Hamilton: An Integration of Past and Present

Introduction

Lin Manuel Miranda’s first debut of the concept of Hamilton was met with ridicule. He was an established writer of Musical Theatre, having just won a Tony Award, when he was invited to present some of his work at the White House in 2009.  Instead of presenting music he had already released, he decided to show them a new project he was working on, the first song of a hip-hop mixtape about one of the Founding Fathers of America, Alexander Hamilton. Most people thought it was a joke and laughed.

Flash forward to 2016, after the release of Hamilton. Lin-Manuel is back in the White House, but this time personally invited and presented by the President and the First Lady. Hamilton had won 11 Tony Awards, the second most ever given to a musical. By 2021, it was streaming on Spotify four times the amount of the next best streaming musical.[1] It won the top Soundtrack/Cast Album award from Billboard and sold-out multiple times on Broadway. As they are received into the White House, they are met with a standing ovation, and at all the parts where people once laughed, there are cheers.

From a personal level, this musical opened my eyes. My upbringing had led me to believe there was nothing to be found in rap and hip-hop, I assumed it was all violence and obscenity; I had never even imagined that it could be artistic. All it took was for me to listen to Hamilton once for me to realize that I might need to reconsider my biases, and that there was potential to be found in rap if one could look past some of the obscenity found in the culture that surrounded it.

What was it about this musical that launched it to success? The concept is strange; it applies a modern musical genre dominated by people of color to a white man from over two hundred years ago. And yet over and over, critics have praised Lin-Maunuel’s choice and have found it uniquely appropriate for telling his story. Why would a musical so politically charged bring together people from across the political aisle?

I would say that two main things contributed to the success of Hamilton: its foresight into where the culture was going as well as its insight into where the culture was then, and its incredible integration of the history of hip hop and the history of musical theatre. Hamilton was able to not only bring in theatre lovers, but also engage the culture it lived in, widening its audience and speaking to a need that many people felt. Where people couldn’t see it on stage because of its extremely high demand and high price, they were able to enjoy it just as much listening to the cast album recording.

As I go through these two main ideas, there is another idea that will be lacing its way through: the mastery and heart that Lin Manuel Miranda put into it. He found a story and a medium that appealed to people, a story of loss and hope for the future, and made it relevant for people of our age. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the Second Vatican Council, which applies to all works that while not explicitly Christian, carry that hope that resonates in people’s hearts.

The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts.[2]

Chapter 1

Foresight and Insight

2015 was a time of political turmoil. Trump was controversially running for President, there were riots and protests from BLM, Confederate flags were being pulled down in the South, the list goes on and on. There was tension between Democrats and Republicans, Conservatives and Liberals, and every other political divide.

Somehow amid all of this, Lin-Manuel was able to create a musical that drew praise from both sides of the aisle. People were able to look past things that normally would make them lash out. Liberals didn’t give too much complaint that some of the Founding Fathers were slaveholders. Conservatives didn’t give too much complaint about the historically inaccurate casting. Former President Barrack Obama is even quoted as calling Hamilton “the only thing that Dick Cheney and I agree on”[3].

Concurrently with this, whether Miranda knew it or not, there was about to be a big jump in the popularity of rap and hip hop. While at the time of his creation of Hamilton there was a dip in sales and popularity of rap in hip hop albums, little did he know that in the coming years the popularity and sales would be rising by a steady ten percent per year. [4]

In this section, I would like to go a bit deeper into these two ideas. Part of the reason for the great success of Hamilton was not only how well it was written, but also when it was written and how it spoke to the people of its time. This is true of other critically acclaimed works, such as Casablanca being written amid the Second World War, or Frankenstein being written as questions began to arise about the progress science offered. While this was not the only reason for its success, as it is still well loved today, it did help account for its massive immediate impact.

National Fragmentation

From the very beginning, Lin Manuel wanted Hamilton to be a story of America then told by America now. The original cast chosen to portray the founding fathers had Hamilton and Laurens of Puerto Rican decent, Washington, Jefferson, and Burr as black men, and the Schuyler Sisters as two black women and a Chinese American. The only Caucasian in the principal cast was the one playing King George.

But the casting isn’t the only way that Miranda addresses national fragmentation. The very concept of his musical is a huge testament to national character. At the time of the musical’s creation, there were many people calling out the founding fathers for some of the injustices committed or permitted by them, most notably slavery. Lin Manuel recognized this seeming disparity, but rather than villainizing the founding fathers or turning them into mythological figures, he made them men. Great men, with high ideals and powerful charisma, but men who fell and constantly made mistakes.

Washington, a man who is constantly held as the high example throughout the musical, has a line where a cast member wonders if the end of the war means freedom for both white and black soldiers, and Washington responds, «Not yet»[5]. While this could be interpreted as him speaking of the fact that peace talks had not yet been finished, Lin Manuel specifically mentions elsewhere in relation to this line that Washington owned slaves until the end of his life. The actor who played Washington, a black man himself, found him struggling to reconcile these two things, but had to conclude, «I won’t reconcile that … But it doesn’t keep me from getting to the heart of who he was, and trying to portray the truth of that»[6].

In Hamilton: The Revolution, the libretto of the musical, there is even a chapter where two members of opposite political parties come together to talk about the musical. One of their main reflections is about how well Hamilton highlights values that both parties share, values that are quintessentially American. They point out that Hamilton is a man who has a clear sense of morality and stands by it vehemently, even if he did not always live up to his own standard. They also highlight the ambition that drives both Burr and Hamilton, the desire to throw yourself out there and be the best you can be, tempered by the sobering reality that sometimes that can leave others behind.

The theme of ambition comes often over the course of the musical. It has the flavor of the American Dream, the audacity that proclaims that no matter where I come from, I can make a difference and “rise up”. The third song in the musical, My Shot, sums up this feeling well. Every musical traditionally has an “I Want” song that helps the audience to see the desires of the protagonist and hopefully shows the core value of the character that must undergo some sort of change by the end. The refrain has Hamilton singing «Ay, yo, I’m just like my country, /I’m young, scrappy and hungry, /And I’m not throwin’ away my shot», highlighting how Hamilton identifies himself with this new country he is now a part of, full of potential and energy. In his final soliloquy, he echoes this sentiment again, rapping, «You let me make a difference, /A place where even orphan immigrants, /Can leave their fingerprints and rise up»

Another one of the lines that is always beloved by the audience is «Immigrants, we get the job done,» proclaimed by Hamilton and Lafayette, both men who were not born in America, but were part of the Revolutionary War. America has always been a country that has always had the influence of the immigrants that enter its shores. In a time when the border issue had come up repeatedly, with both sides recognizing the issue of an unprotected border, there was the reminder of all the good that has come from men and women who came to this country seeking to make it their own and fulfill the American dream. This was the dream that Hamilton himself lived and wanted to make possible for all of the many people that would later grace this land.

This reality was close to home for Lin Manuel. His father was an immigrant from Puerto Rico, near where Hamilton himself originated from. He was someone who had lived the American dream, who had studied hard and moved to America to start a new life. He went on to marry someone born to immigrants from Mexico, be a political advisor for people working in the Senate and House of Representatives and help raise funds to help third-world countries like his own in need. It is no stretch of the imagination to say that Lin saw something of Hamilton in his father, who Hilary Clinton herself once claimed worked «nonstop»[7].

Themes

While the political scene of the time may have helped the musical to thrive, this is by no means the only reason it succeeded. It also speaks to something profoundly human, for it continues to be the most streamed musical even now. As of April 2026, it had over 5,000,000 monthly listeners on Spotify alone. I would link this to the prevalence of its themes.

Hamilton speaks a universal language. While it may focus on the war between the United States and Britain, the values and themes that permeate are applicable to everyone. One I would like to highlight is legacy. Hamilton is a man obsessed with his legacy, constantly wondering what he will leave behind. But the idea of legacy has two important elements that anyone can relate to, that of Death and Time. Phrases like «Why do you write like you’re running out of time» «I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory» and «History has its eyes on you» are repeated multiple times. The question that runs through the whole musical emphasizes this, «Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?»

But it is not only the presence of the themes that makes this so impactful, but the way they are presented. Hamilton and Burr, first friends then rivals, are so different from each other, yet they both want the same thing. Hamilton, loud, eloquent, always going for what he wants, rises through the ranks to become one of the most influential men in the foundation of America. His mind moves ridiculously fast, often to the frustration and consternation of those around him. He created the entire financial system of America, working tirelessly to apply economic principles that worked in other countries to the new reality that was America. He desperately wants to make a difference and moves everything in his power to make it so. He wrote fifty-one essays as part of the Federalist Papers trying to defend the newly made Constitution.

Burr, too, was full of ambition, but moved quietly and patiently. The song that reveals his inner world is “Wait for It”, revealing his personal philosophy. He shouts defiantly, «I am the one thing in life I can control!» His philosophy is that of biding his time without full commitment, looking for the perfect moment. He says as much in the second song of the show, «Don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for».

Both seek to leave a legacy, but where Hamilton’s convictions and strong sense of morals lead to his being a legacy that perpetuates through his work in the foundation of our country, Burr is left being known only for his cunning and manipulation. There was nothing he was fighting for except to be seen and heard; his legacy is one of selfishness.

This tension is found not only in Hamilton, but is also echoed in Gaudium et Spes:

It grows increasingly true that the obligations of justice and love are fulfilled only if each person, contributing to the common good, according to his own abilities and the needs of others, also promotes and assists the public and private institutions dedicated to bettering the conditions of human life. Yet there are those who, while possessing grand and rather noble sentiments, nevertheless in reality live always as if they cared nothing for the needs of society.[8]

This document promulgated by the Church in response to our modern world recognizes that the things that will truly last are those directed toward the common good. One who seeks only his own needs and not those of others will fade from memory, his flash of glory and recognition fading with time. This is the first and foremost danger for those who are in positions of authority, allowing selfish desires to surpass that of the common good.

But as mentioned before, Burr is not the only one that struggles with leaving a legacy. Hamilton wanted to leave a legacy but too had moments where he put the desire to be remembered above his own ideals. This is the center of the song “Hurricane”. In it, the mistakes of Hamilton’s past, most notably that of his affair with Maria Reynolds, come to light. The song “We Know” shows three of Hamilton’s enemies, Jefferson, Madison, and Burr, confronting Hamilton about a money trail they found that implies Hamilton might have engaged in speculation. Hamilton reveals the real reason for the money trail; he was being extorted by Maria’s husband James, who threatened to expose Hamilton for his sin. They leave saying they won’t say anything, but the song ends with Hamilton unsure if what was discussed will eventually make its way to the light.

In a desperate desire to uphold his legacy, he writes about the affair and publishes it in “The Reynolds Pamphlet”. He concludes that the only way for him to «protect his legacy» is to «write his way out». He thinks back the moment he was most desperate, when he was alone after the hurricane that hit his town, surrounded by destruction, and his writing convinced the people of his town to send him to America. He thinks of the love letters to Eliza. He thinks of his financial system he «wrote into existence». And then at the climax he sings «And when my prayers to God were met with indifference/I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance».

This is the height of his pride and the start of his fall. When they read the pamphlet, his enemies ridicule him, believing he has forever tanked his credibility, going so far as to say, «You ever see somebody ruin their own life?», and his wife, heartbroken, casts him out of her life. Hamilton’s situation worsens when his son dies in a duel, leaving Alexander and Eliza distraught. But from this tragedy something beautiful arises. Hamilton undergoes a profound change. In the song “It’s Quiet Uptown” describing the aftermath of his son Phillip’s death, Hamilton sings, «I take the children to church on Sunday /A sign of the cross at the door /And I pray /That never used to happen before». Through the pain of his son’s death, he finds the strength to be humble before God and reconciles with his wife. This new Hamilton is still hot-headed and stubborn but has found the capacity to be still and reflect, which ultimately affects his choice to «throw away his shot» during his duel with Burr.

These themes touch on the deep humanity of Hamilton. Suffering and loss is a universal human experience; everyone encounters death at least once. But Hamilton was able to provide an unassuming response; for all the musical’s exposition of the power of words, Lin Manuel writes something that doesn’t trivialize or seek to give an explanation, but responds with brutal honesty, «There are moments that the words don’t reach /There is suffering too terrible to name /You hold your child as tight as you can /And push away the unimaginable.» The words Eliza sang in her pain at having been betrayed, «You and your words /Obsessed with your legacy», have once more failed Hamiton. Even he, for all his verbosity, cannot plumb the depths of this pain.

The Rise of Rap

Rap and Hip-hop had been around for a long time. The origins can be found in Jamaican reggae, which Kool Herc incorporated to fit the lifestyle of New York.[9] He would use a turntable to play two identical records, allowing him to play a melody or beat continuously, which later helped give rise to the rhythmic feeling of hip-hop. Over time, emceeing was developed, which consisted of the DJ calling out the people in attendance, which then evolved into coming up with fun rhymes to introduce them and show your own verbal skills.

However, for multiple reasons, it mainly stayed as a part of Latin and Black culture. It had its greatest prevalence in areas considered more ghetto, and it was popular because it was inexpensive to make, allowing it to be an accessible way for the youth to express themselves. It grew beyond simply being rhymes spit out by a DJ to becoming a place where people could test their creativity and mettle against each other, coming up with a flow or rhyme more intricate than the one before them.[10] These evolved into battles where two people would engage in verbal confrontation to demonstrate their “flow”, meaning their delivery, and their verbal virtuosity.

Hip-hop did see a time of struggle in the era right before digital streaming. iTunes grew in popularity, but the iTunes Store 30-second previews favored catchy choruses like that of pop music. Hip-hop’s carefully structured narrative verses became a harder sell. But when the age of streaming came around in the 2010s, things began to change. The easy accessibility of music exposed more listeners to hip-hop, and by 2015, things were beginning to change. Multiple artists began coming into the spotlight, with Eminem being a huge success in 2013 and the rise of Drake in 2015. Algorithms on YouTube favored trends and memes that were surrounded by rap culture, and it became a global youth culture that emphasized self-expression, struggle, and resilience.

Then enter Hamilton. Lin somehow timed the release of his musical perfectly right, with a rocket in sales in hip-hop. From 2016 to 2020 the revenue share in the top 100 charts doubled to take up half of the revenue in the charts. People saw in his hip-hop musical the language of self-expression and struggle found in the culture of hip-hop itself. Miranda was able to present the Founding Father in the same light as many rap artists, men who by the skill of their words rise up through different obstacles to become great.

All things happen in their proper time. While it is impossible to know if Hamilton would or would not have been so successful in different circumstance, any great work needs to be able to speak to the men of its time. While the verdict is not yet out on whether Hamilton will be a classic that people continue to look back on, even now, ten years after its release, it proves it is able to speak to the problems of people then and today.

Chapter 2

Integration

One of the first things that is often praised in Hamilton is its use of different styles of music. Lin-Manuel Miranda was well versed in both rap and theatre, and his seamless way of combining the two did not go unnoticed. Oskar Eustis, the Artistic Director at New York City’s Public Theater, even compared him to Shakespeare when speaking of his use of the language of the common people.

In Shakespeare’s case he elevated it to iambic pentameter. In Lin-Manuel’s case he elevated it to hip-hop and rap, and he ennobled it by turning it into verse and putting it at the center of the stage. That’s exactly what Shakespeare was doing.[11]

In Hamilton, Lin Manuel sought to take these forms of music so beloved by the people and unite it to another musical style he loved, that of musical theatre. He did this by paying homage to those who came before him and incorporating elements of their different styles to form a new organic whole. He was careful not to just randomly splice things together but wanted to show the outgrowth of each into something new that could be combined.

This respect for the power and language proper to the different genres of music is what helped set him apart. There is the common adage “love is in the details”, and here there are details in spades. This attention to detail shows a labor of love and reflects the image of the nation that Hamilton himself was a part of: small, made up of hundreds of moving parts that, directed toward a single goal, can accomplish monumental things.

References to Rap and Theatre

Reference to rap and theatre can be found in abundance in Hamilton. Lin Manuel is very conscious of the history of the genres he is writing in. He is constantly speaking of different influences that affected his writing and songwriting, and the end of his playbill is full of different songs and musicals he sampled.[12] He directly credits multiple rappers for inspiration, such as Eminem, Tupac, Biggie, Busta Rhymes, Mobb Deep, and more. But he also references a lot of musical composers, such as Bernstein, Gilbert and Sullivan, Rogers and Hammerstein, as well as directly collaborating and speaking with composers such as Sondheim and John Kander.

But rather than these simply being references or callouts in honor of music from the past, Miranda lets these references affect the way the story is told. His “Cabinet Battles” have the feel of a rap battle straight from 8 Mile, and songs like The Room Where It Happens and One Last Time have all the emotion and heart of a traditional Broadway showstopper.

In “Take a Break”, both Hamilton and Angelica are quoting at different moments from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In “Right Hand Man”, Washington calls himself the «model of a modern major general», a direct line from Pirates of Penzance. The «one, two, three…» found in “Ten Duel Commandments” is a direct callout to Biggie’s not so inspiring “Ten Crack Commandments”. Theatregoers and hip-hop fans alike are constantly being given homages to the music and culture they absorb.

It is often noted that Hamilton brought rap to theatre in a way it had never been done before. There had been previous attempts to bring rap to theatre, such as Bring in da Noise, Graffiti Blues, and Holler if Ya Hear Me. But none had nearly the success of Hamilton. This is in part because of the audience it targets.

The three musicals mentioned above, and even Lin Manuel’s own hip-hop musical In the Heights for which he won his first Tony Award, are all centered in Latin and Black culture. Hamilton is different. It is a story of white men, the founding fathers of America, but written and performed with a mix of western musical tradition and hip-hop culture. It showed that the two can be harmonized and complement each other.

The problem other hip-hop musicals often had was precisely this lack of integration. They wanted to take hip-hop elements and throw them into a standard musical format, but in doing so often didn’t respect the traditions of both fields, drawing critique from both sides, hip-hop and theatre. Lin Manuel Miranda’s own In the Heights was able to combine these, but it was once more in a niche place, namely Washington Heights, and so while highly acclaimed, it didn’t have the same universal appeal.

Integration of Operatic Methods

Hamilton also brings back a method that once was common in musical theatre, that of a sung through musical. While writing the musical, he originally had planned to have moments of dialogue interspersed between the songs but soon realized that the moments of dialogue interfered with the flow of the music and the show. To fix this, he wrote something later referred to as rap recitative.

The history of recitative can be found in opera and elsewhere. Opera used recitative to continue the flow of music and have the soloist sing words to a rhythm on a certain note, or simple combination of notes. Musicals took on part of this tradition of filling the entire work with music, some notable examples being musicals like Les Misérables and Jesus Christ Superstar. However, this style hadn’t been used for a while until Hamilton. Miranda uses rap in a recitative style, his characters not necessarily singing, but speaking at a normal pace with rhythm and rhyme. This allows the music to continue playing in the background. Since it combined elements of both, it became known as rap recitative. It also allows for something similar found in opera.

Leitmotifs are found everywhere in Hamilton. The rise of leitmotifs has a long history but was popularized by Wagner in opera. It takes a melody and associates it with a person, thing, or idea, allowing someone to trace its course throughout their whole work. Hamilton uses these more for the sake of an idea or a feeling instead of an actual thing or person, as you can hear leitmotifs originally associated with someone else being sung by a different character, building on ideas. He does this with lyrics, music, and rhythms.

An example of this connects two songs, “My Shot” and “The Room Where It Happens”. In “My Shot”, there is one spot in the verses where the chord progression changes, as Hamilton raps «I gotta holler just to be heard». This comes up later in the room where it happens in the sound of trumpets simply playing this progression at different moments of the song. It shows a place that Burr has changed, he wants to be heard, and that is the turning point the whole ong represents. But where Hamilton has learned to appreciate more than just being heard and wants to «build something that’s going to outlive» him, Burr wants to be heard and seen and sings «I wanna be in the room where it happens». He has the ambition that Hamilton had, but not the shift in mentality.

The first measure of Hamilton is a rhythm more than a melody, but it is the rhythm used throughout the entire show to start songs that begin with a question, often allowing the audience to recap and catch up to the timeline of the musical. But it is also the same rhythm used by Hamilton in his song “My Shot” for his iconic line «not throwing away my shot». From the beginning, this rhythm is associated with conflict and ambition, which shows Hamilton rising through the ranks over the course of the show.

Miranda is not always subtle with his motifs. While some of them are obscure and only visible after much scrutiny, others are meant to be immediately obvious to the audience. Like most musicals and operas, Hamilton uses a lot of reprises, which are songs that have already been introduced but are slightly changed. Examples of this would be King George’s three songs, which are all mostly the same, with different lyrics and small changes elsewhere. You have a reprise of “Stay Alive”, “The Story of Tonight”, on top of songs like “Alexander Hamilton”, “A Winter’s Ball”, “Guns and Ships”, “What’d I Miss”, and “The Adams Administration” all starting the same way.

There are also songs that use the same chord progressions, like “Alexander Hamilton” and “Burn”, or “Wait for It” and “The World Was Wide Enough”. Even if it isn’t immediately apparent to the audience, subconsciously you remember emotions associated with certain themes, allowing Miranda to guide what you feel when it reappears. The chord progressions for these songs aren’t random; they too seek to reveal something about the character who sings them. The song “Wait for It” is a good example of this. It would be a traditional villain song, as it is sung by the antagonist of the musical. But it is thoughtful and pensive, not just in the words, but in the melody. The song follows three main chords in a place where there would normally be four. The chords literally are making you wait for it; there is no transitional chord to lead you to the next line, instead you are met with silence.

One example of this in lyrics and not just music is the theme of Hamilton as an orphan. Over the course of the show, it is mentioned nine times: seven times in reference to Hamilton and twice in reference to Burr. He makes sure that this is a fact you know well, even if only subconsciously, and then brings it to a head in the final song, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”, when Eliza sings of founding the first private orphanage in honor of her husband. The whole musical you have been pitying Hamilton for the fact that he grew up alone, and you discover that part of his legacy is helping those who struggled with the same thing.

But the song that surpasses all of these in its use of motif in “Nonstop”. It combines at least five songs into one and is the culmination of the first act. In it, Angelica sings part of “Satisfied”, George Washington is singing “History Has Its Eyes on You”, Eliza is singing “That Would Be Enough”, and it finishes with a combination of “My Shot” and “Alexander Hamilton”. Miranda is able to combine all of these in a way that they compete but sound harmonious, and it does an incredible job of showing all the conflicting interests of the people in Alexander’s life and inside even Hamilton himself as he moves forward into the birth of the new nation.

Musical Language

The use of rap in Hamilton is not coincidental. Like mentioned previously, it seeks to say something about the language of the people it is speaking to. One simple reason for its use is the fact that without the breakneck pace that rap allows, Lin wouldn’t have been able to tell the story in any reasonable amount of time. It is already 2 hours and 45 minutes long and can’t afford to be any longer. When it was first shown, one of the main critiques of critics was its length, with many saying that it could have been shorter. And this is despite how fast it is. The next closest musical in terms of words per minute is Spring Awakening at 77 words per minute.[13] Hamilton is almost twice that, with 144 words per minute. If Hamilton had been sung at this pace, it would have been 4 hours and 28 minutes long.

Rap also provides a new language for the characters. A similar style called Patter had been used in musicals and opera, but only ever for comedy, not drama. Rap is the language of conflict and creativity. This became the perfect medium for the founding fathers, who were all men engaged in conflict: first, conflict with Britain over freedom for America, then conflict amongst each other as each tried to fight for their ideas to be the model for the new nation. But rap provided such a more eloquent form to do express their ideas.

One of the clearest expressions of this is in “Farmer Refuted”. It begins with Samuel Seabury singing about the defects of the Union and encouraging people to support King George. But Hamilton responds, showing the possibility rap presents, as Seabury simply re-sings his stanza.

Seabury sings in a simple style with a fugue playing counterpoint in the background on a harpsicord. But, like a fugue, Hamilton takes all the original words of Seabury and expands on them. In this section, which is only one stanza, he doubles the number of words, sixty for Seabury’s twenty-nine, all while showing the shortcomings of Seabury’s way of thinking.

The music also helps to say something about the characters themselves. Lafayette is French so he starts rapping haltingly and slow, but because of his intellect, by the end of his time in America, he raps the fastest song words per minute in Broadway.[14] Wahington raps in polished prose, and his charisma shows through his singing voice. In his final song, “One Last Time”, Hamilton, the writer, recites the farewell speech, but Washington sings it in unison with him, showing that where Hamilton was the mind behind the letter, Washington was the icon that brought it to the people.

Angelica, like Hamilton, is capable of both singing and rapping because of her quick wit, but her sister, Eliza, only ever sings and never raps, being a stable and calming presence in the show. King George sings in the style of British pop. Jefferson, coming back from France, is behind in thought and in music when he enters and is singing jazz in “What’d I Miss”. But in the next song, “Cabinet Batlle” he is brought up to speed and can transition into rap with no problem, showing him as an opponent who can go toe to toe with Hamilton.

And then there are Hamilton and Burr. Hamilton sings, but almost always resorts to rap; his mind moves so fast that that is the only way for him to keep up. Burr, on the other hand, is almost always singing; his rapping is never fast but tends to be at the same speed as his speech, showing his restraint. Their conversations are always back and forth, rarely ever in agreement; the only time they harmonize is when they sing a duet about their children both united in their hope to help them «come of age with our young nation» in “Dear Theodosia”.

Integration is something that needs to be guided but also needs to be natural. Something that often comes to mind for me when I think of the gradual change that incorporates multiple elements is Pope Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of continuity”. While this is an interpretative framework he applied to the Catholic Church, it also describes the culture of continuity that should be found in other areas of life. God works with what he is given, he molds it and form it, even bringing good out of evil. But he builds. Jesus did not come out of nowhere, the promise of God himself and the types found all throughout the Old Testament pointed to him and made way for him. In the same way, albeit in a way that is not nearly as important, good art does not arise from a vacuum; it is supported, and springs forth from the art that came before it.

Conclusion

Hamilton still holds a place in many people’s hearts. In it, Lin Manuel Miranda was about to use his foresight and insight to craft a musical that spoke to the people of its time. As I have explored here, this was not simply luck or chance but rather an understanding of the emerging world around him and a desire to show how the past can enlighten the present. What started as a performance that evoked laughter and a lack of understanding was perfected and developed to become a musical that was sold out for months and was the first cast album ever to become Certified Diamond.

He was able to navigate the tricky line between angering political parties, producing something that celebrated and represented America as a whole, and not just the factions. His themes spoke to universal experiences that drew in the people who encountered them and can speak to people of any time. And his recognition of the power of the genre of music that had been part of his childhood allowed him to ennoble it, raising it to the stage and presenting it to the world in a way that had never been done before.

His integration of the styles he grew up with was not slapdash; it focused on the form rather than the content. He didn’t want hip-hop in a musical; he wanted a hip-hop musical that incorporated all of the elements he loved in a synthetic whole. His use of references, leitmotifs, even his development of rap recitative, all of it built off the plethora of knowledge already available to him. He used each of the genres of musicals not just because they sounded nice, but because they served the greater whole. All his songs, either through their lyrics or their music, reference and relate to other songs, providing a soundtrack that sounds like it truly belongs together, not a collection of songs that tell a story.

The consequence of all this is that it is a musical that affects culture. It managed to touch the heart of man, not just the theatre geeks or the hip-hop lovers. Through its understanding of the past and of the present, it helps to provide a model for the future, a reminder that legacy is not just an abstract concept, but something that is created every day, a continued glimpse of the «joys and hopes» that find an echo in human hearts.

Bibliography

Cook, «An Historical Definition Of The Term Rap», 1984, in https://www.daveyd.com/raphist2.html (referenced on April 10, 2026).

The Dance Enthusiest, «World Theatre Day Falls On March 27th- Which Musical Has The Most Spotify Streams?», 2021, in https://www.dance-enthusiast.com/features/dance-news/view/World-Theatre-Day-Falls-On-March-27th-Which-Musical-Has-The-Most-Spotify-Streams (referenced on April 10, 2026).

Gamble, «Hip hop’s hold over Top 100 albums, 2000–2020», 2021, in http://digitalflo.ws/top100/ (referenced on April 10, 2026).

Hickey, «Hamilton Is The Very Model Of A Modern Fast-Paced Musical», 2015, in https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hamilton-is-the-very-model-of-a-modern-fast-paced-musical/ (referenced on April 10, 2026).

Major, «“Yay, Hamlet!”: Shakespeare’s Influence on Lin-Manuel Miranda», 2016, in https://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/lin-manuel-miranda-bard-era/5437/ (referenced on April 10, 2026).

L Miranda, J McCarter, Hamilton: The Revolution, Grand Central Publishing, New York, 2016

National Catholic Reprorter, «Luis Miranda: He gets the job done», 2020, in https://www.ncronline.org/culture/luis-miranda-he-gets-job-done (referenced on April 10, 2026).

Playbill, «Hamilton – Broadway – Richard Rodgers Theatre», 2015, in https://playbill.com/production/hamilton-broadway-richard-rodgers-theatre-2015 (referenced on April 10, 2026).

Shishko, «Lin-Manuel Miranda: Hamilton, a New Era of Broadway Musicals», Thesis, 8/1 (2019), 69-83

Second Vatican Council. Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World). December 7^th, 1965 retrieved from https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html

[1]The Dance Enthusiast, «World Theatre Day Falls On March 27th- Which Musical Has The Most Spotify Streams?», 2021, in https://www.dance-enthusiast.com/features/dance-news/view/World-Theatre-Day-Falls-On-March-27th-Which-Musical-Has-The-Most-Spotify-Streams (referenced on April 10, 2026).

[2] Second Vatican Council. Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World). December 7^th, 1965, no. 1

[3] L Miranda, J McCarter, Hamilton: The Revolution, Grand Central Publishing, New York, 2016, p. 284

[4] S. Gamble, «Hip hop’s hold over Top 100 albums, 2000–2020», 2021, in http://digitalflo.ws/top100/ (referenced on April 10, 2026).

[5] All quotes from songs are taken from L Miranda, J McCarter, Hamilton: The Revolution, Grand Central Publishing, New York, 2016

[6] L Miranda, J McCarter, Hamilton: The Revolution, Grand Central Publishing, New York, 2016, p. 208

[7] National Catholic Reporter, «Luis Miranda: He gets the job done», 2020, in https://www.ncronline.org/culture/luis-miranda-he-gets-job-done (referenced on April 10, 2026).

[8] Second Vatican Council. Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World). December 7^th, 1965, no. 30

[9] D. Cook, «An Historical Definition Of The Term Rap», 1984, in https://www.daveyd.com/raphist2.html (referenced on April 10, 2026).

[10]D. Cook, «An Historical Definition Of The Term Rap», 1984, in https://www.daveyd.com/raphist9.html (referenced on April 10, 2026).

[11] M. Major, «“Yay, Hamlet!”: Shakespeare’s Influence on Lin-Manuel Miranda», 2016, in https://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/lin-manuel-miranda-bard-era/5437/ (referenced on April 10, 2026).

[12] Playbill, «Hamilton – Broadway – Richard Rodgers Theatre», 2015, in https://playbill.com/production/hamilton-broadway-richard-rodgers-theatre-2015 (referenced on April 10, 2026)

[13]W. Hickey, «Hamilton Is The Very Model Of A Modern Fast-Paced Musical», 2015, in https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hamilton-is-the-very-model-of-a-modern-fast-paced-musical/ (referenced on April 10, 2026)

[14] Ibid.