Rappers usually speak of the Pulitzer facetiously. Nas self-mythologized in the grandest of ways when he dubbed himself the “most critically acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winner, best storyteller, thug narrator, my style’s greater.” MF Doom used the prize to satirize Viktor Vaughn, one of his many characters: “He get some looks, some bullshit bull over, a dusty pullover, and a Pulitzer.” And when Big Pun rapped, “I do it to live niggas and Pulitzer Prize winners,” the reason for the juxtaposition was obvious: boys from the hood are never Pulitzer winners.

Well, until yesterday.

Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Music, surprisingly defeating two works that fall under the broad umbrella of classical music, Michael Gilbertson’s Quartet and Ted Hearne’s Sound from the Bench. I say “surprisingly” because DAMN. is the first non-classical or non-jazz recording to ever win the prize. A popular musician had never even become a finalist before Lamar, and that’s using the word “popular” loosely. The average person probably couldn’t even name a winner at trivia night. Some music historians might be surprised to learn which compositions earned the prize in the years that birthed Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (John LaMontaine’s “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra”), or Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska (Bobby Sessions’ “Concerto for Orchestra”), or Joni Mitchell’s Blue (Mario Davidovsky’s Synchronisms No. 6), or John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (nothing!). On betting odds, DAMN. winning for music somehow would’ve been less likely than Bob Dylan winning for literature.

And yet, here we are. In a refreshing change of pace, a daring, visionary rap record has now been acknowledged as a preeminent masterwork by an age-old institution (looking at you, the Recording Academy). Not even the most optimistic among us rap diehards could have imagined that this would ever happen. It is a testament to not only a softening stance on hip-hop in highbrow circles but also DAMN. as a singular achievement.

Pulitzer-winning compositions are largely awarded on their merits as compositions—musicianship as craft. Many could be described as traditional, or unadventurous, or adventurous in a structural way that mostly appeals to other musicians or listeners with highly honed ears. The winners in this latter camp do things like layer acoustic sounds with electronic ones, or fiddle with spatialization using hundreds of players. In that regard, it makes sense that the prize jurors seem to find value in the mechanics of Kendrick’s storytelling, in his rapping’s technicality. DAMN. was recognized as “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.” Such a description seems to only scratch the surface of what the album does as a work of art, like a museum placard indexing a showpiece—technically correct yet inexact and unimaginative.

Kendrick’s win for rap recalls Wynton Marsalis’ first win for jazz, which, unbelievably, was not until 1997, decades after jazz’s pop-cultural peak. The visionary trumpeter and band leader’s oratorio, “Blood on the Fields,” opened the door for more jazz musicians down the line, albeit not without controversy. More importantly, Marsalis redefined who a Pulitzer-winning work could represent. Like “Blood on the Fields,” DAMN. is a heady examination of an explicitly black experience, born of a cultural movement that cannot be untwined from its politicized nature. That this is also the first time a Pulitzer-winning piece could be considered “pop music” is even more remarkable, and just goes to show how dramatically Kendrick has warped pop’s edges. An album like DAMN. appeals to music centrists, rallies critics, places a song as ugly as “HUMBLE.” atop the charts, brings the spectacle of its songcraft to award shows and sporting events, and also charms prize jurors. If there is any other audience to reach, Kendrick Lamar will eventually get there.

Prize jurors have rarely been receptive to change, no matter who’s offering it outside their bubble, instead opting to cater to a more insular music community of composers and conductors. In a 2006 essay considering the state of the Pulitzer for Music, aptly titled “Sour Note,” writer Fred Kaplan criticized jurors for making their most daring selections as citations, and only to visionary musicians who had been long dead. The problem has even been recognized by the kinds of classical musicians likely to win a Pulitzer, who’ve considered the prize’s luster tarnished by its inability to make bolder choices.