HAMILTON observation (and a naive Hip Hop question)

[MarkBearSF]

Posted: 9/21/15 at 8:55pm

Like fans everywhere, I feasted on the HAMILTON recording today. I was fortunate enough to grab tickets early to see it a couple of weeks ago. 

I am, like many of my era, ignorant of most of hip hop. Back in the 80s, I realized that much of the appeal of rap was to piss off the parents. (not that I have kids, but my generation). Fast forward 25 years or so (insert any number of reasons why) and I was mostly ignorant of the genre before seeing the show.

Yes, I was bowled over. As I was listening to the glories of the multilayered score (thank you, Questlove) I was struck with a crucial aspect of the recording, and I suspect of hip hop, I just want to ask if it makes sense...

HAMILTON is blessed with a multilayered score with beautiful musical performances and spellbinding performances of enticing exciting lyrics filled with rhythm, music and drama. However, the singers will more often rap their lyrics. Relying upon fascinating rhythms rhymes and acting, but not necessarily singing notes in a score. Instead, the music accentuates, and in many cases adds the musical notes to the actors performance.

It seems that, more than the previous speak-sing classics by Rex Harrison, Yul Brenner and the like, where it seemed that the composers and directors would have preferred an actor who could really sing, but made the most of the genius of the actors, but the spoken performances are more the result of a rethinking and reconstruction of the components of a song and performance. This certainly seems true in the case of this show and this artist's work, which is characterized as hip-hop. However, is this rethinking and de/reconstruction of song and performance true of the genre in general?

Hopefully this makes some sense.

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 9/21/15 at 10:35pm

The only rap songs I can think of from the 80's that have a "piss off parents" vibe is Will Smith's "Parents Just Don't Understand" and Beastie Boys "Fight for Your Right".  Otherwise most old school 1980's hip hop was issues-driven. That's not to say there weren't songs about sex and drugs of course, but it is why people lamented the arrival of gangsta rap and welcomed the rebirth of hip hop with the likes of Common and Kanye, etc. 

But one thing I love about Hamilton is that it is exposing so many (white) people to hip hop, and even more so, it is proving that hip hop and musical theater can co-exist and enrich one another. 

Updated On: 9/21/15 at 10:35 PM