Both of his parents where there and joined lead defense attorney Drew Findling outside court as he discussed the jury’s decision.
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