Revolution on Broadway: Inside Hip-Hop History Musical ‘Hamilton’
We talked for an hour about the creative process that led to Hamilton; Miranda’s life-long loves of hip-hop and musical theater; how he’s breaking down the doors that hold back people of color on Broadway; and more.
What’s it like to be starring in the show at the same time as you’re considering revisions? Are you up there thinking writer thoughts while you’re singing?
No, I can’t. I’ll get hit with a chair! You’ve seen the show. You’ve seen how kinetic it is. Not only is everything on the deck moving – the deck itself is moving. So if I space out and think, “Maybe I could . . . ” I’m dead. Someone is going to kick me in the face. It’s also enormously important for the actors to know they have another full-blooded actor that they’re working with onstage. They can’t be looking in my eyes and thinking, “Is he trying to cut my part?”
The New York Times said that the casting of this show “flips minstrelsy on its head.” Do you like that way of putting it?
Well, I’ll tell you, when I first had the idea for the show, I was already thinking in terms of voices and not in terms of people who look like the Founding Fathers. Originally, this was a concept album in my head. I went full Andrew Lloyd Webber in my mind, and thought, “OK, we’ll make the Jesus Christ Superstar concept album, and then someone else will figure out how to stage it.” I wanted to be selfish as a songwriter and write songs that contained all the policy and the history, but felt as dense as my favorite Big Pun raps, or my favorite Aesop Rock, or Jay Z – the stuff where you’re still catching triple-entendres 10 listens in. I wanted to be more selfish than, “I’m in a theater and I need to understand everything the first time.” I think I wrote a richer piece because I let myself off the hook in that respect. And I was already casting, like, Common as George Washington in my head. It was already transcending race.
Who was your dream voice for Hamilton? Did you have a rapper in mind for that character?
I didn’t equate him with a specific rapper, but I did equate him with the strengths of my favorite rappers, which are the polysyllabic yet conversational ones. I’m thinking of Eminem and Big Pun, in particular, where they’re rhyming 10 syllables on a line. I’m thinking of Jay Z in that moment in “Friend or Foe,” where he goes, “…don’t do that, you’re making me nervous.” It feels like a conversation that happens to rhyme. I’m always aiming for that level. I was thinking of Rakim, those rappers who think in full paragraphs.
With Burr, something I didn’t even realize until really far into writing the score is that he’s almost always on a dancehall beat. It’s never on the fucking downbeat! Subconsciously, it’s like, “You can’t pin Burr down.” He’s never going to give you the one and the three, or the two and the four. He’s a human triplet.