![]() ![]() When George Washington introduces himself, he says he is “The model of a modern major general/ the venerated Virginian veteran whose men are all/ Lining up, to put me on a pedestal.” Miranda has called this, with typical hip-hop braggadocio, an improvement on Gilbert and Sullivan’s own patter song from The Pirates of Penzance, saying, “ I always felt like ‘mineral’ wasn’t the best possible rhyme.” Similarly, when Aaron Burr cautions his contemporaries against joining the revolution, he says, “I’m with you but the situation is fraught/ You’ve got to be carefully taught,” quoting from South Pacific. ![]() There are also Miranda’s winking allusions to Broadway. Of course, not all the references are to rap and R&B. ![]() And there’s also its referentiality: The show borrows liberally but always makes sure to pay tribute to hip-hop’s own forefathers. There’s the show’s casting, which has America’s founding fathers played by people of color. There’s the way the musical, about the immigrant and founding father Alexander Hamilton, tells the Jay Z-, Biggie-, or Nas–like story of how one man used his way with words to rise up from the bottom. ![]() There are many ways in which Lin-Manuel Miranda’s groundbreaking new musical Hamilton is quintessentially hip-hop, and many of them don’t have a thing to do with rapping or beats. ![]()
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