(no subject)

[cahn]

You guys, I've been listening to Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton cast recording basically nonstop today and it is AMAZING. I don't even understand how a hip-hop rap musical about Alexander Hamilton even got MADE, but it DID and I don't even known anything about either hip-hop or Hamilton and it is completely awesome and I have been tearing up a little over it (though maybe that is breastfeeding hormones), and I just went and reserved the Chernow biography from the library. (Miranda apparently read the Chernow biography on vacation and thought, wow, that would make a great hip-hop musical! AND THEN HE WROTE IT. How cool is that?!)

Link here, I suspect it's only good until Sept 25, when the recording becomes available. ETA: Link is still good. Also, Amazon Prime is streaming it free for Prime members.

I want to see this so badly!

ETA: CABINET DEBATES AS RAP BATTLES. GREATEST THING EVER.

Comments

[luzula]

All I know about Alexander Hamilton I learned from this fic. Which apparently means I think he had magical powers and slept with George Washington.

[cahn]

...wow. That is amazing, thanks!

[luzula]

Happy to share! : )

[yohjideranged]

I know! This is like one of the more amazing things I have heard about this year. I completely want to purchase the cast recording and I so want to see the production if it comes to my area.

ALL CABINET BATTLES SHOULD BE RAP BATTLES. YUP

[cahn]

YES THEY SHOULD.

The NPR link above is still up! And if you have Amazon prime they are streaming it for Prime members as well. (And I may have it on preorder too, but anyway. :) )

[ambyr]

Am now wishing I had seen this last weekend instead of the rather "meh" Fun Home. Oh well. More reasons to plan future trips to NYC!

[cahn]

If it makes you feel any better, I saw somewhere that they were sold out until 2016 :P :) (er, not that I could go across the country right now anyway... but if the tour ever comes here I AM GOING, darn it)

(K)

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you! Also, I got nothing done last night because I was listening to this. But the dirty dishes and unfinished code were worth it :)

We keep saying that we need to go to New York to visit B's cousins -- this might be the tipping point :)

Re: (K)

[cahn]

I'm glad you like it! I was wondering whether you would -- it doesn't seem like your sort of thing, but then again it doesn't seem like my sort of thing either. I don't think I've been as excited about a musical since... since middle school??

I actually find it really great to do housework to, at least now that I'm on my third listen so I know what the plot is :)

Re: (K)

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I did housework for a full listen-through today -- Now that I've sorted out who is singing and exactly what's happening, it's great for housework. Thursday night I was just transfixed and couldn't focus. But I still can't do technical work while listening to it (I was working through this puzzle about modular arithmetic and bitwise XOR -- and no way could I keep listening).

I think it's your thing and mine because it's nerdy and extremely catchy. I'm not sure I'll really pick up the spoken words, but I keep hearing "my shot" and King George's theme (I know, the least hip-hop part, and stolen wholesale from ... something else?) in my head. (Have you seen the video of of Miranda performing the opening number at the White House? He's clearly playing up the nerdiness.)

I'm bummed that it's too adult/crude to play in the car with D. But I pre-ordered a copy of the CD for my brother -- I'm hoping he doesn't find out about it before the CD arrives on his doorstep in a few weeks.

B called it out for cultural appropriation and for not living up to the speed, wit, and complex rhythms of good hip hop, which I suppose is fair. And of course, it's still heavy on traditional musical-style music as well.

Re: (K)

[cahn]

Yeah, I can't do proper technical work at all while listening to this. The last couple of days at work I've been listening to it while chasing down software bugs and doing relatively mindless project management stuff, and still I had to turn it off sometimes.

I can pick up a lot of the rap-style spoken words (which is rare for me) but only if I turn up the volume pretty high. I have seen that video! I do kind of get the idea that Miranda is a bit of a nerd :)

I, uh, have totally been playing this in the car with E and A. Though partially because I'm pretty sure E can't follow any of the words at all (and I'd like her to be able to).

I... don't agree with B at all, actually. I think it's cultural fusion (with Broadway/musical traditions and others) rather than appropriation (...also, can it be appropriation if Miranda is actually from that culture?), and I see this as a strength rather than a weakness. (It's also riffing off of not only hip-hop, rap, and musicals, but also pop traditions, I think; I think King George is supposed to be Beatles-ish parody.) It can't be any faster than this to be sung in a large-auditorium venue where the words generally need to be understandable (...I don't, as I said, know anything about hip-hop, but I don't think it's generally performed in large resonant auditoriums?) and in addition, I don't find the rap parts all that different from the rap I used to listen to (although of course a lot of that was twenty years ago).

I might also be biased because I can't follow anything faster than Hamilton is sung. I've tried several times, for example, to listen to Janelle Monae's SF hip-hop, which a lot of people think is totally awesome, but I just can't even make out the words at all and it makes me lose interest halfway through one song.

I also would love good examples of the wit of good hip-hop. To me this is incredibly witty (how can you not think a song called Farmer Refuted isn't witty??), but then I haven't been exposed to much hip-hop.

(Or is B complaining about using hip-hop to tell the story of Old Dead White Guys? See, personally, I think the fact that there's a Hispanic playing Hamilton and a black guy playing Jefferson, singing a mix of styles drawn from several different places, is fantastic and an awesome way to reclaim this history as vibrant and relevant to those of us who don't happen to be white, while still acknowledging that, hey, these guys did some amazing things. /poc-pov)

Re: (K)

[cahn]

Ha, I am having trouble letting go of this. On yet another re-listen I am just so puzzled by how B can think that it doesn't have speed and wit and complexity. I mean -- has B listened to "Guns and Ships"? Because I just don't see how you could get more speed and wit and complexity than that. (I also can't understand practically anything Lafayette says -- heck, I dont' think I can even *talk* that fast -- but it doesn't matter so much because he's such a great character, he's got few enough lines that I can infer from what's surrounding it, and the things I can understand are so awesome. ("No one else has my resilience/or matches my practical tactical brilliance!")

And that's laying aside the genius of the genre mixing as characterization (like the hip-hop styles of the Americans as a disruptive counterpoint to the slower pop/musical British styles -- literally disruptive in "Farmer Refuted" -- and the older jazzy styles of Jefferson, who was older than Hamilton) which is amazing, I've never heard anything else quite like it.

But again, if B has examples of hip-hop that even match Hamilton in wit, much less are better, I would love to know because clearly I should be listening to it! :)