Lamar’s win made me think about the changing nature of “distinguished musical composition,” to use the Pulitzer’s crusty term. The thirty-one-year-old composer Michael Gilbertson, who was a finalist this year, told Slate, “I never thought my string quartet and an album by Kendrick Lamar would be in the same category. Lamar’s victory, for his moodily propulsive album “ damn.,” elicited some reactionary fuming-one irate commenter said that his tracks were “ neurologically divergent from music”-as well as enthusiastic assent from younger generations.
Not until 1997 did a nominal outsider-the jazz trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis-receive a nod. Composers in the classical tradition have effectively monopolized the prize since its inception, in 1943. When the hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, in April, reactions in the classical-music world ranged from panic to glee.
