Mic Drop Moments: The Poetic Legacy of Bob Dylan & Kendrick Lamar

“I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet,” stated Bob Dylan in one of his most famous quotes in the early 1960s. When Dylan burst onto the music scene, he changed the landscape of popular music forever, with his poetic, lyrical, fantastical stream of consciousness writing that owed in part to his introduction to the prose of the beat generation and the visceral stylings of the enfant terrible of French poetry himself, Arthur Rimbaud. This work was a world away from the vapid pop lyrics of the manufactured groups of the day, singing about first love, hopes, and dreams. Dylan’s writing was real, raw, and honest. Dylan’s words enraptured and challenged prejudice. He did write about hopes, dreams, and fears of the young, but this was something beyond, this was pure poetry. Despite this, the media were somewhat surprised when in 2008, Dylan was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his work. A prize traditionally aimed at outstanding work in the field of journalism. A music category has always existed, but it was for classical and jazz compositions, this was going against the grain. Although, that is always what Dylan has done. A trailblazer, a trendsetter, a game-changer and he set a precedent for others to follow. Which they did, finally in 2018, when Kendrick Lamar gained the Pulitzer for his album, Damn. That was two years after Dylan had been awarded one of the highest accolades there is, the Nobel Prize for Literature. Awarding these prizes {to Dylan and Lamar} increased the scope for others outside of the traditional media to be offered the same, as witnessed by the special award citation from the Pulitzer Prize board to Aretha Franklin in 2019. What do these wins mean for the nature of the prize? Does it mean that finally the possibility of what literature can be will be expanded? Possibly, after all, what is a song if not a poem set to music? It does, however, seem unlikely that awards of this caliber will be handed out to popular artists on a regular basis, namely because there was a decade-long gap between Dylan’s win and Lamar’s. In that time, jazz and classical artists had again, taken precedence. Wins for contemporary and popular artists are exciting and, Lamar’s win, in particular, is of great magnitude as the press, recognized because they signify that there is room for awards of this type to shift from being elitist and exclusionary, as they have been in the past. Lamar gained his prize due to Damn, offering, ‘rhythmic dynamism’ and the album’s ability to capture ‘the complexity of a modern African-American life. Dylan was awarded his Nobel because he, ‘created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition’. With these reasonings, it would seem like the awarding bodies are attempting to move away from the constraints placed upon them when selecting winners. It appears that they are able to recognize that songs do have a connection to great works of literature and cutting-edge journalism, in that they offer a social commentary on everyday life. Lamar’s win was particularly significant because the genre is such a huge step away from what is normally commended. Damn is a fresh, contemporary hip-hop album with classical influences. It would seem the times, they are a-changin’ albeit it at a steady pace.