Source link : https://las-vegas-news.com/how-kendrick-lamars-pulitzer-prize-win-changed-music-history/
Think about the last time someone from your favorite genre got acknowledged by institutions that typically ignore your world. Feels surreal, right? That’s exactly what happened on April 16, 2018, when the Pulitzer Prize board announced something nobody saw coming. Rap music and elite cultural institutions have always kept their distance from one another, until one album smashed through that invisible wall. Here’s the thing: this wasn’t just another rapper collecting another trophy. This was different, bigger, and honestly quite revolutionary.
Breaking Down Barriers: The First Hip-Hop Artist to Win
Kendrick Lamar earned the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his album DAMN., becoming the first time an artist outside of the classical and jazz genres received the honor. Let’s be real, this shocked everyone. It was a watershed moment for the Pulitzers and Lamar and a sign of the American cultural elite’s recognition of hip-hop as a legitimate artistic medium.
The Pulitzer Prize in Music, created in 1943, traditionally honored works based on classical and jazz music traditions, with the prize just starting to open up with Wynton Marsalis’s jazz oratorio Blood on the Fields in 1997. Before Lamar’s victory, the committee had rejected legendary figures like Duke Ellington back in 1965. That’s how closed these doors were. It was the first win for a non-classical or jazz musician…
—-
Author : Matthias Binder
Publish date : 2025-12-29 16:17:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
—-
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8