Kendrick Lamar just became the first rapper to win a Pulitzer

Kendrick Lamar.
(Image credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella)

There's officially no need for Kendrick Lamar to be humble anymore.

On Monday, Lamar became the first rapper to win a Pulitzer for music for his latest album, Damn. The Pulitzer committee hailed Damn as a collection of songs that capture "the complexity of modern African-American life" with " vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism." Lamar's fourth studio album beat out two other collections on the shortlist: a traditional string quartet, and an album that apparently pulled excerpts from ventriloquism textbooks.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Mary Catalfamo

Mary Catalfamo is a web intern at The Week. She's a junior at Syracuse University, where she studies journalism and English textual studies. Direct book recommendations and jokes about her hometown of Buffalo, New York to her Twitter.