Kendrick Lamar Earns His Pulitzer Prize as the First Rap Artist for Album DAMN
Kendrick Lamar has created history by becoming the first rap artist to win the Pulitzer Prize for his album DAMN.
Kendrick Lamar has created history by becoming the first rap artist to win the Pulitzer Prize for his album DAMN. This is a great moment for the colored community and for hip-hop. DAMN was released in 2017 and it has become the first rap album to receive such an elusive award. This award has made up for the loss of not winning the Grammy for the best album early January. The Grammy had gone to Bruno Mars.
Lamar won the award along with The New York Times and The New Yorker for bringing the #MeToo movement to the forefront and also exposing Harvey Weinstein.
The Pulitzer Prize for Music was established in the year 1943 and since then most of the awards given in this category belonged to the classical genre. It was only in 1997, a jazz musician, Wynton Marsalis won the award. In 2017, Du Yun won the Pulitzer for his opera “Angel’s Bone”. The light has finally shone upon rap music after more than 20 years. The win is a big achievement as never before a rap album has even been nominated, and winning is a miracle.
DAMN is Lamar’s fourth album and it was widely praised for it politically charged lyrics which are relevant to its time and culture. It had been awarded the best rap album at the Grammy Awards and the song “humble” was awarded the best rap song, best music video, and the best rap performance. DAMN was among the most streamed album last year and was also the top of the charts. It deals with many delicate issues like race and faith. DAMN also features U2 and Rihanna.
DAMN was selected by a jury consisting of five members and it was presented to the board. The finalists were singer and composer Ted Hearne’s “Sound From the Bench and composer ” and Michael Gilbertson’s “Quartet”. DAMN was chosen from among more than 100 compositions.
The jury included David Hajdu, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Paul Cremo of the Met Opera commissioning program, violinist Regina Carter, a Columbia professor of English and African-American studies and the composer David Lang.
Dana Canedy, the administrator of the prizes, said in an interview: “It shines a light on hip-hop in a completely different way. This is a big moment for hip-hop music and a big moment for the Pulitzers.”
The board had taken a unanimous decision to award Lamar and they described the album as “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.”
This year is turning out to be great for the colored community with the enormous success of Black Panther, Beyonce creating history with her majestic Coachella act and Lamar’s historic Pulitzer win. We are waiting for the next big thing.
Image Courtesy: CNN.com