A Spark Into A Flame: Hamilton & Hip Hop (2026)

[bunniefuu]

[instrumental music playing]

[Miranda] I'm someone who fell in love

with theater not by seeing Broadway,

but rather by doing the school play.

And I think great musicals have

protagonists that are stuck somewhere

and they want to be somewhere else.

And that is every hip-hop story.

Every hip-hop story we loved

is an MC writing about their world

so specifically

that they make us feel it

and understand it,

and then they transcend their world.

Hamilton couldn't exist with anyone else

writing it because it's everything I love

about theater, about hip-hop.

When I'm reading the book, I'm never

picturing the dudes on the money.

I'm picturing who is the MC that I would

cast in this part in Hamilton's life?

That's why when I started writing

the songs for Hamilton,

I actually started writing it as a mixtape

with hip-hop lyrics that were as dense

as my favorite MCs',

infused with not just their musicianship

but their versatility,

making this hopefully boundary-busting

hip-hop album that told the story.

I had always known Lin to be

super creative and super eclectic.

Like, I just love that his taste of music

just had such a wide breadth

of varieties, of styles, of genres.

And he encompasses all those things.

The fun of writing hip-hop for theater

is that flow determines character.

Flow as a way of indicating intellect

and train of thought

is something I started playing with

in In the Heights.

And then that became like

the ultimate thing

I got to write to in Hamilton.

[Lacamoire] He could sit down

and, like, word-for-word,

like, spit out a Big Pun track

and also, like, sing a song from Camelot

and not miss a note.

[Miranda] With Hamilton,

I'm doing my best Big Pun impression,

and I'm not only rhyming

six times on the line,

I'm doing what Pun does,

which is the end of the line

is the beginning of the next line.

It's hard to analyze which guys is spies

Be advised, chico

We recognize who lies

It's all in the eyes, chico

We read 'em and see 'em

For what they are

I'm past patiently waitin'

I'm passionately smashin'

Every expectation

Every action's an act of creation

I'm laughing in the face

Of casualties and sorrow

For the first time

I'm thinkin' past tomorrow

I was still in In the Heights

while I was writing those opening songs.

So I remember talking to Oskar Eustis

at the Public Theater

to see if, if I wrote the songs,

we could do a concert at the Delacorte,

which is the outdoor theater

where they do Shakespeare in the Park.

And I thought that felt like

a way of straddling

the worlds I wanted to straddle:

a hip-hop concert,

but it's where we do Shakespeare.

But what happened was

it just started becoming a theater piece.

Even though I had

visions of it as a mixtape,

it was becoming a show

as I was writing it.

[Ganbarg] The most memorable things from

that first meeting out of Lin's mouth

was not about partnering with a label

to do a cast recording.

It was, "No, this is a hip-hop mixtape.

The hip-hop mixtape

is gonna be all the hip-hop artists,

you know, performing these songs.

Um, and it's gonna come out

before the show comes out.

The show's called The Hamilton Mixtape.

We're gonna put out an actual mixtape."

[Morales] Some demos were shared,

but they were really rough demos

that gave you a bit of an idea.

He was explaining how

a lot of the characters

were inspired by

rappers that he was influenced by.

And the idea was

we'd put them on the mixtape

and have them cover some of the songs.

[Miranda] We're still talking about doing

a mixtape before the cast album comes out.

But one of the things we realize is,

the only way to convince anyone

is to have them see the show. [chuckles]

I was really proud of In the Heights.

But I could not get hip-hop artists

to come see In the Heights. [chuckles]

It just was not on their radar

because the worlds of hip-hop and Broadway

and off-Broadway are like this.

The Venn diagram barely touches.

And I'm sitting here like this,

trying to pull them together.

So I was ambitious for this

to reach beyond

the theater space.

You know, I just really wanted

my heroes to see it.

[Questlove] My manager called me and said,

"You have to see this.

I insist you see this tomorrow."

And I was like, "Oh, I got plans."

He said, "Ah, ah, ah,

you're going tomorrow."

Before I saw it, I was like,

"There's no way this is gonna be

the way people are describing it."

Because everybody was talking about,

"You've gotta see this thing.

You've gotta see it."

You know,

going into the Hamilton experience,

I was, like, a naysayer.

I may have gone into it, you know,

almost kicking and screaming.

I really took some

required some winning over.

I was just hearing about it too much.

It was to the point where it was like

some crackhead sh*t was going on.

But the thing was,

it was coming from the right people.

I remember that night

I remember that--

I remember that night

I just might

Regret that night

For the rest of my days

I remember those soldier boys

Trippin' over themselves

To win our praise

I remember

The first time I saw Hamilton,

I was sitting there, thinking, like,

"Okay, I've never seen anything

like this before."

I was immediately impressed with,

you know, just the lyrical dexterity

and just the level of, you know,

just interwovenness.

Just to take the ethos of hip-hop,

and to develop this amazing story arc,

it was overwhelming

in the best possible way.

The writing just went

to a whole new standard,

a whole new level,

beyond what I could imagine.

So this is what it feels like

To match wits

With someone at your level

What the hell is the catch?

It's the feeling of freedom

Of seein' the light

It's Ben Franklin

With a key and a kite

You see it, right?

The conversation lasted two minutes

Maybe three minutes

Everything we said in total agreement

It's a dream and it's a bit of a dance

A bit of a posture

It's a bit of a stance

[Nas] I thought it was incredible.

Like, the best thing I ever seen.

[Martinez] The thing about hip-hop is,

like, it just boils down to, "Is it good?

Like, do we feel you? Is it authentic?"

And this checked all those boxes.

It was authentic.

It was great storytelling.

It was great wordplay.

Like, the bars are barring. The, you know

You could tell that he cared about

the lines and the words and the metaphors.

There's no way somebody could create that

and not have been a true fan of hip-hop.

[Dessa]

I remember particularly Daveed Diggs

and watching him roll on stage with, like,

a hundred-thousand watts of swag,

and seeing him forward the story in a way

that looked totally native to hip-hop.

That was the

One of the first times that,

for me, I thought,

"I think I understand

this outlandishly ambitious vision."

The battlin' between the MCs

and the skill set that went into the bars

Which wasn't Broadway sh*t.

It was real hip-hop sh*t.

"Life, liberty

And the pursuit of happiness"

We fought for these ideals

We shouldn't settle for less

These are wise words

Enterprising men quote 'em

Don't act surprised, you guys

'Cause I wrote 'em

[Residente] The way he did it

was with total freedom.

And when you have that,

I think that's when you can go anywhere.

And that's what he did. He didn't

If he thought about rules,

probably he wouldn't do what he did.

[Nas] I was like, "This is so good

that I need to step my game up

if I wanna rap after I leave this play."

[Busta Rhymes] I was sitting there

with my jaw to the floor

in disbelief, because as I'm looking

at Hercules Mulligan for the first time,

I'm seeing me in Hercules Mulligan.

Hercules Mulligan

I need no introduction

When you knock me down

I get the back up again!

The moment

I read the words Hercules Mulligan,

I pictured his voice saying it.

Hercules Mulligan

And so I was fully prepared to be like,

if Busta Rhymes doesn't like it,

close the show.

Like, if he doesn't get it, like, we're

we f*cked up.

And we'll go home and we'll regroup.

We knew it was the greatest thing that

ever happened in the whole wide world

to us and to theater.

We didn't know that other worlds of music

would embrace it in that way.

- Amazing.

- How long did it take you to write it?

- [Miranda] Six years.

- That makes me feel a little bit better.

- Oh, good. I'm glad. I'm glad.

- I feel a little bit better.

- I'm glad.

- No. He sat down and wrote this sh*t.

It was very exciting. It was very exciting

because it felt like

what I wanted to happen,

which was for hip-hop and theater

to be in conversation,

was happening with this piece.

[Odom] Even though we started

At the very same time

Alexander Hamilton began to climb

How to account

For his rise to the top?

Man, the man is nonstop

[Miranda] It happens maybe once

every 20 years in the theater

where everyone who sees the show,

for better or worse,

goes and tells everyone they know

about the show.

We were exponentially expanding

our audience.

And so that gave us

a whole lot of excitement.

It changed the force of the momentum.

It went from being a speeding car

to a speeding locomotive to a rocketship.

Alexander Hamilton, Hamilton

Just you wait

I am not throwing away my shot

[Ganbarg] Lin had always had the concept

of doing The Hamilton Mixtape.

Once the show became, you know,

capital H, all bold Hamilton,

now was the time

that this was a viable idea. Let's go.

[Black Thought]

What we all knew at that time was

that Lin was vibrating super high.

And when you're vibrating, like,

when you're just at an energetic level,

people are drawn to you.

When Lin hit me

about being on the mixtape,

I mean, anything to do with Hamilton,

I was super in, super with it.

So I got the track.

I wrote "My Way Out."

That's the type of song I wanna be on

'cause that's my life too.

[Miranda] What happened was,

I was still doing the show

while we were getting busy on the mixtape.

And what was so exciting was

these artists I admired so much

were taking the ball and running with it.

I picked up the pen like Hamilton

Street analyst, now I write words

That try to channel 'em

No political power

Just lyrical power

For him to write to the hook,

"Wrote My Way Out,"

was just a dream come true.

I was not planning to be on this mixtape.

But then I heard that beat and was like,

I have to get on that.

Runnin' out of time

Like I'm Jonathan Larson's rent check

My mind is where the wild things are

Maurice Sendak

In withdrawal, I want it all

Please give me that pen back

You know, his verse was incredible.

He was vulnerable. He was, uh, lyrical.

He was a kid that was reading

and he winds up bleeding.

Y'all, I caught my first beatin'

From the other kids

When I was caught readin'

"Oh, you think you smart?"

Blaow! Start bleedin'

[Nas] A lot of people are intimidated

by the dude

who's focused and he's more concerned with

teaching himself, educating himself.

And I like people who can tell you

the human side about their experience

and not just the tough exterior.

Ayo, mugshot, g*n shot

Dope shot, jump shot

Take your pick

But you only get one shot

Advice from a schoolteacher

To a young tot

Applyin' a sticker

To his Spider-man lunchbox

[Busta Rhymes]

I got the call about being on this record.

And obviously Black Thought is probably

the most incredible MC to me

that ever touched the mic

since the inception of hip-hop.

That's why I hustle hella hard

Never celebrate a holiday

That'll be the day

I coulda finally hit the lottery

[Black Thought] We all like wrote

and rewrote and recorded and demoed,

then, you know, tried and reattempted

those verses many times

just to sort of, to get it down.

See, I've been patiently waitin'

For this moment

To rise up again

That's the way I was molded

And as the last one standin'

As the rest of them foldin'

Give me my one chance to grab the torch

And properly hold it

I said I'm just like my country

I'm young, scrappy and hungry

And I'm not throwin' away my shot

[Residente] Lin-Manuel, with his project,

told me the idea and I loved it.

And I started to write

and he sent me the beat.

And it was nice to collaborate that way.

Con un pico, una pala

Y un rastrillo

Te construimos un castillo

Como es que dice el coro cabrn?

Immigrants, we get the job done

You know, the immigration song,

it's forever

because we're always gonna have

a lot of immigrants,

now and in the future.

It was important at that time

and it's important today.

That's why I wanted to be part of it.

Look how far I come

Look how far I come

Immigrants, we get the job done

[Dessa] For someone

who's come up in indie rap,

usually you're writing about

your own life.

And so one of the biggest joys

of participating in the mixtape

has been to try to get into the mind

of someone who lived generations ago,

who has a different story. That's a really

different task than the usual indie song.

So "Congratulations" for me was probably

one of the most kind of theatrical

studio performances I'd given

in a form that's otherwise very much

a first-person true story.

Congratulations

For the rest of your life

Every sacrifice you make

Is for my sister

Give her the best life

Congratulations

[Black Thought] What Hamilton

and The Hamilton Mixtape sessions

did for hip-hop,

did for music, did for pop culture

was it raised the bar and set a precedent.

[Common] It opens hip-hop up

to a whole nother chapter

in a way that's so revolutionary,

so groundbreaking.

Hip-hop and Broadway didn't have

any meaningful sliver of overlap.

And it really was Hamilton

that had like a gravitational pull

that was sufficient to drag

those two universes together.

This is the growing up

that hip-hop needed.

The penultimate flag planting on the moon

for hip-hop culture.

Nobody else

is making Broadway shows going,

"You know what we gotta do?

We gotta drop a mixtape."

Like, you really have to be

a child of hip-hop to want to do that.

So what an accomplishment

to be able to create something

that can stand alone like that.

It's in a class by itself.

And what an important part of the legacy.

[Miranda] In my wildest dreams,

I never would've thought

hip-hop and musical theater

would become such good friends

in the wake of the show.

But because of Hamilton,

there's now this conversation.

[Nas] Lin is a part of us,

he's a part of hip-hop.

He joined in the army.

And because of the mixtape,

we're all gonna be pieces

of this positive change

that Hamilton brought to the world.

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