Jan 3, 2019
one last time again [x x x x x x x]
seen from Singapore
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seen from Azerbaijan
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one last time again [x x x x x x x]
!llmind at work [x x x]
Lin-Manuel Miranda Taps Hip-Hop’s Biggest Names for ‘The Hamilton Mixtape (XXL):
Musical theater isn’t the first thing rappers typically enjoy during their downtime, yet one man has enticed many of hip-hop’s best and brightest to head to Broadway. Lin-Manuel Miranda, an esteemed actor and playwright with his own rap history, has welcomed the likes of Kanye West, Eminem, André 3000, Questlove, Busta Rhymes and Rick Rubin into the Richard Rodgers Theatre to experience Hamilton: An American Musical, a rap-driven look at the rise and fall of U.S. Founding Father and the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.
[. . .]
You tapped Chance The Rapper for “Dear Theodosia (Reprise).” What’s the story behind that collaboration?
He just had his first child; you know, he just had his daughter, so, he’s like “This is the only song I wanna do.” And we’re like “Great!” That’s kinda what this is about. It’s not about tryna fit anyone in any role. I obviously made suggestions to some artists thinking they might be a nice fit for the song but then they get absolute freedom after they say yes.
With Chance, we already had another version of “Dear Theodosia”—a really beautiful version by Regina Spektor and Ben Folds. I was like, Well that’s gonna be totally different from a Chance version so just put ’em both on [the mixtape]. I also think having them both on speaks to how different artists can make a song feel totally different. That’s really cool. That’s what we do in hip-hop when we flip a sample and suddenly this song that was about this thing also speaks to this song.
[. . .]
I’m learning from all these guys. I’m the novice when it comes to this mixtape. I’m here to learn when it comes to watching these MCs. I will never forget watching Joell Ortiz lay down a verse flawlessly and then do his own hype track, do that second layer of vocals where you kind of emphasize the cadences on certain words. No one teaches you how to do that. That’s called being an MC and you just learn from watching the best to do it. So, I watch these guys a lot of times and soak up everything I could. When it comes to writing musicals I’ve done enough that I could be called an expert but when it comes to making magic, like making these magic hip-hop tracks, I’m just getting started. So I really felt more like the student than anything.
Hamilton has had overwhelming success since it began. Why do you think the hip-hop aspect and the story combined resonate with people?
Well, one, I think everything works if it comes from a place of love. And I don’t mean that like in some highfalutin, love will heal the world way. I mean that in a very for real, you can’t listen to Hamilton, if you’re a hip-hop fan, and not hear the million little homages and references to the culture and to how much I love it. I think the fact that I come from a lifetime of studying it and just trying to honor it; in a lot of ways, it’s my love letter to hip-hop. It’s my love letter to musical theater. Two genres that don’t meet but I love them for the same reasons because they tell stories and help us transcend and put us in someone else’s life for a few minutes. I think that’s why people respond to the musical aspect of it because I just think they sense the care with which it’s done.
You thought about certain rappers while writing the musical. Who were some of those?
Hercules Mulligan, Busta is the clearest one. I just heard the syllables, Hercules Mulligan, and I immediately wanted to hear Busta Rhymes saying those words because I think he’s got one of the greatest voices in hip-hop. That’s immediately where my mind went. And then Hercules, I just look at him like this invincible dude. Hercules resonated with me and him.
The other thing it was very sort of deliberate. When you write a musical, the good ones that I like anyway, you’re assigning musical feel to different characters. When this person walks in a room, the music changes to feel like this. When this person is having a fight, the music changes to reflect that. I wanted to extend that to the flows and cadences of the founders. For me, Hamilton himself, he’s in the Rakim line of MCs. He’s the guy who’s spitting polysyllabic, rhyming seven syllables on a line while everyone else is going “I’m John Lawrence in the place to be.” For me, when he starts spitting it has to be like it’s from the future. Let me just contrast that with George Washington. He’s a military dude. He came up through the military. So his flow is much more on the beat and regimented than Hamilton’s, which will go over the line break to make the rhyme work.
Was there anyone that came to see the musical that surprised you?
That’s a good question. It was amazing to meet André 3000. I grew up in New York in the 1990s. I think my influences reflect that. I think you can hear New York 1990s all over. I also think that André 3000 is one of the best living MCs. One of the best MCs ever, ever, ever. He and Big Boi redefined the game and redefined what hip-hop could be.
So, it was an honor after the show. That was an unexpected one and a real honor for me. He loved the show. I had a funny experience with him. He met me. He said, “Congratulations. You were great in the show.” And I met him and thanked him for coming. And then I left, I had other guests and then [Hamilton actor] Chris Jackson grabbed me back and said, “André wants to meet you again. He didn’t realize you wrote [Hamilton] too.” Then I went back and had a longer conversation about the writing and that was great.
read more about the origins of the Mixtape, party-time with Ashanti & Ja Rule & more in the full interview
'Hamilton Mixtape' Producer !llmind Talks Teaming With Lin-Manuel Miranda & Hints at Unreleased Material (Billboard):
[. . .]
How would you describe Lin's hip-hop knowledge? Lin is like a hip-hop dictionary. He's one of the few cats I've met that literally knows everything about hip-hop from the super underground stuff to the current stuff. And then he's just a genius when it comes to writing and poetry so like he's super hip to the lyricists, what they meant and certain hidden meanings behind lyrics. He's like a living breathing Genius.com when it comes to hip-hop. I super respect it. When you look at Hamilton and you listen to the lyrics, when you see the play, you can see whoever wrote that stuff was really deep and knowledgeable. That's just who he is. What was your first reaction to the play? The play was amazing. I understood why people loved it. I think it was an amazing introduction of hip-hop to that demographic because a lot of people that [watch the play] aren't hip-hop listeners. I think it opened up the culture of hip-hop to that demographic in a really, really cool way, an educational way, and an entertaining way. The play was amazing. The production value, the writing and the music -- the whole thing was crazy. What was the vision Lin really wanted per your conversations and working with him in those early stages? I think the vision was to take what made the play great, and those concepts and those philosophies in the play and sort of bridge that gap between hip-hop and urban listeners and Hamilton fans and supporters. Taking popular themes from the play and then creating brand-new songs without going too far left, without losing the beauty of the original music. When you throw in superstars to perform the songs, you can't really go wrong. I think the goal was to try and breathe new life into the music without taking away too much.
Artists from different genres contributed to the mixtape. Did you recommend certain collaborations to Lin? There are a handful of really crazy collaborations that are in the pipeline. I can't say who, but he announced there was more coming. I don't know when [the songs will be released] but I know there's more music, and there's definitely more music that exists with some crazy collaborations. Then, you know, I have my own dream collaborators in my mind that I have yet to pitch to Lin, but we will see what happens. How did the "Take a Break" interlude come about? Back when we were working on The Hamilton Mixtape, this was probably late 2015, I got a phone call from Lin out of the blue. I was in the studio. He was like, "Hey !ll, I'm doing this #Ham4Ham contest and we have this amazing dancer that's going to dance for the people who are trying to get tickets and we need a beat for it. I have this song that I want you to remix, and I really want you to make a turnt-up version of it." I told Lin, "Hell yeah, I'll do it. Let me know when you need it and what you have in mind." So we got a couple ideas going back and forth and I literally just stopped what I was doing. I spent the next three to four hours working on the track and I sent it back and he was like, "Yo this crazy, I love it." So he actually ended up using it for one of the #Ham4Ham episodes on YouTube. He loved it so much that he decided to put it on the mixtape.
[. . .]
read more about !llmind’s process in the studio for the Mixtape... & check out the ham4ham show starring Lil Buck where the remix collaboration originated!
Mixtape liner notes -- & the previously shared demos of My Shot & Satisfied [x x x]
[. . .] *What were the sessions for the mixtape like? Any moments that stick out for you?* My sessions are pretty mellow. It was magical after hearing it all come together and hearing what my DJ J Period did to actually give it a more mixtape feel. So hearing it in its entirety as an actual "mixtape," that was a bit of a moment for me. It was pretty triumphant because there was a lot that we had put on hold over the last two years. We did work on a new Roots record, we have other projects that -- I wouldn't say we put them on the back burner -- but for lack of a better word we had to divide our attention in favor of the Hamilton projects. So doing the original cast recording, doing this mixtape album, it was a huge undertaking and lots of responsibility. It was a bit of a dance to navigate this and still work full time, still do shows, still maintain our personal brands and that sort of thing. *What was it like working with Lin on this project?* Lin is amazing to work with; he's brilliant as a writer, a performer, an MC, he's a great free-styler. But I think above all else, he's personable, he interacts with people well, he's likable. I feel like that likability is a quality that you rarely see in a genius; he's not high on himself, he's very humble. My go-to phrase to describe Lin is that he's a bright beacon of hope and brilliance. I've never seen him upset or irate or drop his cool, you know what I mean? I've never seen him less than enthusiastic about the amount of work he has to do or how hard it is. And I feel like that speaks volumes to his constitution as a person. He's just an honest-to-goodness good guy. And I think that works in his favor. *How did you approach your lyrical contributions to this project? Were you writing with the play in mind?* As in all things, I work in drafts, and I think the first couple drafts I had for the records that I appear on were more literal in that, yes, I was really, really trying to stick to the Hamilton narrative. But as some of the other music came together, I began to gain more freedom in the interpretation of Hamilton and the story. I just wanted to try different things. But every song that I write, I'll listen to what I have -- whether it's a line or a beat or a chorus or just an idea -- and I go over it again and again and again until it begins to come together. It might take two hours, it might take two years. *What do you think it is about Hamilton that makes it so culturally relevant now?* The language of the MC has become a universal dialect. People love a musical, people love hip-hop culture, and I feel like Hamilton was presented in a way that made hip-hop and rap lyrics easily accessible to people who may have before felt alienated or intimidated by the meat of a rhyme. I feel like Hamilton simplified it in a way that made these raps easily understandable for people from eight to 80. And I don't think that was an easy task. But I think that definitely is part of its appeal. And then also just the time in which it came to be. People love a story that has tragedy, triumph, a love triangle, history -- people love a story that's based on actual occurrences, and I feel like Hamilton kind of embodies all those things. *We were talking about the aspirational aspect of the play; that seems to be the through-line of your verse on "My Shot." Is that what you were trying to get across?* Absolutely. What I was speaking to in my verse is perseverance and the fact that as people we're all just walking stories. Each person has a different narrative, so to speak, and the people that you interact with -- at its best -- you're able to walk away after that interaction having gained something positive, or being able to add something memorable that resonates to you and your story. So in all these different stories, you cross paths at certain points in time -- sometimes only once, sometimes you'll cross paths with someone a few different times -- but in my verse I spoke to not being defined by your back story or limited by what someone says your story statistically should be, if that makes any sense. *In the hook on "My Shot," you rap Lin's lyric, "I'm just like my country/ I'm young, scrappy and hungry." What does that line mean to you?* When it was written for the actual production, it personified the country. It was a young, new nation that was brave in that it was going into uncharted territory, but fearlessly and with a thirst for freedom and liberty. I feel like freedom, liberty, equality are sort of age-old desires and age-old gifts that sometimes we're able to achieve through the ages, and sometimes the struggle kind of continues. But that's what I feel the chorus is about. [. . .]
The Roots' Black Thought on Lin-Manuel Miranda, Perseverance & 'The Hamilton Mixtape' (Billboard)
SAY YES TO THIS [x x x]
"I went to see the show with my boyfriend, who’s an actor, and I was incredibly moved, as was everyone else around us. Because my boyfriend is in the theater community he got us backstage, and we met the cast, including Lin. My boyfriend introduced me to Lin as, 'This is my girlfriend, Ingrid' and -- this is the stalker in me-- I knew Lin followed me on Twitter, so he knew who I was, but I wasn’t sure if he was going to recognize me. So he shook my hand, and then he got this look in his eye and he was like, 'Wait a minute... Ingrid... Michaelson?' I became so shy because I had just seen his masterpiece. But he was like, 'I love your music!' We took some pictures together, and a few days later I recorded this 15-second clip of Hamilton’s finale song and posted it on Instagram. Hamilton retweeted it, and Lin said he loved it! A few weeks later, he was like, 'I have an idea. I want you to write the topline for the song on this Hamilton Mixtape I’m making. You inspired me with the clip you posted online.' Thank God I posted that little clip on Instagram! This is the coolest thing to be a part of. Common, The Roots and Ingrid Michaelson? One of these things is not like the other! "This mixtape reflects such a great variety. Some are straight-up covers, some are reinterpretations. Ours is a track that’s based off of 'Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story,' and Common is rapping and I wrote the chorus that’s peeking in between the rap. It was an interesting task, because I had to write my own thing but kind of use the words that already existed. It’s all been very hush-hush -- I wasn’t allowed to send the song to anybody. I can’t believe I’m a part of this. It’s way cooler than I’ll ever be."
Ingrid Michaelson, 5 'Hamilton Mixtape' Collaborators on Lin-Manuel Miranda's Genius & Remixing History (Billboard)
see the rest of the story to hear Aloe Blacc, Watsky, Dessa & Stro Elliot tell it