American Songbook’s Lin-Manuel Miranda in The New York Times
Photo by The Lindler Studio, LLC, 2011
He’s Taking the ’Hood to the 1700’s
By ERIK PIEPENBURG
Published: January 6, 2012
“WHY hasn’t anyone done a hip-hop version of Alexander Hamilton’s life?” Lin-Manuel Miranda wondered aloud recently. ”It’s a hip-hop story. It’s Tupac.”
Sure, both men’s lives were marked by boastfulness, torrid sexual exploits and gun duels. But it takes a cultural omnivore like Mr. Miranda, the Tony-winning creator of “In the Heights,” probably the most successful merging of Broadway and rap to date, to bring them together.
On Wednesday excerpts from “The Hamilton Mixtape,” Mr. Miranda’s hip-hop song cycle based on the life of the country’s first Secretary of the Treasury, will open the latest edition of Lincoln Center’s annual American Songbook series. It will be Mr. Miranda’s most high-profile stage performance since he returned to Broadway last January for the closing weeks of “In the Heights.” (The show won four Tony Awards in 2008, including best musical and best score for Mr. Miranda.)
Since then Mr. Miranda — composer and lyricist, proud son of the Inwood section of Manhattan, American history buff — has been at work on projects that take him pretty far from the old neighborhood, work that he chronicles religiously on Twitter and YouTube.
“Twitter is really the worst possible thing for performers,” he said with a laugh. ”It’s an audience whenever you want. None of us got enough hugs.”
(Read the rest of The New York Times article here.)
