L-Manuel Miranda is an actor, composer, writer, Pulitzer Prize winner, Grammy winner, Tony winner, hip-hop icon, and MacArthur Fellowship recipient… and he’s only 37-years-old. Oh, I forgot to mention he’s also the genius behind "Hamilton: An American Musical," no big deal.
There are many, many, many reasons to love Lin-Manuel; his freestyle, his activism for the Puerto Rican debt crisis and women’s rights, the sonnet he wrote for his wife at last year’s Tony Awards (“love is love is love is love”), and his score for "Moana" to name a few, but the reason I admire Lin-Manuel as much as I do is honestly because of "Hamilton." It is brilliant.
The first time I heard about "Hamilton," I was in my Shakespeare class and we were listening to a short snippet of “Take A Break” which goes “…My dearest Angelica, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty face from day to day, I trust you’ll understand the reference to another Scottish tragedy without my having to name the play.” We had just read "Macbeth," of course, which is my favorite play by Shakespeare. I became interested in the lyrics of the song immediately and downloaded the whole album, which is two hours and 22 minutes long. I listened to it all the way from Morgantown to Fayetteville, West Virginia and I immediately knew that I would never be the same (oh). I had heard that it was a hip-hip musical, but I expected cheesy "High School Musical" songs, but Lin-Manuel’s rhymes are FUNKY! They are so easy to vibe to, and the voices match their characters perfectly. The fast beats of the rap songs accompanied by variations of the same introduction make it impossible for you not to close your eyes and rock to the drums. (Fun Fact: The "Hamilton" soundtrack was the first Broadway album to reach #1 on the Billboard Rap Charts). "Hamilton" quickly became all I wanted to listen to, my friends know most of the songs just because I play them constantly.
When you listen to the songs as much as I have, you begin to notice the interesting tricks and word-play Miranda used when writing the lyrics to "Hamilton," which makes the English major in me giddy beyond belief. Lin-Manuel is seriously so talented. Take the lyrics to “Alexander Hamilton," for example. “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore, and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar? The ten-dollar founding father without a father got a lot farther by working a lot harder, by being a lot smarter, by being a self-starter by fourteen…” In the first seven lines alone there is internal rhyme, alliteration, repetition, not to mention how perfectly every syllable fits together- this is not just a song, it is one of the most intricate pieces of poetry I have ever read.
Lin-Manuel Miranda said that he made "Hamilton" a hip-hop musical because Alexander Hamilton’s life could be compared to that of Tupac and his rise to the top from nothing. In writing the songs with a rap influence, Lin-Manuel made the characters and the history more personal. Their stories stay with us and the listener, no matter who they are, can place themselves into the shoes of a founding father. The last two lines of “Alexander Hamilton” are Aaron Burr asking Hamilton “What’s your name, man?” and the company of "Hamilton" answering in unison “Alexander Hamilton!” We are all Hamilton.
