When Kendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer prize for music on Monday, he also became the first non-jazz or classical artist to collect that honor in his seventy-five years of its existence. (“Is there a Pulitzer prize for music?”, unfortunately, the beginning of the refrain in social media.) Lamar was born and raised in Compton, California, and wrote nimble and agile rap songs about systemic injustice, made the announcement especially exciting. It felt like the final destruction of musty ideas about high and low art and, especially, who claim to be a genius like his own. As my colleague Doreen St. Felix wrote: “ “Pulitzer” got it right.”
After the announcement, the Pulitzer Board was immediately shouted “hurrah” on its “relevance,” as if the attitude is a virtue. Perhaps it is. But I’m afraid that calling Lamar just the appropriate selection too close to the decrease in its in-depth expertise.
It was not so much the Council recognizing Lamar’s “Zeitgeist” -the successive rebellion that everyone in the platoon; the organization honored the subversive artists, including some of those who cleverly (though perhaps not so obviously) to capture “the complexity of modern African-American life.” But this time, the Board also decided to thank a musician working in a popular vital idiom, not just an idiom, and hip-hop, a Genre that was irreconcilable if not blatantly about their own profitability. Destructive genres often only in hindsight recognized, usually decades after their commercial and creative Zenith. But Kendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer prize in the era in which rap music is alive and the same comprehensive as it ever was.
When Bob Dylan became the Nobel prize winner for literature, in 2016, his opponents stopped at the two sides of credible dissenters: they believed that Dylan’s work was mistaken as literature, or that it would be more profitable in the broadest sense, the award was given to less commercially successful artist. I am sympathetic to the latter group (an argument which applies to Lamar, too), although of merit-based awards of such level should not act as accelerators, for sure—the idea is to praise the genius. Bob Dylan need another institution, confirming his talent? If Kendrick Lamar? (I guess, wasn’t particularly desperate for cash). They both won and lost the major awards before. Grammy in 1965, Dylan’s “times are changing ” was defeated, in the best folk recording category Gale Garnett “we’ll sing in the sun,” a trifling, sentimental ballads, which also made it to No. 1 on adult contemporary charts; more recently, Lamar lost the Grammy for album of the year Bruno Mars “24K magic”, more accessible and infinitely less overshadows the work.
Nobel for literature reflects some accrued dignity—older works can be considered for the year they were published“, if their value did not become apparent until recently.” But the Pulitzer is given one, a new job. “It’s a prize for achievement and excellence,” critic, author and Professor David Hajdu explained to me recently. Hyde was a member of the five man jury, which considered possible transactions and presented three finalists, the Pulitzer Board for consideration. “The jury listened to more than one hundred and eighty pieces of music, and we deliberated, and had a lot of options that could rightly honored, but we all thought it was the best piece of music. This is not to discount the value of anything else,” he said. He described “hell.” as “complex, rich, full of surprise and invention. Acoustically, this is a very complex and original. It combines melody, harmony, counterpoint, texture—all these elements in a fresh way. And lyrically, it’s very powerful.”
Hyde is supported by the “devil.” due to their ingenuity and beauty, although he admitted his modernity also felt relation to the discussion. (It is suggested that the outdated institutions such as the Pulitzer prize is often “better at recognizing speech or unfair forms of reflection.”) He also noted that the jury is studying the “great works of modern classical music that drew from hip-hop. It reminded me of the early days of jazz, when Stravinsky was to include jazz in their work, or Bartok, the inclusion of folk music.” It makes sense that more explicit recognition that the source material felt. (Lamar and, interestingly, also brought elements of jazz in his work—this cross-pollination especially on his album 2015“ to pimp the Butterfly.”)
The Pulitzer Board, like most award institutions, it is still necessary to consider the cultural and political forces that inevitably inform his choice—seventy-one the Pulitzer prize in music presented to only seven (!) went to women. (The first woman to collect one of Ellen Zwilich received in 1983, a staggering forty years after William Schumann gathered the debut of the Pulitzer prize in music.) Genius, of course, still has its invisible boundaries. But to win the Lamar nevertheless feels like a victory of sorts for all the promise that true perfection—and should be—very hard to ignore.
Sourse: newyorker.com
