In the denouement of 2006 film It’s a Boy Girl Thing, bookworm Nell (inhabited by the consciousness of jock Woody as the result of a body-swapping Aztec curse) is in the midst of her entrance interview for Yale. When asked her opinion on contemporary poets, she fumbles, saying that they ‘suck’, then backpedals by waxing lyrical about rappers: ‘It’s urban poetry, sir. They talk about their lives … They can be very brutal, but often undercut with a dark humour.’

The trope of rap—and of other artforms tied to marginalised communities, like jazz and street dance—acting as a leveller is commonplace in blockbusters. And it’s an idealistic one: it taps into the idea of bridging worlds, of dissolving race, class and gender divides. But it seems life and art aren’t so distant: earlier this week, Kendrick Lamar was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Lamar is the first rap artist—and DAMN., the first ‘popular music’ title—to nab this accolade since the inception of the award in 1943.