First Rapper to Win a Pulitzer Prize: Kendrick Lemar

From Pulitzer.org:


The 2018 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Music

For distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).

DAMN., by Kendrick Lamar

Recording released on April 14, 2017, a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.


Article - The New York Times: "Kendrick Lamar Wins Pulitzer in ‘Big Moment for Hip-Hop’":

On Monday, Mr. Lamar’s “DAMN.” took home an even more elusive honor, one that may never have even seemed within reach: the Pulitzer Prize for music. Mr. Lamar is not only the first rapper to win the award since the Pulitzers expanded to music in 1943, but he is also the first winner who is not a classical or jazz musician.

“The time was right,” Dana Canedy, the administrator of the prizes, said in an interview after the winners were announced. “We are very proud of this selection. It means that the jury and the board judging system worked as it’s supposed to — the best work was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.”

She added: “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.”





From Rolling Stone: "Watch Kendrick Lamar Accept Pulitzer Prize for ‘Damn.’" By RYAN REED

“I’ve been writing my whole life, so to get this type of recognition – it’s beautiful,” says rapper at ceremony"


From Vanity Fair Cover Story - August 2018, Lisa Robinson writes:


“It was one of those things I heard about in school,” he says, “but I never thought I’d be a part of it. [When I heard I got it], I thought, to be recognized in an academic world . . . whoa, this thing really can take me above and beyond. It’s one of those things that should have happened with hip-hop a long time ago. It took a long time for people to embrace us—people outside of our community, our culture—to see this not just as vocal lyrics, but to see that this is really pain, this is really hurt, this is really true stories of our lives on wax. 

And now, for it to get the recognition that it deserves as a true art form, that’s not only great for myself, but it makes me feel good about hip-hop in general. Writers like Tupac, Jay Z, Rakim, Eminem, Q-Tip, Big Daddy Kane, Snoop . . . It lets me know that people are actually listening further than I expected. 

When I looked up at that man on the podium today, I just had countless pictures in my mind of my mother putting me in suits to go to school. Suit and tie, from the dollar store, from thrift shops, when I was a kid.” 

He recalls his seventh-grade teacher Mr. Inge, who turned him on to poetry: “It wasn’t a traditional English class,” he says. “It was more of an artistic exercise. He told us to ‘write something only you can understand, then pass it on to the next person.’ ” 

He tells me about the visit with his parents to the White House (“Obama reached out”). “My mother wore a black-and-brown dress; she made sure to wear her best.” And, he tells me, “it [took me back] to talking to my grandma, when she was alive, and I was always thinking what it would be like if we had a black president. She had some hope . . .”