The detail that caught everyone off guard was not the trial itself, but who got pulled into it. DJ Akademiks went public this week saying that federal prosecutors put his life at risk by mentioning his name during Lil Durk’s ongoing murder-for-hire trial, and he is not holding back about how he feels.
Durk, now in his third week of trial, is facing allegations that he organized a hit on Quando Rondo, a plot that prosecutors say ultimately led to the death of Rondo’s cousin, Lul Pab.
The case has been one of the more closely watched rap trials in recent memory, and it just got a lot messier for someone who was not even in the courtroom as a defendant.
The moment that dragged Akademiks in came from a 2020 appearance Durk made on his Off The Record podcast. Prosecutors flagged a specific exchange where Ak asked Durk about the “Slide for Von” comments that had been circulating online, referencing the death of Durk’s close friend King Von. Durk responded that those comments had not been bothering him lately, then added that there must be “something in the water.”
That phrase is where things get complicated. Online, people quickly connected Durk’s “something in the water” line to a separate interview with Quando Rondo, where Rondo had refused an already-opened water bottle from an interviewer, saying he was worried about something being in it.
The timing of both clips, combined with the phrase being identical, sent the internet into a frenzy trying to connect the dots.
But the connection is still speculation. Durk never directly said his comment was aimed at Rondo, and no one has been able to definitively prove the two moments were linked.
The prosecution brought it up as part of a broader attempt to establish intent and state of mind, not as a smoking gun.
Akademiks, for his part, made clear that having his platform and his name dragged into a federal murder case is not something he takes lightly.
He said publicly that the feds put his life in danger by associating him with testimony in a trial of this nature, where the allegations involve organized violence.
His concern is not just reputational, it is about what that kind of association signals to people on the street who may not be interested in legal nuance.
There is a real tension here between how the legal system uses media appearances as evidence and how that process affects people who were just doing their jobs as interviewers or commentators.
Akademiks did not arrange that interview knowing it might one day be cited in a federal courtroom, and he is now dealing with the fallout of a conversation that happened five years ago.
Durk’s legal team has pushed back on the prosecution’s interpretation of various pieces of evidence throughout the trial, and the “something in the water” moment is exactly the kind of circumstantial detail that defense attorneys will argue is being stretched beyond what it can actually prove. The trial is still ongoing, and more witnesses and evidence are expected in the coming days.
