Pulitzers give a Damn about Lamar
Kendrick Lamar has won the Pulitzer Prize for music, making history as the first nonclassical or jazz artist to win the prestigious prize.
The revered rapper is also the most commercially successful musician to receive the award, usually reserved for critically acclaimed classical acts.
The 30-year-old won the prize for Damn., his raw and powerful Grammy-winning album. The Pulitzer board said yesterday the album is a “virtuosic song collection” and said it captures “the modern African American life”. He will win US$15,000 ($20,400).
Lamar has been lauded for his deep lyrical content, politically charged live performances, and his profound mix of hiphop, spoken word, jazz, soul, funk, poetry and African sounds. Since emerging on the music scene with the 2011 album Section.80, he has achieved the perfect mix of commercial appeal and critical respect.
The Pulitzer board has awarded special honours to Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Hank Williams, but a popular figure like Lamar has never won the prize for music. In 1997, Wynton Marsalis became the first jazz act to win the Pulitzer Prize for music.
That makes Lamar’s win that much more important: His platinum-selling major-label albums — good kid, m.A.A.d city, To Pimp a Butterfly and Damn. — became works of art, with Lamar writing songs about blackness, street life, police brutality, perseverance, survival and self-worth. His piercing raps helped him become the voice of the generation, and ascend as the leader in hip-hop and cross over to audiences outside of rap, from rock to pop to jazz.
His music, with songs like Alright and The Blacker the Berry, have become anthems in the wake of high-profile police shootings of minorities as the conversation about race relations dominates news headlines. — AP