I looked up the news on the Pulitzers. There is no way I could have ever expected this:
[Kendrick] Lamar is not only the first rapper to win the award since the Pulitzers expanded to music in 1943, but he is also the first winner who is not a classical or jazz musician.
A Pulitzer for a rapper. A Nobel for a singer-songwriter. The times they are a changin'. Poetry and music, too, are rapidly being transformed like every other aspect of our lives.
I have heard the name Kendrick Lamar. But, I have no idea about his music. A CNN opinion piece helps me out:
Lamar is providing anthems for revolutionary millennials across the country, in much the way that Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddam" sounded an anthem for the civil rights movement.
Like Simone, the roots of hip hop are absolutely political.
Damn!
I looked up a review of Lamars' album that the Pulitzer recognized:
Two of the most striking examples of this recur throughout “DAMN.” In one, Mr. Lamar samples Fox News commentators responding to his 2015 uplift anthem, “Alright,” with derision, including Geraldo Rivera’s suggesting that hip-hop is worse for black youth than racism (and Mr. Lamar addresses Mr. Rivera directly on “YAH.”).
Political, damn!
But, I am frankly at a loss to understand and appreciate this music. I tried a couple of them, including this. I suppose I might not know what it is all about, as much as I know not about most things in life?
At least this poem I can understand:
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