![]() Has Beyoncé eclipsed Michael Jackson as the greatest entertainer of all time? Was Kendrick Lamar actually worthy of such an award? Is Kanye going on another one of his insane rants? Such misguided inquiries are fortified with an identical structural curiosity. ![]() Its ubiquity, too, inflamed the kind of lazy criticism that seeks to invalidate the precision, thunder, and totality of artistic exceptionalism (this is especially true when cultivated outside the white mainstream). Rendered through these three artists, the sweat and gristle of black genius-which is to say, the bone-tough work of black genius-was nearly impossible to escape, online and off. ![]() Or perhaps it’s best we start with Kanye West, who reemerged this week on Twitter with a meditative shortform treatise on human existence and the nobility of creative production. Or we could just as easily begin with Kendrick Lamar the Compton, California artist became the first rapper to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music, for his searing album DAMN. We could begin with Beyoncé Knowles-Carter-the singer, mother, and pop maximalist who understands that music can, and should, be a kind of cinema-and her historically transcendent Coachella performance. If one were attempting to define black genius in its modern form, the week of April 16 provides no shortage of starting points.
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