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The 2018 Pulitzer Prizes have been announced! For a complete list, go here. For the fiction winner and finalists, though, just read a little bit further…
Winner:
- Less, by Andrew Sean Greer
Finalists:
- In the Distance, by Hernan Diaz
- The Idiot, by Elif Batuman
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I’m curious Trevor, how do you feel about Kendrick Lamar winning the Pulitzer for music?
Greg, I know you didn’t ask me, but when has that stopped me from answering before? :-)
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In 2016 I heard a number of people talking about Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly album as a masterpiece, so I gave it a listen. It clearly was more than a couple of cuts above the typical pop-rap that is most common. Even without paying attention to what the songs were about, it was clear he has a more interesting ear for rhythm and music than most rap performers. Then add that his songs are not about bragging, personal beefs with other people, or the cliche topics of rap and it seemed he was on to something. In 2017 I got a chance to see him live and the show did not disappoint. (If you saw his performance at the 2018 Grammy Awards last January you will have some idea what the show was like.)
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The show I saw was in July 2017, a few months after DAMN. was released, but I did not know he had a new album until I got to the show. He did a lot of songs from it, and since a live show is not the best place to pick up what the lyrics are, especially when they can come so quickly at you, I just let the performance communicate the emotion and energy of the ideas. It was fantastic. When I later listened to the album (and caught up on the lyrics) I was even more impressed.
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I, like most people, was very surprised when he won the Pullitzer. It’s not that I have any doubts that he deserves it; it’s just that I did not think that rap music – by anyone not named “Lin-Manuel Miranda” – would even be on their radar. I would have to think that giving Hamilton a (well deserved) Pullitzer Prize in 2016 might have been a significant reason that they were open to looking at rap that was not written for the Broadway stage as something to take seriously, and Kendrick Lamar was there waiting for them to find him.
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Most of the time I don’t really care much about big prizes like this. With book awards, I treat nomination and winner lists as simple “suggested reading” lists and don’t worry at all about who does or does not “deserve” to be on the lists. But from time to time an award has the possibility of making an important difference. Giving Kendrick Lamar a Pulitzer is not only deserved on the simple merits, but it has a real chance to extend his audience to an entire class of people who might never have heard of him and might never have considered that rap can be great art (even after acknowledging that Hamilton was great). So when I heard he won this award, I was very pleased. That doesn’t happen often. Usually I am more indifferent.
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A couple of years ago when the Nobel Prize committee gave Bob Dylan their award for Literature, it was not only a controversial decision, but one that seemed to be an attempt to widen the scope of work that they usually consider. But really it failed to do that because they landed on someone who was very well established, well known, and highly regarded already. If anything, it seemed to diminish the significance of poets who don’t write popular songs and who often toil in much greater obscurity. I’d like to think that the mistake the Nobel people made might also have inspired to Pulitzer people to try to do more successfully what the Nobel people failed at doing.
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I hope people who might not otherwise listen to rap will give Kendrick Lamar a try. I also hope that people who never listen to non-Lin-Manuel Miranda rap will give it more than just one try, as it is easy to mistake the unfamiliar for the unvaluable. If you can find it, starting with his Grammy show performance in 2018 might be a good place to go. But other than a truncated version on the Grammy website, it seems the copyright police are keeping it offline for now. It’s a shame, because that is probably the best introduction to a new audience he could have.
I’m very glad David jumped in with his response. David, you said it very nicely. I’m in total agreement with the way you contrast this with giving the Nobel to Bob Dylan. I’m all for the Pulitzer recognizing poetry where they find it, and I’m especially glad they recognized Lamar’s work not because it conformed to some older convention of what poetry is but with all of its context. Their motives in doing this seem true, where the Nobel’s did not.
Thank you David for your full thoughts on Kendrick’s win. I now see the whole impact!
And thanks Trevor for emphasizing the contrast in motives to Bob’s Nobel win.