While the announcement of Kendrick Lamar’s selection for a Pulitzer Prize came as a surprise to some, it confirmed what many African-American and hip-hop studies scholars have known for years: that hip-hop and rap have had a profound social impact on the Black community and broader society.
Lamar’s critically acclaimed album “DAMN.” won the Pulitzer Prize for music on Monday, making the 30-year-old the first rap artist and non-classical or jazz musician to secure the award since the music category’s creation in 1943.
“For us within that space, it’s a proud moment, it’s a celebratory moment, but it’s also that head nod that everybody’s catching up,” said Jamila S. Lyn, an educational consultant. “When you think about the pioneering history that we have in this particular community of setting the trend, of raising hard questions, of thinking about art as a way to shine a light on social justice, this is what we’ve been doing. This is what hip-hop, in its essence, has been committed to from the very start.”
Lamar’s mainstream success – and the fact that his music did not have to ascribe to the notions of Black respectability politics or White consumption habits to be taken seriously as an art form – makes the recognition even more significant for hip-hop culture, said Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African and African American Studies and the founding director of the Center for Arts, Digital Culture and Entrepreneurship at Duke University.
Lyrics describing life growing up in Compton, Calif., the lived experience of being Black in America and hip-hop’s importance, among other topics, fill Lamar’s music and videos.
“When you think about how complicated Kendrick Lamar’s work is around the idea of Black respectability, I think that’s a win, if you will, for Black culture,” Neal said.
Some scholars described Lamar’s selection as “positively disruptive” to not only the existing canon of music that often wins the Pulitzer, but also to White America, highly intellectual spaces and the Black community because some individuals may concede to Black respectability politics, too, Lyn said.
