Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis’ ‘Warriors' Concept Album

Summary

All Of It: Lin-Manuel Miranda and Issa Davis’ ‘Warriors’ Concept Album

Podcast Information:

• Title: All Of It
• Host: Alison Stewart
• Producer: WNYC
• Description: All Of It delves into the intricate layers of culture and its consumers, engaging thinkers, creators, and doers to explore the what and why behind their work. Building a community around diverse perspectives, the show celebrates the myriad cultural expressions that make New York City vibrant.

Episode Overview: In this episode of All Of It, host Alison Stewart engages in an in-depth conversation with renowned playwright and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda and his collaborator, Issa Davis, about their latest project—a concept album inspired by the cult classic 1979 film The Warriors. This innovative album reimagines the story with a female-centric perspective, blending various musical genres to capture the essence of New York City's diverse cultural landscape in the late 1970s.

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Introduction to the ‘Warriors’ Concept Album

[00:17] Alison Stewart introduces the episode by drawing parallels between successful concept albums that transitioned into Broadway hits, such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Hadestown, and Hamilton. She highlights the potential for Warriors to follow a similar trajectory, emphasizing its roots in a beloved film and its unique twist—transforming the original male-dominated narrative into one centered on female warriors.

Notable Quote:

"Like the movie, this concept album is about a Coney Island gang who must fight their way back from the Bronx after they are framed for the murder of a respected gang leader. But in song, the warriors are women."
— Alison Stewart [00:17]

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Origins and Inspirations

[03:17] Lin-Manuel Miranda discusses his initial reluctance to adapt The Warriors into a musical. Having watched the original film as a child, he viewed it as "untouchable" and was concerned about blending the action-heavy narrative with musical storytelling.

Notable Quote:

"I love writing for women's voices. You know, Encanto was like a masterclass in writing for lots of different women's voices."
— Lin-Manuel Miranda [03:17]

However, after completing Hamilton and overcoming the creative space it occupied, Miranda became intrigued by the idea of a gender-flipped version of The Warriors, which offered fresh and compelling narrative possibilities.

[04:30] Issa Davis explains her motivation to join the project, emphasizing her long-standing collaboration and aesthetic kinship with Miranda. She was particularly inspired by the film’s underlying message of peace, which she felt was abandoned in the original narrative.

Notable Quote:

"I wanted to see if there was a way that we could draw that idea through to the end. Not in a moralistic way, not in a way that was preaching, but just allowed for."
— Issa Davis [05:58]

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Musical and Cultural Context

[06:44] Miranda delves into the rich cultural tapestry of 1970s New York, highlighting the vibrant subcultures that influenced the era's music and social dynamics. He references the rise of salsa music through Fania Records in the South Bronx and the burgeoning ballroom culture depicted in Paris Is Burning.

[07:38] Issa Davis connects the album to the origins of hip hop, noting the explosive growth of the genre around the time The Warriors was released. She describes the album as both a homage to the film and a tribute to hip hop's roots.

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Creative Process and Musical Diversity

[09:25] Issa Davis discusses the collaborative nature of the album, emphasizing the importance of creating a sonic landscape that visually translates the narrative through lyrics and music. She highlights the seamless integration of different musical styles as a reflection of New York's multifaceted culture.

Notable Quote:

"We both have a dedication to diversity, period, you know, when it comes to our storytelling and representation."
— Issa Davis [15:00]

[15:56] Miranda elaborates on the eclectic musical influences, citing classical concept albums like Jesus Christ Superstar and hip hop projects such as De La Soul's works. He underscores the natural progression of their project within this tradition, ensuring that Warriors maintains a cohesive yet diverse musical identity.

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Collaborations and Contributions

[18:28] Miranda highlights the unique blend of Broadway talents and hip hop artists involved in the album. Collaborators include Nas, Billy Porter, Lauryn Hill, Philippa Soo, Amber Gray, Jasmine Cephas Jones, and Colman Domingo, among others. He shares anecdotes about bringing together diverse artists and the dynamic chemistry that ensued.

Notable Quote:

"When we heard them all singing together, we were like, oh, there's a thing happening. Like, there's a chemistry happening here."
— Lin-Manuel Miranda [19:03]

[24:55] The team also incorporates Bernie, the voice of the MTA, adding authenticity to the subway scenes in the album. Miranda expresses his appreciation for Bernie's contribution, which grounds the project in the real-life ambiance of New York's transit system.

Notable Quote:

"She makes us legit."
— Issa Davis [24:55]

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Sample Tracks and Themes

The episode features snippets from the album, providing listeners with a taste of its diverse soundscape. Alison Stewart plays excerpts from tracks like "Survive the Night," "Leave the Bronx Alive," "Quiet Girls," and "Still Breathing."

[08:31] Survive the Night sets the stage with the introduction of the female warriors, capturing the tension and resilience of the gang as they navigate the challenges in a male-dominated narrative.

[12:00] Leave the Bronx Alive exemplifies the musical storytelling, transitioning from slow salsa to fast-paced merengue to depict the warriors’ swift and intense journey.

[16:28] Quiet Girls is highlighted as a fan favorite, emphasizing queer representation and the empowering message of self-expression and resilience.

[19:55] Still Breathing delves into themes of survival and the struggle for peace, reflecting the album's overarching narrative of conflict and reconciliation.

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Future Prospects and Broadway Aspirations

[25:21] Miranda and Davis discuss the potential for Warriors to transition from a concept album to a stage show. While the primary focus has been on crafting the album, they express openness to adapting the project for Broadway, contingent on its reception and the creative process.

Notable Quote:

"We're definitely open to it."
— Issa Davis [25:27]

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Influences and Inspirations

[22:35] Miranda shares his early influences, including classic concept albums and influential artists like Jesus Christ Superstar, Ruben Blades' Maestra Vida, and De La Soul. These inspirations shaped the album's narrative depth and musical complexity.

Notable Quote:

"It's like a domino effect for us because we have a steady diet of it."
— Lin-Manuel Miranda [23:01]

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Conclusion

Alison Stewart wraps up the episode by reiterating the significance of the Warriors concept album as a cultural and artistic endeavor that celebrates diversity and storytelling. Miranda and Davis' collaborative effort not only pays homage to a beloved film but also reinvents it through a contemporary and inclusive lens, capturing the spirit of New York City's ever-evolving cultural landscape.

[25:48]

"That was my conversation with Lin Manuel Miranda and Issa Davis about their concept album the Warriors. And that's all of it for today. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I will meet you back here tomorrow."
— Alison Stewart [25:48]

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Key Takeaways:

• Reimagining a Classic: Warriors transforms the original male-centric narrative of the 1979 film into a powerful female-led story, adding depth and new perspectives.
• Musical Diversity: The album incorporates a wide range of musical genres, reflecting the rich cultural milieu of 1970s New York.
• Collaborative Synergy: The project brings together Broadway talents and hip hop artists, fostering a dynamic and innovative creative process.
• Cultural Representation: Emphasis on queer representation and underrepresented voices adds layers of meaning and relevance to the narrative.
• Future Aspirations: While the album stands as a significant artistic achievement, Miranda and Davis remain open to the possibility of expanding Warriors into a stage production.

The Warriors concept album exemplifies the power of collaborative creativity and cultural storytelling, reaffirming Lin-Manuel Miranda and Issa Davis' commitment to pushing artistic boundaries and celebrating diverse voices.

Transcript

[Alison Stewart]

Listener supported WNYC Studios.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. What do the albums Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and Hadestown have in common? They started as concept albums and became Broadway shows, even Hamilton. The mixtape started out as music but made its way to the stage. And if history repeats itself, Lin Manuel Miranda might soon have another hit musical on his hands. Lin Manuel, along with his collaborator Issa Davis, have taken on a cult classic film, 1979's the Warriors. Like the movie, this concept album is about a Coney island gang who must fight their way back from the Bronx after they are framed for the murder of a respected gang leader. But in song, the warriors are women. Here's a taste from the very first track. This is survive the night People of.

[Issa Davis]

New York Cruise of the city who.

[Alison Stewart]

Rule this madness at midnight There's a gathering after dark in Vancouver Park Hay bar Cyrus needs five burrows to see this through this means you hate barbers. The truce is gone no weapons but your fist she insist hey boppers, keep your radio tuned tight Every time you just right and you just might revive the night Come out to play Survive the armies of the night Come out to play Dog who's stepping bright for the Bron this is the sound of something being born on the ashes of the bronze the siren squeal and the car horn horns across the cross bronze and what the Bron wants is not a combative retaliatory response It's a renaissance mess telling the truth. Under represented youths and unprecedented truce crews.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Travel to the park and miracles can.

[Alison Stewart]

Happen when we gather in the dark Miracles can happen when we gather in.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

The dark warriors features collaborators like nas, Billy Porter, Ms. Lauryn Hill, and Broadway superstars like Philippa Sue, Amber Gray, Jasmine, Cephas Jones and more. It's available to stream now. Lin Manuel Miranda and Issa Davis joined me to discuss it. Here's our conversation. All right, Lynn, a friend emailed you with the idea for a Warriors musical and you said, I love the Warriors. It'll never work. Here's why. What were your reasons then and what made you decide to revisit the idea?

My reasons then were I first of all, I saw that movie when I was way too young to see it on a friend's vhs and it was just sort of inscribed on two stone tablets for me. I was just like, it's untouchable. And also I think the action moment movie part of it scared me was, you know, action movies and musicals are always fighting for the same storytelling. Real Estate. We're going to fight and. Or sing in various combinations over the course of the evening. And so. And then. But he incepted me, you know, thanks to Phil Weskren for sending me that email, because it was sort of bubbling in my head for a few years, and I finished Hamilton and I got on the other side of that whole experience, and then it was taking up all this real estate. And then I think another part that interested me was sort of when I mentally made the gender flip of the warriors as a female gang. It's such an agro testosterone movie that just recasting them suddenly made every plot point more interesting or compelling to write about. I love writing for women's voices. You know, Encanto was like a masterclass in writing for lots of different women's voices. And so I said, I need someone smarter and cooler than me to help me write this.

That would be Issa. Why did you say yes to this project?

[Issa Davis]

I mean, come, Lynn. Yes, that's number one. And, you know, this is someone that I have known for years. You know, we first met when Passing Strange and In the Heights were both off Broadway, and then came on Broadway 2007, 2008. And so we've just kind of been playing around in the same sandbox for a while. And, you know, we both have this deep aesthetic kinship when it comes to having a kind of hybridity of genre and bringing, you know, hip hop, and in Lynn's case, you know, all of the Latin traditional music onto the stage, places that they've never been. So I, of course, had to say, I wanna hang out with this person where it's never a half glassful, half empty. With Lin, it's like always a cup runneth over. And how do we share that with people? And I also was really stunned by the film. I'd actually never seen it, even though I'd known it to be so important and crucial to the culture, particularly hip hop culture, particularly New York cult. And I just was stunned by the fact that there is this unbelievable promise of peace that, you know, Cyrus offers to all of these gangs in the city. And that's kind of abandoned in the film. And in a way, I wanted to see if there was a way that we could draw that idea through to the end. Not in a moralistic way, not in a way that was preaching, but just allowed for.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Keep the idea alive.

[Issa Davis]

Yeah, exactly.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Why do you like to write for women's voices? That's an interesting one.

It's so much more fun. Well, I think part of it is subconsciously I'm always trying to write the best school musical possible. I fell in love with theater not by seeing shows, but by being in the school play. And when you're, when you have a really good school play, there's lots of parts for everybody and there's lots of parts for women because they audition to guys at an 8 to 1 ratio. I remember trying to like convince like my friends who were guys, like, please don't play basketball, like come, come audition for the musical. We need dancers. And, and. But I also, I mean, it's just. Yeah, that's. I guess that's my answer.

[Issa Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

The movie is all about the 70s. What was interesting about New York in the 70s that you wanted to bring forward?

Well, I mean, I think the fun about writing musicals set in New York, which this is my third, third, fourth go round doing that, is that there's so many New Yorks inside New York. And so, you know, setting it in 1979, obviously from the perspective of 2024, allowed us to like play with all the different musical subcult that were happening in 79 at the time, not just the ones represented in the film. You know, there's a gang in the South Bronx and I am very aware that Fania was like revolutionizing salsa music in the 70s, pretty much out of the South Bronx. So we. I got to write the best Fania impression I could for that. You know, ballroom culture is happening like the we're setting the table for Paris is Burning and that incredible subculture. So we get to write to that. So it was sort of like this open world playground of all these different genres and subcultures and something.

[Issa Davis]

You know, I grew up in the Bay Area, but I remember that moment, you know, when Rapper's Delight came out. I remember exactly where I was. And so there's this way in which hip hop is really exploring and exploding in 1979 when the film comes out. And so in a lot of ways our album is a love letter to the film, but also a love letter to the origins of hip hop.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I watched the film last night.

[Issa Davis]

Uh huh.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

It was so good, I forgot.

Isn't New York gorgeous?

It was gorgeous.

[Issa Davis]

Those rain slicked streets and all the.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Outfits that they all wore.

Bobby Manek, the one really well behaved gang that puts tokens in so that they. No one's jumping the turnstile.

So good. I'm speaking with Lin Manuel Miranda and Issa Davis about their new concept album, Warriors. Let's listen to the warriors who are introducing himself this is roll call from.

[Alison Stewart]

The album Kochi Cowgirl, Fox, Cleon Ajax, Rembrandt Swan, Bun Neri Blee, Coachy Cowgirl, Fox, Cleon, Aatrax, Rembrandt Swan. As far as you can see from the top of the Wonder Wheel, the Warriors are here Come out, come out, come out, come out From Coney Island Creek to the Stillwell subway station the warriors are here Come out, come out, come out, come out and play we keep it safe, we keep it clean Goes down We intervene every summer we go to war with every.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

You know, as you're writing the album, do you have a visual of what you're writing about?

[Issa Davis]

You want me to answer that?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I do, because I honestly, I write very filmically, like. And that's the fun and challenge for my collaborators. When I was writing the Battle of Yorktown for Hamilton, I was picturing a literal battle in Yorktown. And then it's. And then the fun is bringing it in to collaborate when you're doing a stage piece, bringing into collaborators to sort of translate that with this. The fun was the musical landscapes that.

[Issa Davis]

We were playing in. Yeah, yeah. I think. I mean, it's. You know, it's case by case, but I feel like it's. The number one thing was just the sonic aspect of it. Right. And that we wanted to create the visual through what the lyrics were. And, you know, something that I think was also, like, really amazing about this collaboration was that Lynn was just really, really open to all the things that I have to offer. I'm also a composer, so, like, both of the tracks that you just played are ones where we collab musically. And that also, to me, is a huge part of being able to envision something is what the sound does to your body, what it makes you feel like, how it makes you shake. And that actually creates the scene as well.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

How did you deal with the idea? I guess, like, it's exposition. That has got to happen a little bit because this is a little. It reminded me of a podcast. I know that's really weird to say. Or like, the one that Daphne Rubin Vega did. Do you remember that? Oh, you know what I'm talking about.

I do know what you're talking about. Yeah.

Yeah, it reminded me of that. Listening to a podcast and having to follow the story along and you have to deal with all the exposition. How do you do that while also retaining, like, your creativity?

Yeah, well, I think. I mean, that's. The creativity abhors freedom. We love a restriction. We love a limit. And, like, we need to get From A, B to C. And we also have to hit this. And that was the fun of it was again like musicalizing what are essentially action sequences. So when we're writing Leave the Bronx Alive, it starts as this slow salsa, because in my mind in the movie, the bus is slowly patrolling this train station and guarding it. And then when the Turnbull ACS see the warriors, it turns into this fast paced merengue. And now they're on the hunt. And so, you know, we're all doing Peter and the Wolf, but like, we're really trying to translate action into music.

[Issa Davis]

Yeah. And I think the short answer to it is that there's no time for exposition in this particular narrative. And everything that you learn, you learn on the go. In as they're fighting, there's no time for seven.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I want songs.

[Issa Davis]

Exactly right. There's no time to stop them and.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Learn about them as they're on the run.

Well, let's listen to a little bit of Leave the Bronx Alive.

[Bernie]

Ooh.

[Alison Stewart]

You can't leave the Bronx alive. Only the strong survive a second. Ah. You can't beat the Bronx alive. You got nothing. Only the strong survive. Nothing after Stone survive. I said it. I said it. Get something loose. Looks like they forgot about the tree.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

You're listening to my conversation with Lin Manuel Miranda and Issa Davis about their concept album warriors, Inspired by the 1979 film of the same name. More from them after a quick break. This is all of it.

[Ira Plato]

WNYC Studios is supported by GiveWell. When you make a big purchase, say a car or a new mattress, how do you make sure that you're making the right choice? GiveWell provides an independent resource for a different kind of purchase. A donation. Over 100,000 donors have used GiveWell to donate. First time using GiveWell. When you go to givewell.org and pick podcast and enter WNYC at checkout, you can have your donation matched up to $100 before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last.

[Alison Stewart]

On this week's on the Media how the map of the US we grew.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Up with has never shown us our true selves.

[Bernie]

If you looked up at the end.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Of 1945 and you saw a US.

[Bernie]

Flag flying overhead, it was more likely that you were living in a colony or occupied zone than on the US Mainland empire.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

On this week's on the Media from wnyc. Find on the Media. Wherever you get your podcasts.

This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart. The year saw the Broadway hit Wicked become a cinematic hit, but before the break, we were talking to the creator of Hamilton. Lin Manuel Miranda's latest project, though, is an album that draws from the Cinema, the 1979 film The Warriors. As you'll hear in our interview, he and his collaborator, Issa Davis, are open to completing the Circle and bringing it to Broadway. Here's more of our conversation. You know, there's so many different kinds of music on the album. I was listening to it on the way home, and all of a sudden there's a rock song and there's a salsa song, and there's hip hop. Why did you want to incorporate so many different kinds of music? You could have just stayed with hip hop.

[Issa Davis]

What do you think? I mean, I think it's because that, you know, I and Lynn and our producer, Mike Elizondo, whose birthday it is today. Happy birthday. We are all eclectic. We love being able to both love and also express through character all of these different kinds of styles. And it's because there are so many New Yorks. Right. That we wanted to bring that about, and it couldn't. I mean, I can't imagine this album as one particular, like, one single style of music that would not get at what this is. I mean, you don't hear that in the film either. There are different styles of music that are there. So I think it's. We both have a dedication to diversity, period, you know, when it comes to our storytelling and representation. And it's also just fun. It's so much fun.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

It's so. I mean, when Issa brought in the idea to have Luther sound like a screamo metal God, I was like. She played me this track, and I was like, I can feel my grandmothers in heaven crossing themselves on my behalf. Like, this is so scary. This is exactly right. It's, like, scary and chaotic and virtuosic and, like, that's exactly Luther, who was, like, a maestro of chaos. And so, yeah, so it's just. It's fun. I mean, the fun of writing musicals is you're getting to match tempo and temperament to character.

[Issa Davis]

Yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

The song that we've all been obsessed with is Quiet Girls.

Ooh.

[Alison Stewart]

Yay.

[Issa Davis]

Glad to hear that.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Tell us a little bit about this before we play this song.

[Issa Davis]

Oh, well, I mean, first of all, we have some treasures of the theater and film and the screen on here. Billy Porter, Mikayla Michael.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Kilgore.

[Issa Davis]

Kilgore. I mean, we claim that time. We were claiming that time. But, you know, what we really wanted to do with this was to make sure that we had this Queer representation here. And, you know, that was something that was supposed to happen in the original film.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. We heard a podcast interview with Walter Hill where he said he had a gay gang, but that was not gonna fly with Paramount in 1978, and he cut it from the script. And so we were like, oh, this is a sign. Like we. We were headed that way anyway, and it was like a ratification.

[Issa Davis]

Yeah. So this is the house of Hurricane, and they are, you know, letting people know that you have to let your flag fly.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

They're on and they're on. Roller skates. School 70s roller skates.

Let's listen to Quiet girls got something.

[Alison Stewart]

To say Let them know if you bout something let it show hold on to the past Let it go Let the people know if you want to survive Burn bright light them up and blaze through the night if you know something make it home Cuz white girls don't make it home White girls don't make it home White girls don't make it home White girls don't make it.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Home Quiet now learn something.

[Alison Stewart]

Can't clear the closing doors this evening we're here and we won't be ignored this evening Ah, your enemies are closing the doors are closing. Yo, what you going to do? Stand there frozen, girl?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

I was just like you thinking, what.

[Alison Stewart]

Did I do to deserve this hate?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

So good. That is so good.

[Issa Davis]

Stand clear of the closing doors.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

You have interesting people on the project. You have Nas to miss, Lauryn Hill to like, Colman Domingo.

[Issa Davis]

Yes.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Ember Gray. What did you like about mixing, first of all, the Broadway stars, The Broadway names with the hip hop names?

Yeah, I mean, Colman was in Passing Strange, Right. So they're old buddies. And that's like. That was like the Heights Passing Strange crossover was complete when Coleman joined us on the project.

[Issa Davis]

And he's rapping. I mean, come on.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

That was interesting, right?

[Issa Davis]

Well, like, we all take it on.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Faith that he can do anything. He can do it, of course, Just do anything. We didn't know, right?

[Issa Davis]

We're just like, come on in.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

But, you know, our warriors are really all theater stars. And honestly, that began as us just calling our friends to do demos for us. Like, we called a lot of these folks in. You know, there's a lot of Hamilton alums in there, a lot of just friends of ours. And then when we heard them all singing together, we were like, oh, there's a thing happening. Like, there's a chemistry happening here. And at one point, Issa finally turned to me and she was like, what pop star are we gonna get that is better than what's happening right now. And so they kind of fell into the snowball as it rolled down the hill.

[Issa Davis]

And we just love being able to have them centered as the gang and have all of these other folks that you know, whose names you might know a little bit better released all these different genres, too. Yeah, yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Let's listen to Still Breathing from Warriors and he's folds.

[Issa Davis]

Come on.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah, right. Look you still alive Cyrus unified a city in discrete pieces Cyrus was the one and only the streets Jesus Cyrus said you can't survive alone you need your teaming Cyrus told these kids wake up and start dreaming Some demons shot Cyrus at 12:15 this evening it fostered me to find the reason, the weapon, the heaving trying to focus but we haven't even had our grieving what are you doing? To kill everything you believe in but you still breathing Cyrus we're still breathing Cyrus, I'm sorry. You dreamed of peace but we still beefing I wish that I should dream of peace but it's killing season we'll stop until the treasonous fellows deceased bleeding our only leaders leading us to the warriors who are the Warriors? Cleon, wake the fuck up and tell me what your story is. Watch what you say. May I say you forgive me but it's deicide and we decided you get to live.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

See, what did bringing all those people, what did it do for each other? Like, what did they get from each other? What do you mean?

I'm not sure I understand.

What did they bring out in each other? Whether it's the Broadway star versus the pop star.

Yeah, well, that's a great question, because I think the thing that's central to all of these genres is storytelling, and they all go about that very differently. You know, it's a very different conversation with our MCs who represent the Burrows in the opening number. And in hip hop, like, you write your own verses, you write your own feature. And that was a big mind shift for some of them to be like, no, you're playing a character and you're writing these lyrics, you know, Busta Rhymes, being like, you are the only person I have let write lyrics for me. I don't let other people write my lyrics. That's like a code of honor thing. Yeah.

[Issa Davis]

And it was a huge leap with Miss Lauryn Hill as well. Right. But I mean, yeah, I don't. I mean, because of the fact that, you know, we got to bring people together in the studio. I mean, one of those really exciting moments was when Steven Sanchez, who's this incredible young crooner was in the studio with Joshua Henry who's just like, right, two of these. Unbelievable.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Him singing on the wheels of a Dream. He's rehearsing for Ragtime right now.

[Issa Davis]

Yes, it is. No, I haven't seen that. But to see them in the studio together and to see how they have these very different gifts, but very powerful ones, and Stephen was just like, wow, you really know how to sing, don't you? And, you know, it's really great to.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Be able to have that kind of enormous mutual admirers. It was great to put them in the room together. It's really fun.

What did you listen to? What concept albums did you listen to when you were a little kid?

I mean, Jesus Christ Superstar on rotation. There's a Ruben Blades album called Maestra Vida that was like this two part sort of concept salsa album that was big for me. Prince Paul or Prince Among Thieves is like the hip hop concept album. It's like tells guy's entire day of his life.

[Issa Davis]

Yes. De La Soul is dead. Yeah. De La Soul, yeah.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Like the skits on De La Soul, like there's a lot of 90s hip hop albums are concept albums. Even Ready to Die is concept album. They've got skits and they've got sort of things that hang through throughout. So I mean, it doesn't feel like a huge leap for us because we have a steady diet of it.

We're going to listen to a little bit from Orphan Town. This has one of your Hamilton alumni on it. Yeah.

Freestyle of Supreme. Yes. Utkarsh. Yeah, Utkarsh. Yeah. He's on Ghosts right now, but he moonlights as one of our orphans.

Let's take a listen.

[Alison Stewart]

Can I see your hall pass? Someone show these ladies where they have gone wrong. You did across our lawn with your colors on. Get gone.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Easy, easy.

[Alison Stewart]

We are only passing through on our way downtown from the meeting in the Boogie Dog. We got no beef with you. What meeting? Forget it.

[Issa Davis]

It was nothing.

[Alison Stewart]

What meeting?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

It was chaos.

[Alison Stewart]

A waste of time. I'm sensing a little condescension. Do you think we're not big time? 2, 3, 4 opens ris. We got a rep as heavy as the whole West Zone. That's right. We would have been invited to the conclave. Guys, we lost our invitation. They write about our rumbles in the New York New York someday.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

The New York Times. That's my favorite part of that scene in the movies that they actually carry around their own press clippings.

They're so good. Before we I do have to play a listener, a voice that our listeners will recognize from the album.

[Alison Stewart]

Stand clear of the closing doors, you slowpoke.

[Issa Davis]

Are you talking about Bernie? Bernie?

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Explain to folks who Bernie is.

[Issa Davis]

Bernie is the voice of the MTA that. Stand clear of the closing doors. That comes from her voice. And we are so thrilled. I'm so glad that we got that. She makes us legit.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. She did all the MTA Stand clear, like all of those announcements for years for the subway system, and we brought her into the studio to record all of our subway drops.

[Issa Davis]

Yeah. So shout out to Bernie.

[Ira Plato]

Thank you so much.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

We love Bernie.

The name of the album is Warriors. Will it be a stage show?

I mean, listen, we're.

[Issa Davis]

Oh, yeah, that would be cool.

[Lin Manuel Miranda]

We worked really hard just to make the album, so we're gonna soak in people's reception of it, which has been really positive, and that's been wonderful to see. But yeah, I mean, listen, we're. The albums we all mentioned alter eventually turned into shows. Some of them took longer than others. But, yeah, we're definitely open to it.

That was my conversation with Lin Manuel Miranda and Issa Davis about their concept album the Warriors. And that's all of it for today. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I will meet you back here tomorrow.

[Alison Stewart]

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[Bernie]

I'm Ira Plato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, our team has been reporting high quality news about science, technology and medicine. News you won't get anywhere else. And now that political news is 24 7. Our audience is turning to us to know about the really important stuff in their lives. Cancer, Climate change. Genetic engineering. Childhood diseases. Our sponsors know the value of science and health news. For more sponsorship information, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.