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You are here: Home / Music / I’ve Been Waiting on This Day Since Dr. Dre and Pac

I’ve Been Waiting on This Day Since Dr. Dre and Pac

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This post is in: 

As the blog’s resident Kendrick Lamar stan (I actually listened to Section 80 today on the ride to the big city and back, unaware this was about to happen), some unexpected news today with the release of the Pulitzer Prizes:

Since (at least) the release of good kid, m.A.A.d. city in 2012, the singularity of Kendrick Lamar has been plainly evident. But with the Pulitzer Prize in Music for 2018 being given to the Compton rapper for his 2017 album DAMN., his exceptionalism is now officially historic: It’s the first time in the prize’s history that it has been given to an artist outside of the classical or jazz community.

“A virtuosic song collection,” the Pulitzer board writes of DAMN., “unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.” In addition to topping many year-end best lists (including ours), DAMN. was awarded five Grammys, though it lost out on album of the year to Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic.

He actually had a bunch of mix tapes, an EP, and his first album, Section 80 released prior to good kid, and a very solid argument could be made that Section 80 is up there with the best debut rap album by an artist alongside Kanye’s College Dropout, Biggie’s Ready to Die, and of course Illmatic. I don’t know why they think good kid is his debut album. Regardless, this award was for DAMN., which has received widespread critical acclaim.

I don’t personally care for it as much as the other albums I have mentioned, but it is a pretty amazing album, and shortly after purchasing it I used mp3tag and shuffled the song order to play it in reverse as I read on the intertrons, a move that Kendrick himself did when he re-released it as a collecter’s edition:

“I think like a week after the album came out, [fans] realized you can play the album backwards,” he told MTV News in August. “It plays as a full story and even a better rhythm. It’s one of my favorite rhythms and tempos within the album. It’s something that we definitely premeditate while we’re in the studio.”

He continued of the reverse order: “I don’t think the story necessarily changes, I think the feel changes. The initial vibe listening from the top all the way to the bottom is…this aggression and this attitude. You know, ‘DNA,’ and exposing who I really am. You listen from the back end, and it’s almost the duality and the contrast of the intricate Kendrick Lamar. Both of these pieces are who I am.”

At any rate, there’s no doubt the man is insanely talented, and this is a well deserved award. BTW- I know I have mentioned this several times already, but Kendrick’s work in the Black Panther soundtrack is just excellent. It’s probably my favorite album this year. It’s just so god damned listenable.

Reader Interactions

80Comments

  2. 2.

    lamh36

    Yes!!! Awesome news.

    I have the Black Panther soundtrack, and love it like you do.

    Funny enough, one of the FIRST song my niece Layla would get up and start dancing for was Humble! You play it and Layla just starts bopping…LOL…love.

    And like I said on twitter, Kendrick winning Pulitizers and yet the Grammy org can’t seem to “give” him the Album or Record of the Year, even when he’s been nominated for the most awards a night…he has never gotten out of the Rap category…smh…

    Kendrick should say “FUQ da Grammys, I’ve got a Pulitzer!:

  3. 3.

    lamh36

    Oh and I posted the Billboard article that interview a member of the comittee…

    Pulitzer Prize Administrator Explains How Kendrick Lamar Won

    …Was the debate intense?

    Oh absolutely, always, in any category. You’d be amazed if you watched these juries at work; they take seriously every bit of work they consider. In this case, I don’t know specifically what the piece was, but in this case they were considering a piece of music they felt had hip-hop influences and said, “Well if we’re considering a piece of music that has hip-hop influences, why aren’t we considering hip-hop?” And someone said, “That’s exactly what we should do.” And then someone said, “We should be considering Kendrick Lamar” and the group said “absolutely.” So then, right then, they decided to listen to the entire album and decided “This is it.”...

    All it takes is for folks to expand their minds…

  4. 4.

    Lahke

    Oops,was going to comment on the last thread, but it’s about to die, sorry to stink this one up with whining. Just saw Isle of Dogs, and it’s more than a tad racist. Has this been thrashed out there already, or can I do new bitching?

  5. 5.

    Brachiator

    Duke Ellington won 14 Grammys, but only a
    posthumous Special Pulitzer Prize for his lifetime contributions to music and culture, in 1999.

    Awards can sometimes be arbitrary, but Lamar’s recognition is just goddam wonderful, and well deserved.

    And yeah, love his “Black Panther” work.

  6. 6.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Thanks Obama

    “I think the world, not just hip-hop owes him. We all have to give him his credit due for even allowing us into the building. We would probably never get inside that house ever again. Think about it like that. Rick Ross, Cole, Nicki Minaj, he really went for us to come experience it. This is something our grandparents always wanted to see, never thought in a million years, but [we can] pass it down to our generation to say, ‘Alright, I’m in here and I’m finna use my power to let ya’ll see how this thing works and I’mma drop some knowledge on y’all that a man can’t drop on everybody else ’cause y’all have the most influence.’”

    ***

    “You look at him as such a high figure in the world, but for him to embrace you and have a connection with you further than just being the President and make you feel like an actual friend,” Lamar remembered. “That’s probably the best moment and one of his best characteristics. I meet a lot of people in high places and sometimes they get so detached from the world and from the people, they don’t even know how to interact with you. Basically watching him interact with my mother, my little niece, myself as a human, I think that’s the greatest thing.”

  7. 7.

    SmallAxe

    Meh, big fan of all the other rappers you mention but for some reason Kendrick’s raps don’t do it for me, nor do his beats especially the latest. Butterfly his best imo. Congrats to him tho

  8. 8.

    Steeplejack

    @Lahke:

    How is the last thread “about to die” when there have been seven comments in the last 10 minutes?

  10. 10.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Lahke: Wes Anderson always bugs me in some way I can’t explain. I know one thing is that he somehow makes humans seem like cartoons, and not in a good way. I finished Grand Budapest Hotel but did not finish Moonrise Kingdom. There was just something irritating me about it.

    So an actual animated Anderson film? Where he’s apparently trying to make an anime? I can’t say anything in the trailers has tempted me to put it on my to-watch list.

  11. 11.

    Lahke

    @Steeplejack: Its only not dead because I didn’t comment there. Usually I’m so late to the party that I’m the last commenter. Kiss of death, that’s me. I’ll go down there and kill it off, just you watch.

  12. 12.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    About the guys arrested in Starbucks for waiting-while-black: I’d heard about this incident, but didn’t realize until seeing a story tonight about protests, that it had happened here in Philly. Damn. I haven’t patronized any of the 400 thousand downtown Starbucks in a couple of years, but this makes me feel like making more of a definite effort to avoid them. For those who are local, it was at 18th and Spruce, not far from restaurant-and-cafe-heavy Rittenhouse Square (so there are plenty of non-Starbucks alternatives in that area).

  14. 14.

    Elizabelle

    Clueless white lady question here (but I have heard of Kendrick Lamar, and the Chronic before that):

    what is the diff between rap and hip-hop? I trust you guys to get to the point on this one more than some music critic or other verbose type.

    What are the best examples of each?

    All I know of Mr. Lamar is that BHO likes him a lot, and he sounds very, very smart from what little I have followed.

  15. 15.

    Lahke

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Well, I actually loved Moonrise Kingdom, so there you go. Isle of Dogs is stop-motion puppets, with the final rescue action driven by a blonde white savior type and a Japanese hacker who is a dead ringer for a WWII Hirohito caricature.

  17. 17.

    lamh36

    Hip hop/rap IS POP music…every music genre has used hip hop/rap to top the music charts, and it’s big internationally as well.

    Artist from country, rock, alternative…etc…have used hip hop rhytms, themes and producers, to craft award winnig chart topping hits.

    At work, we listen to the “adult contemporary” station, not the urban music station…it’s funny to me that many of the “modern” hits they play all have some element of hip hop/rap…pretty soon…those adult contemporary staions will run out of non-hip hop elemental songs to play…

    The fact that in major awards, like the Grammy, the Black hip hop artist (and pop stars) are still pretty much shut out of the pop categories is interesting to me.

  18. 18.

    Schlemazel

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:
    A lot of reasons to not drink Starbucks but this shitshow is not one of them. The event was not the result of corporate policy but of a – now unemployed – asshole. I would like to think that this would open a few more eyes to what white privilege actually means.

  19. 19.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: Even, arguably, the biggest pop star in the world, with an album last year that topped the charts and in the top of many critics list couldn’t break out of the R&B categorty…and the Grammys new it…it’s why they decided to televise one of the off-camera awards, so that the would be able to have Beyonce on stage to accept SOME award…

    Best Urban Contemporary Album hadn’t been a televised award in years…but on the 2017 telecast it just happened to make a return…

  22. 22.

    Lahke

    @OldDave: thanks for the link! So the non-Japanese speaker part of the audience can hang on to the white savior riff and the Japanese speakers can laugh at them for it? Everyone wins!

  24. 24.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Schlemazel: Three good non-Starbucks cafes right around there: Joe’s, La Colombe, and Saxby’s (which is where I’ve been getting most of my coffee lately). Thinking I might support the protestors tomorrow by bringing a bunch of Saxby’s takeout by there.

    I’m reading some of the local coverage. There’s words about “against company policy” being applied to either sitting without ordering, or asking to use the bathroom without ordering. Yeah, bullshit. There’s definitely a white privilege thing going on here, because for damn sure you know that hundreds of white customers do both of those things every day, and nobody calls the cops. “Policy” is a selectively enforced thing.

    In another of my favorite cafes, I once watched the staff come out from behind the counter to stop some guy (do I need to mention that he was African American?) from eating some sort of takeout meal. OK, every eating establishment has a policy against outside food and drink, so they were perfectly within their rights. And yet, I as a non-black person have eaten plenty of outside food there, in full view of the staff, and nobody ever said a word.

    I suppose I should be grateful they didn’t call the cops on that guy or ask him to leave.

  25. 25.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: Sticking to the music theme and speaking of Beyonce…and her set at Coachella.

    She became the first African American woman to headline the music festival…and she showed up and showed up for the culture!

    She sang the Negro National Anthem and sequed into Formation (with the anthem protest symbolism not lost on me and the audience she was speaking to!) in front of the mostly white audience of Coachella!!! I was waiting for some dumb quick take talking bout Beyonce debuting a new single. She put on an HBCU halftime show that those same folks likely have never seen outside of the movie Drumline (if they even saw that).

    She had Malcolm X quote about Black Woman and even Nina Simone!!! She honored FELA!!!

    The unapologetic Blackness of it all was FABULOUS.

    All with 4 wardrobe changes, singing LIVE and dancing her azz off.

    I cannot say that I was ever a “STAN”, but she has def made me into a fan of her stage craft and performing ability!

    Everything from her backing band, to her dancers, to the “skits” to the costume designe was ALL a shout out to African American HBCU culture and I loved it!

    Not only that, but she followed it up with an announcement:

    Beyoncé Announces $100,000 In Scholarships For HBCU Students
    The program will give $25,000 each to Xavier University, Wilberforce University, Tuskegee University and Bethune-Cookman University.via @HuffPostEdu

  26. 26.

    Tenar Arha

    @lamh36: Not giving Lemonade album of the year was a travesty.

    I’m hoping the performance everyone is raving about at Coachella will be a concert/visual album.

  27. 27.

    lamh36

    @Elizabelle: From a 2013 BET article

    The Difference Between Rap & Hip-Hop
    Shaka Shaw weighs in on the musical battle between generations

    IMHO, Hip Hop is cultural and can include rapping or actual singing or a combo of both.

    Rap to me is primarily an MC, a beat and mostly a person “talking/rapping” over a beat w/minimal actual singing, except in the case of a hook or collabo, or sample of a vocal piece.

    But they are used interchangeably…or combined as Hip Hop/Rap.

    Ex: DMX is a Rap artist, but also a Hip Hop artist. Lauryn Hill rapped, but she was also a singer…I consider her more Hip Hop artist than rapper (although her rap wasn’t bad)

  30. 30.

    Brachiator

    @lamh36:

    Hip hop/rap IS POP music…every music genre has used hip hop/rap to top the music charts, and it’s big internationally as well.

    Very true. And there are hip hop artists in the UK, in Muslim communities in France. Artists who secretly defy the cultural authorities in Iran. I would notice nods to hip hop in the Indian music videos shown on a local station here in Southern California.

    So I think Lamar’s Pulitzer is not only an honor, it is a recognition of how central the music has become to culture and society.

  31. 31.

    RSA

    @Elizabelle:

    Clueless white lady question here (but I have heard of Kendrick Lamar, and the Chronic before that)

    Speaking of clueless:

    I didn’t know there was a Pulitzer Prize for Music.

    I recognize only two names in the 1940s and one in the 1990s among the winners.

    I hadn’t heard of Kendrick Lamar before.

    But live and learn!

  32. 32.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    It’s exciting indeed!

    @Steeplejack:Hey Steep, can you ping WaterGirl and ask her to email me? I lost a bunch of email addresses in a video card casualty and I want to inquire individually about her recovery and also Henry’s. Thanks if you have time.

  33. 33.

    Feathers

    @Lahke: It has been very explored on the internets. As the article linked by @OldDave: notes, it’s always important to separate the homeland and the diaspora when talking about racism and cultural appropriation. Although an American making a work that only people who’ve lived in Japan and speak the language would recognize as “authentic” is an interesting choice, to say the least.

    And Kendrick Lamar deserves the Pulitzer. I hope this is also seen as an admission that previous works were wrongly not considered.

  34. 34.

    Gwangung

    @lamh36: Yeah, that was some first rate white hierarchical bullshit. That just made made into a Bey fan…..

    (Somebody made the remark that to do a set THAT long at Coachella, with ALL the singing AND dancing, means that you gotta have some top level endurance)

  36. 36.

    lamh36

    @Tenar Arha: It DEF shoudl be. I’m not one to buy those types of things on DVD, but I’m inclined to do so if they released that performance.

    I mean…she even made sure to throw in some NOLA style boune and second line music!!!!

  37. 37.

    lamh36

    OT, but… Maddow can’t control her giggles or not smile when she mentions Hannity being #3… she’s all cheesed out!!!

    Yes… PETTY Rachel is the BEST Rachel..

  38. 38.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    @lamh36: This was only the second Beyonce show I’ve ever watched (along with the Super Bowl performance.). This performance was simply OUT OF THIS WORLD!! Just the ability to stage and manage such a complex show…wow. The music was awesome. Beyonce sang, dance and just lived it up in a way that is rare even amongst the best performers. The unapologetic Blackness was wonderful, especially doing so in front of a fairly White/hipster crowd. And seeing the incredible response of the Black podcasters and bloggers that I follow was really wonderful. It was truly EPIC. I hope they sell it as a dvd/stream etc. at some point because I would definitely love to watch it again in the future.

  39. 39.

    Feathers

    @Tenar Arha: Apparently she did not change her manicure. Some of the pictures posted were from the dress rehearsal where she was wearing silver glitter polish, not the black or close to it that she was wearing for the actual performance. It is ver

  40. 40.

    lamh36

    @Gwangung: true and she literally had her twins a little over a year ago. She was supposed to headline Coachella last year, but bowed up because she was pregnant with her twins. This is her first outing since having her twins…someone said, she basically just came off of maternity leave and crushed it at work with that performance.

    She said at the end of the performance that she sat at home waiting for her twins and the year she took off, she dreamed about what she wanted to do for the performance and that it was as great as she dreamed…

    Good for her…

  41. 41.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    @lamh36: Also on the topic of unapologetic Blackness, while nothing could top Beyonce’s set at Coachella, Kamasi Washington & The New Order gave an excellent follow up on Sunday.

    They debuted a new song called “Fists of Fury” that absolutely killed. At one point the lead singers were screaming:

    “Our time as victims is over,
    We will no longer ASK for justice,
    Instead we will TAKE our retribution…
    TAKE OUR JUSTICE
    TAKE OUR JUSTICE
    TAKE OUR JUSTICE!!”

    It was sooooooo powerful. Here’s a teaser for the single but the full version of the song is on Spotify (album out in June) and it is some RIDICULOUS jazzery.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=052G6nMA2WA

  42. 42.

    lamh36

    BWHAHAHAHAHAH

    @ChrisMegerian
    Follow Follow @ChrisMegerian
    More
    “I really think you should have disclosed your relationship with Cohen,” Alan Dershowitz says, unprompted, to Sean Hannity

    8:17 PM – 16 Apr 2018

  50. 50.

    Hobbes83

    Just wanted to de-lurk to say that K-Dot speaks to my wife and I as black millenials in a time where we have found that we need to pick up the torch that our predecessors left us in regards to continuing to fight for our rights. If you love DAMN, some of the tracks that I loved were Fear and DNA, especially because the former really resonates because I grew up in a relatively destitute disgust ion and made something of myself, but I will never forget where I came from or who I am. I’m glad he is getting his just due, and I’m so ecstatic that you really appreciate him as an artist. Thanks John, and thanks for this post.

  53. 53.

    Hobbes83

    I need to add an addendum to my previous post; 24K Magic is simply new jack swing music in a new package. It’s total bullshit.

  55. 55.

    lamh36

    @Mary G: I know I saw the reports that she has been ill and has decided to no longer do any last minute extended life care…which I beleives means she and the family have decided to end with hospice services.

    Has a officialy annoucement happened?

  56. 56.

    Feathers

    @Feathers: Oops. Cut off and couldn’t edit.

    It is very usual to use photos and footage from the dress rehearsal for promo and clips used during the show. They do that on American Idol and other live music shows. Every so often you catch something different. Like the changing Beyonce nail polish color.

    My sad story. Found out it would be streaming. Realized it would be in the middle of the night and I’ve been really working on getting my sleep cycle normalized again, so I decided not to set my alarm. Then, I woke up during the night and really fought hard but didn’t fall back to sleep. Finally got up to make myself some herbal tea, picked up the phone, and saw a Beyoncé at Coachella pic on Twitter. Went right away to YouTube, got there just in time for the goodnight and thank you. Argh. I was actually awake for much of it. Caught some clips before they got pulled down. Hope this ends up being an extra on something in the future. And I was in the marching band, always extra love for any stuff with with marching bands. That was what truly killed me at 4am.

  57. 57.

    cain

    @lamh36:
    The woman is 100% class. Hands down. I knew it back in the 90s. She is a totem to strength, determination, and talent. She works her ass off. I’m not totally into her music, but I admire her.

  62. 62.

    J R in WV

    @Lahke:

    OH, no you don’t!!! I’m the last commenter on more threads than anybody. Lots of time I’m working down a thread, and replying to people as I go down, and when I get to the bottom of the thread, I’ve done the last 5 comments, covering the whole thread.

    But never mind. You go ahead and do the Monday Evening Russiagate thread. I get up at 2 or 3 or 4 am and read late night threads, and comment into a sheer void some nights. The blogs sometimes allow me to get calm after saying my piece and climbing back into bed. Some nights the younger bigger dog is keeping my spot warm, and I have to invite Alice out to take my place. Some nights the smaller cat needs to sit on my hip, which is also kind of fun.

    We all need to be calm, call our congressional representatives, Senators, Congressmenbers, tell them what we need and expect, and work to put good people into those positions.

    I was in marching band and concert band the other half of the year. It meant I could march in step in boot camp!! And was in shape to do heavy physical work in the USN!! And then was able to do heavy physical work on our farm, building houses and shops with friends. Now I’m retired.

    I’m starting to get some HipHop tracks. Not all of them, but some. There was actually some in the Country Music show last night. So it’s penetrating music all over the nation, now. I’ll check this prize winner out!

  63. 63.

    Millard Filmore

    @Schlemazel:

    Second prize is 2 years of burnt & bitter coffee

    First prize is one week in Philadelphia.
    Second price is two weeks in Philadelphia.

    — W C Fields

  64. 64.

    Ninedragonspot

    @RSA: The Pulitzer Prize for music has a long and deserved reputation as a cultural backwater, with prizes too-frequently giiven to quickly-forgotten mediocrities. The only times it has ever attracted notice outside of the classical New-music world is when Wynton Marsalis got the nod for “Blood on the Field” (who remembers that now?) and when John Adams rather ostentatiously dissed the prize when we won it for his rather marginal “On the Transmigration of Souls”.

    I like some of the composers who have won the prize over the past twenty years, but the award has been culturally irrelevant for decades. Until today.

    Adding: prizes in the arts are essentially arbitrary. They’re fun in the way celebrity gossip is fun, though of course they are quite useful for artists lucky enough to hit the lottery.

  66. 66.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Lahke: I had a comment to make in that thread, but, since you commented in it, I can’t now. But wait…. i commented after you in this thread! Aaaarrgghhh!

  67. 67.

    Felanius Kootea

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: That story made me so angry. The Washington Post says the manager who called the cops and Starbucks
    have now parted ways. Starbucks’ CEO has issued an apology. I am mad at the manager for being so fearful that she should could have gotten two innocent men killed. But the police – wow. The men were waiting for a third man, a business associate who had asked them to meet him at Starbucks. They told the police that. The third man, who happened to be white, finally arrived and confirmed that he was the person they were waiting for but the police still arrested them. The level of arrogance and stupidity shown by the six officers blew my mind. No de-escalation training in Philly apparently. And the police chief still stands by them.

  71. 71.

    Felanius Kootea

    On the original topic, I am so happy for Kendrick. I never even knew that the Pulitzer had a music category. I liked “To Pimp a Butterfly” but haven’t really listened to “DAMN.” I should do that soon. For those who have never heard of Kendrick Lamar, this elders react to Kendrick YouTube video is kind of funny.

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne

    @Felanius Kootea:

    Apparently the Philly DA said WTF is wrong with you idiots? to the cops and let the two men go with no charges.

    This does seem to be the root of 90 percent of these stories: some white person gets freaked out by a Black person doing something normal and escalates the situation to the police immediately instead of, you know, talking to said Black person. John Crawford might be alive today if that Wal-Mart patron who freaked the fuck out about his carrying a BB gun around had asked the store manager to talk to Crawford rather than calling 911 on their cell phone. ?

  76. 76.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    It happens, I wouldn’t say frequently, but often enough that I’m no longer surprised to read an obit before the fact. Of course, the flip side of that is reading about the death of some once-beloved-but-now-dimly-remembered celebrity, and feeling all sad and nostalgic, and posting ?? emojis, and then having someone point out that the obit is from seven years ago or something.

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @lamh36: Hehe, old people like stuff from when they were younger. Oddly, both my 75 y/o dad and I try to listen to new stuff and different things. We don’t necessarily like the new things, but we work at being open-minded. In some ways, becoming old is a choice

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