STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Many years ago, the playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda needed a break. He went on vacation. He went looking for a book to buy and picked up a thick one by Ron Chernow about a historical character whose story he vaguely knew.
LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA: I know this ends in a duel, so this should be fun to read.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
MIRANDA: And by the end of the second chapter, it was becoming a musical in my head.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALEXANDER HAMILTON")
MIRANDA: (As Alexander Hamilton, singing) Alexander Hamilton. My name is Alexander Hamilton, and there's a million things I haven't done. Just you wait. Just you wait.
INSKEEP: The book became the basis for the musical "Hamilton," which premiered on Broadway in New York 10 years ago today. It was the story of an orphan, immigrant and revolutionary soldier who became the United States' first treasury secretary.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MY SHOT")
MIRANDA: (As Alexander Hamilton, rapping) I am not throwing away my shot. I am not throwing away my shot.
INSKEEP: A multiracial cast played the Founding Fathers, who sang and often rapped on stage. The characters argued about abstract notions of finance and more visceral things from ambition to adultery. "Hamilton" became a yearslong phenomenon, and as the 10th anniversary approached, its writer told me how he came to relate to the title character.
MIRANDA: Hamilton was a very gifted writer, and there's this hurricane that destroys the Caribbean's Nevis and St. Croix, where he's working as a clerk. And he writes an account of how scary the hurricane was. When I got to that part, I went, oh, he's an MC. Because what are our favorite hip-hop MCs, if not chroniclers of their own struggle and their own surroundings? And they write about them so vividly that they transcend their circumstances, whether that is Jay-Z with Marcy Projects, whether that's Lil Wayne in New Orleans. Like, that's what the best MCs do.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RIGHT HAND MAN")
MIRANDA: (As Alexander Hamilton, singing) As a kid in the Caribbean, I wished for a war. I knew that I was poor. I knew it was the only way to rise up. If they tell my story, I am...
And so the notion of hip-hop and Hamilton, like, came to me early, and then the thesis kept proving itself over the course of reading Ron's book.
INSKEEP: There's a video from well before "Hamilton" got on stage, where you were invited to the White House, and you perform a little bit of what you're working on, and you mention this connection between Hamilton and rap. And people laugh.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MIRANDA: I'm actually working on a hip-hop album. It's a concept album about the life of someone, I think, embodies hip-hop - Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.
(LAUGHTER)
MIRANDA: You laugh, but it's true.
By the way, I - like, the chutzpah of me to premiere something new at the White House (laughter).
INSKEEP: Workshopping a little bit of material, yeah.
MIRANDA: But I also figured, like, if it doesn't work in this room, no one's going to get it, and I should put it in the bin.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS #1: (As characters, singing) I wanna be in the room where it happens.
LESLIE ODOM JR: (As Aaron Burr, singing) I wanna be.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS #1: (As characters, singing) Where it happens.
ODOM: (As Aaron Burr, singing) I wanna be.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS #1: (As characters, singing) Where it happens.
ODOM: (As Aaron Burr, singing) And I've got to be.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS #1: (As characters, singing) I wanna be in the room where it happens.
ODOM: (As Aaron Burr, singing) I've got to be in the room.
INSKEEP: I can express what the casting of this performance means to me, but what did it mean to you to cast it in the way that you did?
MIRANDA: It follows from the impulse of the style of music this was going to be. Even when I was reading the book for the first time, I was never picturing the guys on our money. I was picturing who's the best emcee to express the way in which Ron describes George Washington. Hercules Mulligan is the best emcee name I never heard.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
MIRANDA: Surely, Busta Rhymes could go by this moniker, and I wrote that in the style of Busta Rhymes.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YORKTOWN (THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN")
MIRANDA: (As Alexander Hamilton, rapping) We had a spy on the inside. That's right.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS #2: (As characters, singing) Hercules Mulligan.
OKIERIETE ONAODOWAN: (As Hercules Mulligan, rapping) A tailor spying on the British government. I take their measurements, information and then I smuggle it.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS #2: (As characters, singing) Up.
ONAODOWAN: (As Hercules Mulligan, rapping) To my brother's revolutionary covenant, I'm running with the Sons of Liberty, and I am loving it.
MIRANDA: I was always trying to match sort of vibe to character.
INSKEEP: What it ends up saying to me in modern times is that everybody in this country can look at that story and claim that story, no matter what your race is, no matter when your family may have gotten here or how it's your story, you can own it.
MIRANDA: Absolutely. And that we are all living in the country that these people built, and they were people.
INSKEEP: I want to talk about the way that "Hamilton" then proceeded through time. In 2020, when there was so much focus on racial justice, some people turned on "Hamilton." There was this criticism that slavery was minimized, that an actual Black character was not emphasized, even though there were black actors playing some of the roles. What was that like?
MIRANDA: Well, it wasn't so much that they turned on him. It was that we made the decision to release "Hamilton" on streaming.
INSKEEP: I remember watching it, yeah.
MIRANDA: And it wasn't so much that people turned on it, it was that the criticisms were as loud as the applause. So I went back to therapy, which was great (laughter). But, you know, I think that what I said then is still true, which is, I am more aware than anybody of what is not in this show (laughter). All kinds of stories that are important stories that need to be told. And I have 2 1/2 hours of people's time in a musical.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHAT COMES NEXT?")
JONATHAN GROFF: (As King George, singing) What comes next, you've been freed. Do you know how hard it is to lead?
MIRANDA: I always laugh a little bit when I read really smart think pieces about how "Hamilton" is so dated now. It's an Obama-era musical. And I was kind of like, listen, the show "Hamilton" didn't change 'cause you lost hope in our country (laughter). All musicals sort of live differently in different eras. And I think different things hit at different moments.
INSKEEP: What do you think is hitting now?
MIRANDA: Immigrants - we get the job done is getting lusty cheers in a time when immigrants, documented and undocumented, are under direct attack.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YORKTOWN (THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN")
DAVEED DIGGS: (As Marquis de Lafayette) Monsieur Hamilton.
MIRANDA: (As Alexander Hamilton) Monsieur Lafayette.
DIGGS: (As Marquis de Lafayette, singing) In command, where you belong.
MIRANDA: (As Alexander Hamilton, singing) How you say, no sweat. We're finally on the field. We've had quite a run.
DIGGS: (As Marquis de Lafayette, singing) Immigrants...
LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA AND DAVEED DIGGS: (As Alexander Hamilton and Marquis de Lafayette, singing) We get the job done.
INSKEEP: Do you think that you would write it any differently today, either because the country has changed or because you have?
MIRANDA: I don't know. I think that writing musicals is hard. I felt like a mosquito that hit an artery. There's just so much here. And I actually got a great bit of advice from a mentor of mine, John Weidman, who wrote "Pacific Overtures," he wrote "Assassins." Two great history musicals. And the advice he gave me was no piece of art can get it all. So just start writing the songs that attracted you to this as a musical in the first place, and that'll form its own spine. And anything that doesn't line up with that doesn't make the show. Ben Franklin doesn't make the show.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
MIRANDA: He was pretty important.
INSKEEP: Well, Lin-Manuel Miranda, thanks for the time and congratulations on 10 years of "Hamilton."
MIRANDA: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MY SHOT")
MIRANDA: (As Alexander Hamilton, rapping) Yo, I'm just like my country. I'm young, scrappy and hungry, and I'm not throwing away my shot. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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