Hamilton and Hip-Hop

When most people think of Broadway musicals, they almost always think of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Stephen Sondheim. Big productions with gorgeous sets, intricate costumes, and singers that could seemingly propel their voices into the stratosphere.

That’s why never in a million years would I have ever expected the hottest show on Broadway—not to mention that hardest ticket to snag—would be a hip-hop musical.

There I was, though, sitting in the mezzanine of the Richard Rodgers Theater, waiting for Hamilton to begin. I looked around, and saw the makeup of the audience surrounding me. They were mainly white Baby Boomers. Sure, they might be the only people able to afford a ticket to this show (second-hand ticketing sites are charging over $1000 a pop for even the worst seats in the house), but it made me proud to see a crowd of white sexagenarians as excited as I was to see this hyped-to-the-max show.

Two and a half hours later, nearly every single one of them was giving the performers a standing ovation. Walking out of the theater, I heard raves from countless people, young and old.

It was then when I realized what had happened: hip-hop had broken through.

Don’t get me wrong; hip-hop has been a huge part of American culture since it became mainstream in the 1980s thanks to acts such as Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys, but while the youth may have loved it, it was always the older generations who despised it. And it still exists now; Geraldo Rivera claimed that hip hop has done “more damage to young African-Americans than racism in recent years.” Sean Hannity complained that Walmart were pulling Confederate flag adorned merchandise by asking why the big chain wasn’t doing the same to rap music. (His exact quote: “If it’s OK for Obama’s teenage daughters and people to go into these stores and buy music chock full of the N-word, the B-word, well maybe we should consider banning that too.”) Bill O'Reilly blamed rap for the decline of organized religion—but don’t me started about Bill-O and hip-hop… let’s just say the man is clueless about it.

(Everything above happened in 2015, by the way.)

But here comes a spoken-through musical about a founding father of the United States, featuring a multicultural cast that included a Hispanic Hamilton, a black Jefferson, Burr, and Washington, and an Asian Mrs. Hamilton. For an enthralling two and a half hours, they gave us the story of our first Secretary of the Treasury; an immigrant who was one of the very first instances of what people would call the American Dream.

And the key demographic of the people showing up to see it are the same key demographic for people like O’Reilly and Hannity.

That’s why I think that this show is the perfect introduction to anyone who either has never heard hip-hop before, or straight up doesn’t like the genre—regardless of the reason.

Their minds and hearts opened up to what they saw and heard on that stage. Add the affability of The Roots as the house band on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and it could really be seen as a truly American art form the way that jazz or blues are.

I’m not saying any of these theatergoers are going to head to underground hip-hop battles any time soon, but maybe—just maybe—they won’t switch the station the next time they hear a hip-hop song on the radio. They won’t claim that hip-hop is all “bitches and ho’s,” “drugs, guns, and money.”

If you believe that, I beg you to do everything you can to see this incredible piece of theater. And when you’re done, here are some great starting places to see hip-hop isn’t always gangsta. It can actually say something about the world.

And oddly enough, it starts with a Broadway show.