Kendrick Lamar's 'Damn.' Sales Up After Pulitzer Prize Win

Kendrick Lamar's monumental Pulitzer Prize has also come with an added bonus, as sales of Damn. are now up 236 percent.

According to an April 27 report from The Hollywood Reporter, since winning the award on April 16, K. Dot's 2017 album moved 11,000 copies in the week ending on April 19. The project has now sold a total of 1.1 million copies.

Along with Damn. becoming the first non-classical or jazz work to earn the award, K. Dot also became the first rapper to win the award. The Pulitzer board called Damn. "a work that captures the complexity of African-American life."

Following his win, Pulitzer Prize board administrator, Dana Canedy, revealed Kendrick had no idea he was even up for the award, as the board wanted to keep it a secret from him. "He had no idea he was being considered so this is a complete surprise," she said. "I was actually worried he would think it was a hoax, but it's not [laughs]. I don't even know if he knows yet."

As for why other rap albums have never been considered for the award in the past, Canedy didn't have an answer but pointed to the album's "brilliance" music-wise being a factor.

"The important thing about this is the jury and the board just decided that the album is a word of vernacular avant-garde," she added. "It's a dense and sophisticated collage of hybrid sounds, polyrhythms, layered under what we would probably consider pulsing kinetic text. The brilliance of the music is what's shone through."

Up next for Kendrick, Damn. may even bring him more success at the upcoming 2018 Billboard Music Awards, where the album is nominated for Top Selling Album, Top Billboard 200 Album and Top Rap Album.

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