Kendrick Lamar has become the first artist outside of the classical and jazz worlds to win a Pulitzer Prize. The rapper’s 2017 album DAMN. took home the prestigious award last night.
In a note on the Prize’s website, the award’s organisers wrote that DAMN. is a “virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life”.
The Pulitzer Prize was founded in 1917 to award groundbreaking American journalism – last night, the main prize went jointly to the New York Times and New Yorker magazine for their reporting on the sexual harassment allegations in Hollywood that brought down Harvey Weinstein and sparked the #MeToo movement. The Prize first established a Music category in 1943 and almost exclusively awarded classical artists until 1997, when jazz musician Wynton Marsalis won the award.
Listen to DAMN. below.