DAMN. Part 1

Picking up from an off-hand comment i made over the weekend, let's listen to DAMN. Our context is that the album won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. What was the official statement of award? 

Ms. Canedy said the board's decision to award Mr. Lamar, 30, was unanimous. The board called the album “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.” 

Before we go any further, we have to define what we aren't talking about. We aren't talking about the back and forth over whether that description is condescending, or whether it was more important for the Prize to award Kendrick Lamar than it was for Kendrick to win a Pulitzer, or about the complicated history of the Pulitzer Prize in general, or whether someone else should have won. We're taking the whole thing at face value. The story is that the committee was having discussions about the award, and the short list of nominees they were considering had a light bulb attached to it. All the things they initially considered had the obvious and unavoidable influence of Hip-Hop at their core. Sure, we could go try to assemble a list of those candidates, but we don't need to, we're accepting that once the committee realized the importance of Hip-Hop throughout the entire culture of commercial publication in 2018, they unanimously agreed that DAMN. was the album that should win. I'm not interested in dissecting that story, it is a completely logical story about the selection process, and it is the official reason why Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize for creating DAMN.. The earlier description is an attempt to place the work itself inside the culture at large, a culture that includes blatant and open racism and hostility toward any non-white condoned (child-proof with all the sharp corners removed) challenging of Bourgeois values. 

And the album begins with an insanely complicated and amazing story about being murdered by surprise. The moral of the story is that your intentions are essentially meaningless. 

Can we let Kendrick and Bottle have a conversation where i don't put too many silly words in either of our mouths? Yes, i think so. 

B: hi, i'm Bottle. Thank you for speaking with me. May i call you Kendrick?

K: sure, that is my name.

B: great! Is it fair to say that DAMN. was intended to be as honest and accurate a description of the experiences of an African-American from your personal perspective, and that that was the primary motivation for awarding you the prize.

K: sure. I mean there's always more to these things than you can encapsulate in a quick summary, but that's what i've said i intended and that was how they presented the award. I do feel honored, and it was presented as an award to me personally, not as some grandiose political statement. 

B: that's how i took it. Thank you so much for talking with me. Mind if i continue with my own personal analysis?

K: not at all. Thank you for listening to my work.

B: you're welcome. I'm always interested in what people have to say. I never know how it will turn out until i actually do it, but i think it's all part of the appreciation of art. Cheers, man. 

So, back to BLOOD.. He sees a person who looks like they could use some help. He waits, analyzes, watches, and finally decides he wants to try to help. When he does, it turns out to be a con, and he gets killed (and presumably robbed afterward). Like i implied earlier, there are things we can control and things we cannot control, but our intentions and analyses have no bearing on the unfolding reality after we make a choice. That becomes the reality this album exists inside because BLOOD. is the introduction to the album itself. That metaphor transcends all culture, race, gender, age, everything; it is an omni-present condition of human experience. 

When we take that contextual situation into the realm of Kendrick and Bottle sitting at a table having a conversation, something very important happens. I, the white guy, realize that even though i completely understand that metaphor, the feelings of skepticism and fear that i would feel in that situation (i do to some extent participate in making that exact choice regularly), it is not my default state of existence; especially considering that is a major component of the relief and happiness i feel now that i live way out in the fields of Iowa with few people around. 

Could i offer Kendrick that explanation as a solution to his problem? Of course not, it's ridiculous. He is telling me that he cannot escape that life or death game. He can't run away, he has to make a choice, and he has no way of knowing if it is the right choice or not. Heads he helps a fellow human, tails he gets murdered. I, Bottle, have privilege by not having to deal with that reality anymore (though i certainly did at one point in my life). For some, that recognition of privilege might have racial implications, for others it might simply be the opportunity to escape. My opportunity was certainly not a hard fought battle or of my own making, not without consequences and sacrifice either, but an opportune choice that i would say worked in my favor. Could i brainstorm possible similar situations if i were sitting at the table with the narrator? Sure, but that's not why we are here. We're here to listen and contemplate as much of the complexity as possible. I hope now the extent of that complexity is more apparent. The framing of the album alone is so pertinent and powerful it should command everyone's attention, and in the objectively safe space of listening to an album in the privacy of your own home without fear of being spied upon or sentenced to death for some transgression in the eyes of an oppressive authority, you would have to be insanely delusional to run away from such an experience in fear, or off handedly dismiss it as "i don't like rap." 

I do like rap and Hip-Hop very much, but that's not the point. The point is that i understand first-hand how much work and care goes into the creation of art, which this album most assuredly is, and it is my obligation as a listener, interpreter, critic, and fellow human being to put an equal amount of effort into understanding and appreciating it. I'll also point out that back in 2018 when he won the Pulitzer and well before i started actually writing about albums, i too thought "yeah that makes perfect sense, it should get that level of recognition." 

Part 2