Kendrick Lamar made history when his album Damn was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Music.
Kendrick Lamar’s music has made loyal fans out of music-lovers all over the globe, but at the 2018 Pulitzer Prize, he reached a whole new level. Upon honoring Lamar’s most recent album, Damn, the Pulitzer Prizes lauded Lamar’s album, calling it, “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.”
Obviously, winning a Pulitzer is a huge accolade for anyone, but Lamar’s win is also a history-breaking one. As Entertainment Weekly reports, Lamar’s win marks the first time that an artist outside of the jazz or classical genre has won the Pulizter Prize in music.
This has been a big year for Kendrick Lamar. In addition to this amazing win, he also curated the soundtrack to Black Panther. The soundtrack to the film has been a complete chart-topper, and was lauded and loved by fans just as much as the box office-smashing film.
Of course, this isn’t the first time that Lamar’s album, Damn, has been given accolades. Lamar was nominated for several Grammy Awards in 2018, including Album of the Year, and while he didn’t get Album of the Year, he did win Best Rap Album of the Year. It’s nice to not only see him win Grammy Awards and Grammy nominations, but it’s especially refreshing to watch the Pulitzer Prize take a surprising break from their norm to award Kendrick Lamar for his amazing, beautiful work in Damn.