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Lin-Manuel Miranda Opened Up About ‘Hamilton’, His Musical History And Hip-Hop Influences

By Jonathan Franks
Published on: 15:59 PST, May 8, 2016

Actor and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda is bound to dominate the Tony Awards later this year.

With a whopping 16 nominations, Miranda’s hit Broadway musical Hamilton has taken the world by storm – making waves in the worlds of film, literature and music as well.

Long before the blockbuster success of Hamilton led to a vast number of Tony nominations, Lin-Manuel Miranda opened up to GrantLand about his love for hip-hop, his history with musicals and the overall development of Hamilton.

One of the most significant aspects of the interview was when Lin-Manuel Miranda shared his admiration and appreciation for another Broadway hit – Rent.

Miranda claimed that the popular musical (and longtime fan favorite) was a major source of inspiration for his writing career.

“Rent was the show that made me want to write. Or that showed me you’re allowed to write.”

Miranda further explained that the first two musicals he wrote while attending high school sounded just like Rent. He mentioned that there were no Latin elements added to either of those productions – something that may surprise fans of In the Heights, a play which had such a strong Latin presence.

According to Lin-Manuel Miranda, the lack of Latin culture in those two high school musicals had nothing to do with humiliation. At that time, he claims that he did not bring anything from his home life into his writing.

“It wasn’t out of shame or embarrassment, I just didn’t bring anything from home to what I was writing. It was just like, ‘This is for high school and I’m writing about high school s–t.’ So one of them was about an unchaperoned party and I think I gave one of the kids a Latino last name. But they were all white Jewish kids playing the parts in the show.”

Miranda went on to state that his high school musicals “were some of the perfect storms that led to ‘In the Heights.'”

Longtime fans of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s work are more than likely not surprised about his admiration for Jonathan Larson’s hit play Rent.

In honor of the play’s 20th year, Miranda even performed a tribute to the popular musical with his Hamilton cast.

Lin-Manuel Miranda apparently found his stride when it came to the authenticity of his original writing. With the overall success of In the Heights, many Broadway fans and critics wondered where he would go next and what would be his next move. However. chances are that not very many people expected Miranda to blow everyone away with a hip-hop play based on the life of Alexander Hamilton.

Unlike Rent, Hamilton is known for its overall musical flow and catchy lyrics – especially since there is very little dialogue in the play at all. When asked about the lack of dialogue in the play, Miranda explained the behind-the-scenes journey that led to the overall decision to focus more on the music.

According to Miranda, there was actually another version of the show’s first act that included songs and dialogue.

“We actually went down the road with a playwright. There’s a version of Act 1 where we had songs and they were the songs that are in the show, but we found that if you start with our opening number, you can’t go back to speech. The ball is thrown too high in the air. So then the challenge for me became, ‘How do I write scenes that still have this hip-hop feel?'”

Miranda claimed that he would listen to Jay-Z’s Friend or Foe on a continuous loop for inspiration. Lin-Manuel Miranda also stated that “that’s where growing up with hip-hop actually comes in handy, because we know it contains everything.” According to Miranda, the same level of conversational tone that was found in Jay-Z music during the Reasonable Doubt era of his career is what he wanted to recreate for scenes in Hamilton in order to take those songs to the next level.

With the rave reviews from fans and critics alike, Lin-Manuel Miranda has definitely made his impact on the Broadway stage. This type of monumental impact will likely inspire many other up-and-coming playwrights the same way that Jonathan Larson inspired Miranda with Rent 20 years ago.

[Image Credit: Matthew Eisman/Getty Images]

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