On Pulitzer Prizes, And How “Hearing Kendrick” Is The New “Hearing Jimi”

The World Loves Trap, But (Still) Can’t Jump.

Context defines songs. If current era mega-producer Mike WILL Made It produced Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” the mastery of the Funk Brothers would not have been able to elevate the depth and scope of understanding of America’s civil and social rights movements in the song’s lyrics to mainstream ears. However, since 1970 when “What’s Going On” was released, Mike WILL did produce the salacious, hook-driven trap masterpiece that is Juicy J’s “Bandz A Make Her Dance” in 2012. That year is coincidentally the same year that Trayvon Martin was shot. That has everything to do with why and how it’s quite likely that DAMN., Lamar’s 2017-released and simplified take on his magnificent 2015 album To Pimp A Butterfly, as a Pulitzer Prize-worthy genius.

Or, it could also be that it’s taken Marvel Comics embracing Afrofuturism, and the sisters Knowles to almost continuously churn out art-pop masterpieces for the world at-large to finally be ready to properly contextualize the brilliant African-American jazz/funk fusion that inspired Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 rap magnum opus. Moreover, it’s entirely possible that, because modern white folks’ and the world at-large’s ears have been withered by black folks and black culture’s musical…