Kendrick Lamar won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, a milestone for hip-hop

Kendrick Lamar's "DAMN." was the first hip-hop album to win a Pulitzer

Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 Pulitzer win for his album "DAMN." made history as the first hip-hop artist ever to receive the award. The Pulitzer Prize for Music is usually awarded to classical and jazz compositions, making Lamar's win even more unexpected.

A dissenting take on the Lamar's Pulitzer win

Not everyone thought that Kendrick Lamar’s historic Pulitzer win was a good thing—even his own fans. Writer and hip-hop aficionado Ismail Muhammad lays out the case for why "DAMN" deserved the award, but the Pulitzers don’t deserve praise for giving it. Was the decision more about the organization’s image than the work itself? See if Muhammad’s argument convinces you.

The Pulitzer's evolving categories mirror the state of contemporary journalism

The inaugural prizes in 1917 selected four winners: two for newspaper journalism (including a look inside the German Empire amid World War I) and two for books, but the slate has evolved to include online-only outlets (2009), magazines (2015), and audio reporting (2020). The 2024 Pulitzers, in particular, marked a noticeable shift: More digital outlets were awarded than traditional newspapers, illustrating a sharp decline in local newspapers and a rise in digital outlets.

What it's like to win a Pulitzer

Four Pulitzer Prize winners share how winning the award has impacted their lives and journalism careers. The high-profile nature of the award tends to legitimize the author and grant them better access to jobs and opportunities, but it can also increase pressure on writers to meet the same standard of their award-winning journalism.

In 2012, the Pulitzer Board chose not to award a prize for literature

The literary world was shocked in 2012 when, for the first time in more than three decades, the Pulitzer Board decided not to award a prize for literature. The jury had selected three finalists (Karen Russell's "Swamplandia!," David Foster Wallace's "The Pale King," and Denis Johnson's "Train Dreams) but no winner.

In 2016, Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for his lyrics

Rock legend Bob Dylan’s 2016 Nobel Prize was a surprise in the literary world. A rock lyricist had never been awarded the distinction. Dylan explains his affection for literary giants like Herman Melville and Homer, connecting his writing, and the rock ‘n’ roll of his youth, to the literary tradition.

Kendrick Lamar's breakthrough concept album was inspired by real events

The rapper's 2012 album "good kid, m.A.A.d city" follows a young, impressionable protagonist who unwittingly becomes associated with a series of crimes. As this episode of the "Disgraceland" podcast explains, Lamar's album may be nonlinear and impressionistic, but it's based on autobiographical elements.

Kendrick Lamar brought his Drake feud to the Super Bowl stage

At the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in New Orleans, Kendrick Lamar leaned into his high-profile feud with Drake, turning months of diss-track drama into one of the most discussed performances in recent Super Bowl history.

The 100 best Pulitzer-winning books

No ranking is definitive, but this site compiled expert analysis with book sales and other factors to rank the best books to win the Pulitzer. The list is topped by Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and includes fiction and nonfiction winners, providing a starred fan ranking and endorsements from experts and famous people.

King was awarded the National Medal of the Arts in 2014

For decades, Stephen King has been a pop-culture titan, though he was often pegged as unserious and formulaic by the more high-minded literary establishment. That began to change in the 1990s, with critical reconsiderations of his work. It was fully cemented in 2014, when he received the National Medal of Arts.

August Wilson’s ‘Fences’ swept the 1987 awards season

The play about a Black family in Pittsburgh won a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for best play of the year.

BTS was the 2020 Time Entertainer of the Year

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a lot of good fortune to BTS, who were able to reach audiences worldwide with their talent, appearance, and messaging. This Time profile of the group reflects on the epoch-defining group and how they stood out from other musical acts by being more socially progressive and uplifting. Their success is recognized as a triumph for Asian representation and the boundless popularity of K-pop idols.

Champagne has a rich history in hip-hop

The drink is both aspirational and a bragging right. Famous artists name-check brands like Cristal, and up-and-comers long for the day when sparkling wine will flow like water. The trend traces back to the early 1990s and Branson B., “hip-hop’s unofficial sommelier.” The Harlem-based artist would bring bottles of his favorite bubbly to parties, celebrations, and, crucially, recording studios, where friends like the Notorious B.I.G. were laying down some of rap’s foundational tracks.

Best new artist can include performers who have been working in the industry for years

As long as they haven’t been nominated for a Grammy previously, anyone who releases a recording that “establishes their public identity” can be eligible.

Hip-hop is both a music and a culture

While the word is often used to describe the popular genre, it’s historically been used to describe the culture that sprang up around the music in 1970s New York, including breakdancing and graffiti.

'Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared.'

- Rapper Tupac Shakur (1971-1996)

Hip-hop producer J Dilla reimagined musical time

There are few names in hip-hop more revered than J Dilla, a producer who’s credited with redefining the feel of the music by playing with its timing.

The first Grammys acknowledged only 4 genres

At the first Grammys, there were six awards presented in four genres: classical, jazz, country, and R&B. But over time, it became clear that plenty of music didn't fit neatly into those categories. Now there are more than a dozen genres recognized, spanning multiple cultures and continents.

The 2017 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to LIGO's founders

Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Barry Barish won the award for their contributions to the detector a year after the discovery of gravitational waves was announced. Acknowledging the Nobel statutes limited the prize to no more than three people, Thorne stated, "our marvelous discovery is the work of more than a thousand."

Every winner of the Cannes Palmes d’Or

It’s one of the most prestigious awards in all cinema. Winning not only guarantees significant buzz but also means you’re a part of film history, with past winners including “Pulp Fiction,” “Taxi Driver,” and “La Dolce Vita.”

In 1974, Norman Mailer touted graffiti as an intellectual art form

The Pulitzer Prize winner explored the style in his 1974 Esquire essay, "The Faith of Graffiti," before expanding on it in a book with 81 photos by Jon Naar. In it, he traces the form back to its ancient roots and compares graffiti writers to Renaissance painters.

The best female rappers of all time

Hip-hop has too many incredible female MCs to name, but this list does an admirable job of ranking the 25 greatest. Along the way, it breaks down how ‘80s artists like MC Lyte and Queen Latifah paved the way for ‘90s innovators like Missy Elliott and Lauryn Hill and more contemporary names like Doechii and Micki Minaj.

Read a Langston Hughes poem on 'Jazz as Communication'

The essay, delivered in 1956 at the Newport Jazz Festival, offers a poetic take on defining jazz, suggesting that it is the root of both literature and music. “Jazz is a great big sea,” he says. “It washes up all kinds of fish and shells and spume and waves with a steady old beat, or off-beat.”

In 2008, Prince covered Radiohead

Prince's 2008 headlining set at Coachella is one of the most legendary in the history of the festival—in no small part because of this eight-minute cover of Radiohead's "Creep." His version turns the grunge-era classic into a tortured R&B ballad.

Spotify's most-streamed albums to date

Interested in people's listening habits? Look through this up-to-date list to find out the most streamed albums on Spotify. See which musicians top the list by year, decade, or even all-time.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

The tragic Pulitzer Prize-winning image 'The Vulture and the Little Girl' (1993) generated controversy, raised concerns about ethics in photography, and eventually led to the photographer's death.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Fireworks make a loud booming sound after exploding due to air expanding faster than the speed of sound.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

Poison ivy will likely become both larger and more resilient due to climate change.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.