Who Tells Your Story
Alexander Hamilton is known in the twenty-first century American consciousness as a staunch Federalist, the architect of the United States’ financial system, and the victim of a deadly pistol duel. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical “Hamilton” upholds this image while also portraying a man with weaknesses and hardships relatable to his twentyfirst century audience.
“Hamilton” has gained fame for its use of hip-hop and rap music to tell the story of one of America’s founding fathers. Based on Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton, the musical chronicles Hamilton’s rise from obscurity as a teenager recently arrived in New York from the West Indies. It depicts his role as an aide to Washington during the Revolutionary War, his writing of The Federalist, and his tenure as the Secretary of the Treasury. Not only does the show recount Hamilton’s political achievements, it also describes his romantic entanglements and personal relationships. The story Miranda tells is a classic, but the medium he tells it through is revolutionary. Its musical numbers put eighteenth-century events in a twenty-first century voice by incorporating rap and hip-hop styles. Characters dressed in period costumes sing songs like those heard on the radio today, and historical speeches and letters are sung to a rap beat. By telling the story of a powerful intellectual using a genre often dismissed as lacking depth, Miranda condemns the distinctions often made between sophisticated culture, reserved for the elite, and popular culture consumed by the masses.
Alexander Hamilton lies just outside the canon of founding fathers; in history classes he takes a backseat to such leaders as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. His contributions to American government are immeasurable but difficult to concisely explain. The federalist ideology and the American financial system are integral to life in the United States today, but many people don’t understand their intricacies. While Americans recognize Hamilton’s name as among those that founded the nation, they often don’t know many details of his life. Understanding Hamilton’s political and ideological viewpoints is reserved for those who specifically pursue that knowledge.
Rap and hip-hop are sometimes considered modern and unintellectual, the opposite of Hamilton’s educated and old-fashioned language. Miranda upends this perception by using these genres to depict Hamilton’s life. By using hip-hop to discuss the most foundational ideas of American democracy, he lends the genre a sense of legitimacy and versatility. Furthermore, he demonstrates that rap and hip-hop have merit as musical styles, disproving critics who claim that they lack artistic integrity.
By setting famous political leaders’ lines to a hip-hop style, Miranda makes them more relatable to the average audience. He often puts the ideas of the American Revolution into contemporary language, or simply spices up well-known language by adding a new beat. By interspersing Hamilton’s political achievements with stories of his marriage, his extramarital affair, and the death of his son, Miranda lends Hamilton a humanity that audiences can sympathize with. Putting Hamilton’s words and ideas in language that modern Americans are familiar with furthers this sense of familiarity, breaking down Hamilton’s image as an inaccessible theorist.
“Hamilton” also questions standard interpretations of history by casting mostly people of color. Rap and hip-hop are considered African- American styles of music, and by casting people of color to perform a genre pioneered by people of color, Miranda highlights historically marginalized cultures. In telling a traditional American story through marginalized people and art forms, he also demonstrates that the struggles of today’s oppressed groups are similar to those of our founding fathers. Miranda’s comparison of contemporary and historical fights for equality legitimizes today’s conflicts while making past issues easier for modern audiences to understand.
The final number of “Hamilton” is titled “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story,” highlighting the intersection of art and history in the musical. Throughout the show, Lin- Manuel Miranda emphasizes the difference that the storyteller can make to the outcome of a narrative. By using popular genres of music to tell a traditional story, Miranda makes that story relevant to the modern age. He also gives rap and hip-hop legitimacy as traditional genres of music. Miranda tells a tale of a stuffy old intellectual through a modern medium, and celebrates an underappreciated genre of music as a vehicle for a timeless story. By demonstrating the fluidity of the line between traditional history and modern culture, “Hamilton” shows that distinctions between elite and popular culture hold very little meaning.