The ‘peculiar’ idea for a rap album that became a global musical hit
Few would have guessed a crazy idea for a concept album of rap songs based on the life of a mostly ignored architect of the American Constitution would morph into one of the most heralded and critically acclaimed musicals of our generation.
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History is a funny beast — you never quite know what’s going to be written into its books ... until it is.
Few would have guessed a crazy idea for a concept album of rap songs based on the life of a mostly ignored architect of the American Constitution would morph into one of the most heralded and critically acclaimed musicals of our generation.
But here we are and Hamilton — the story of inaugural US Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton — has earned its place in the history books.
Hamilton is the brainchild of musical genius Lin Manuel Miranda, who dreamed up the idea after reading the 2004 Ron Cherno biography of the Founding Father while on holiday.
Even the show’s first musical director Alex Lacamoire wasn’t sure his friend was serious when he first mentioned the idea.
“I couldn’t tell if Lin was being tongue-in-cheek about it,” he tells Insider from his New York home where he is in lockdown with his family.
“It just seemed so peculiar to pair hip-hop with American history, it just didn’t seem like a natural fit but clearly Lin Manuel saw something that not everybody else did.”
Lacamoire, who has won three Tony awards, three Grammys and an Emmy for his orchestration and soundtrack production, says people couldn’t quite grasp the idea when he started working on the musical.
“ When I would explain this show to people when we were working on it, there were many who would squint their eyes and be like ‘ah ha’ and you could tell they just couldn’t quite picture it,” he laughs. “Some people would go so far as to say ‘that’s a terrible idea’.”
He says even now after all the awards, the sold out shows across the globe and the millions of downloaded songs from the production, people still don’t grasp the concept. And he totally gets that.
“You can’t really understand what Hamilton is until you see Hamilton,” he explains. “It’s because no one has done this before, there’s no precedent for it.”
But audiences have been taking up the challenge to find out exactly what it’s all about in record numbers. The show, which has been on Broadway for five years and is coming to the Sydney Lyric Theatre next March, has crashed through the $1 billion revenue mark, according to Forbes estimates, making it one of the fastest — and one of a select few — to that milestone.
Lacamoire, who has also worked on Broadway hits such as Dear Evan Hansen and In The Heights, (with music and lyrics also from Manuel) — and on the soundtrack for The Greatest Showman — will oversee the music for the Sydney run.
* Hamilton tickets on sale September 1, sydneylyric.com.au