…everything you need to know about how late change comes to the very siloed, very white world of theater.
So, Hamilton the musical debuted on Disney+ over the weekend and I was ecstatic. I’d seen it three times live (one of which included Wayne Brady as Aaron Burr which I’d prefer to forget) and I was interested to see how it translated on-screen. The musical is great and if you appreciate anything about theater there’s simply no denying that. HOWEVER, that did not stop the Blavity Blacks*
*A Black Twitter term that refers to Blacks who are often disconnected from everyday Black people and tend to perform what they think Blackness is.
that love to cosplay “real Blackness” from trying to ruin the joy for the rest of us.
A little background on my tastes. I love musicals. I want to an all-Black school from preschool through eighth grade that would march around the block of the school every year on MLK’s birthday singing “We Shall Overcome” in unison as a tribute to the march on Selma. Every student in the entire school from ages five to thirteen would sing all three verses of the Black national anthem (that I still know to this day) every Wednesday during convocation. We put on productions like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Ain’t Misbehavin, God’s Trombones, Porgy and Bess and had an annual Shakespearean (William Shakespeare is hella problematic but that’s a blog for another day) carnival where even the preschoolers were assigned roles and memorized scripts. The cherry on the Blackity black black sundae was our Homecoming celebration every year. It was a PRODUCTION that mimicked the HBCU Homecoming experience. I distinctly remember a choreographed dance that I did in 3rd grade to the 69 Boyz… So there’s that. Hey, Black isn’t a monolith lol.
I also love hip-hop. It’s my favorite genre of music. My Mom worked at a radio station so that afforded me the opportunity to go to over 200 concerts, most for the free. In fact, when I realized as an adult how much concerts were, I was PISSED (we will come back to this).
I particularly fell in love with hip-hop because I love poetry, words and storytelling. The diversity of perspectives, the wordplay, the storied visualization of a person's environment, upbringing plus its effects and outcomes moved me. Hip-hop is all of those things and sometimes you get lucky and get some bauce production as an added bonus.
This being said I consider myself pretty well-versed in Blackness, hip-hop and musicals. I’d say the combination of these things were probably why Hamilton resonated with me. But, I saw a few folks that were not impressed, and they’re entitled to have bad taste. However, the reasons below are also acceptable:
1. Do not like musicals (I get it 2+ hours of melodic dialogue can be a lot for some)
2. Finds this musical in particular hard to follow not being a native English speaker
However, that’s not the tone I saw from the folks that were not letting the rest of us be excited. I did see these main two types of folks:
The contrarian - “I’m probably the only one but I didn’t like Hamilton”
and…
The super woke - “I don’t care about the history of these old rapey white men, they aren’t portrayed accurately, plus I hate that white people like it but don’t like or appreciate the culture that inspired it.”
The contrarian is THEE worst. It’s like they can’t let anyone enjoy ANYTHING. My guess is that this type of person gets off on the notion that they are unique, privy to some heightened knowledge and therefore feel superior to those in the majority that like something. I still don’t really know why they feel the need to be loud about their dislikes, probably miserable I guess. Not my ministry. I can’t tell you how many things I dislike that EVERYONE LOVES. I also don’t waste my time broadcasting it either. I’m fine with letting people like what they like. I get nothing from talking down on those things and not letting others enjoy what they enjoy.
I find it hard to understand someone that is mad that Hamilton is popular. To me, the people that think like this are the types of folks that want their favorite indie artists to stay indie AND POOR instead of be appreciated by the masses. Why would you not want others to like the art that you like? Me? I like when folks like what I like and receive it, that way the art gets to reach more people that are hopefully positively impacted in the ways that I am. Being an artist is so hard and if people are able to make a living doing what they love by casting a wider net I am all for it. You just gotta hope that the art isn’t sacrificed as a result.
Also contrarian…You’re late. Hamilton has been on Broadway for FIVE years. It has snatched everyone’s edges for so long, and now that it became EVEN MORE accessible, you feel a way. Again, that’s your right, but it’s pretty wack.
That brings me to “the super woke.” I know y’all HAVE to be tired. To be Black is to ALWAYS have to choose what to consume knowing that in some way, shape or form some element of the art that you are consuming might lack inclusivity or might even be oppressive to you. Being woke is so performative. You CHOSE to be offended by Hamilton, and that is your right. However, you didn’t choose to be offended by whatever other form of media that you chose to consume that has similar hottakes.
Hamilton was never meant to take the place of history teachings/books. It’s entertainment, so be entertained. Lin is not a historian. He has said several times that the show isn’t 100% historically accurate, and that’s fine with me because that’s not what I was looking for. It’s a musical, it’s art. Watch a documentary if you want history. EYE was not less interested in Hamilton because it was a musical about white people doing white people stuff. I mean, I’m currently watching Degrassi for the first time and that show is VERY white. So I don’t really have a dog in this fight... But maybe that’s because I REALLY enjoyed reading the Anti-Federalist Papers and political science… IDK. But it's not less interesting to me because they were old, rapey and white. Honestly, the fact that they are so complicated makes them pretty interesting. Niggas was pinning secret tea letters like Funky Dineva. Talking wild trash all in the paper under a pseudonym. They had BIG HATEFUL ENERGIES. For me, consuming Hamilton is pretty similar to the messy posts I choose to consume that pop up on the shade room or baller alert on Instagram.
Honestly, think about it. Every single one of us might be considered problematic AF in a musical about some stuff we did lol. Maybe not owning slaves problematic… But problematic nonetheless. Can you imagine a musical about your choices? The beauty of being human is just how complex we are. One man's hero is another man's torturer. They are both, not either or. To the "I don't care about my own American history because it includes White men” crew, that’s fine. That’s your right. But you are missing the forest for the trees and if you want to continue to perform in your “woke off” that’s fine by me. You’re missing out on some dope art in the process.
Part two of the “super woke” crew are the folks that hate Hamilton because white people love it but don’t like or appreciate the culture that inspired it. Newsflash. WHITE PEOPLE LOVE CONSUMING THE CULTURE. I too wish that white folks loved Black people as much as they loved Black culture. However, them not loving Black people is not going to discourage me from enjoying MY culture. Honestly to me the idea of not allowing yourself to enjoy Black culture because white people like it mirrors “uplift suasion” — the notion that white people could be persuaded away from racist views if they only saw black people working to lift themselves up from their lowly station. White people appreciating hip-hop is not going to help white people appreciate Blackness. It doesn’t work that way.
If anything I would prefer that white people didn’t like or appreciate the culture. I get tired of going to shows and being one of ten people that look like me in the audience, in fact, last year Noname went on a whole rant about why she isn’t rapping anymore because she got tired of performing for audiences full of white people. White folks are in the audience, and I frankly don’t need them or want them to be. EYE want to stop racism and poverty so that people that look like me can have the discretionary income to see these shows. I do not care about what white people appreciating MY culture. More opportunities for us to be in the audience consuming OUR culture and art equals less space for them and I’m totally fine with that.
I mean I get it, Dave Chappelle did ultimately walk away from The Chappelle Show because white people liked it too much. When white folks like things, fame follows. Dave didn’t want any parts of that, and I understand that completely. I actually didn’t even watch the Chappelle show until a year after the debut. The white folks in college LOVED it and I assumed it was trash because of how much they liked it. Whew, that was a fail. Look at what I would’ve missed out on if I allowed how art was received decide what I consume. A. CLASSIC. Now don’t get me wrong, I still get mad when white folks laugh too loud at the Africa jokes in Book of Mormon, but, I am not gonna pretend that Hasa Diga Eebowai isn’t a BOP.
“I mean, hip-hop’s the language of revolution and it’s our greatest American art form ”
Not to mention Lin-Manuel KNOWS hip-hop. I admittedly would feel a way if Hamilton wasn’t created by someone with his particular background. The fact that Lin’s allegiance was to hip-hop and inclusion and NOT the history that this musical was inspired by is very important. Having committed the soundtrack to memory a year prior to seeing Hamilton live the inspiration was glaring. From the obvious sample from Notorious B.I.G.’s Ten Crack Commandments to the subtle reference to LL Cool J’s I Need Love. It’s all there. I admit I’ve been a fan of Lin since I had the opportunity to see his first musical In the Heights in 2010. I didn’t know that I was a fan of Lin-Manuel at the time though, I was just a fan of the musical. Everyone was talking about it and I had to experience what people hailed “The hip-hop version of Rent” I just KNEW that it was written by some white person looking to exploit hip-hop for whatever reason yet again. However, when I found out it was in fact written by someone that was not white and was also in a freestyle hip-hop improv group, I was intrigued. Lin-Manuel understands what makes hip-hop revolutionary. I consider him the Childish Gambino of Broadway. An artist at the core of it all, that happens to actually rap ok too.
This is what makes Hamilton so good. Not perfect. Lin himself has said “The sheer tonnage of complexities and failings of these people I couldn’t get. Or wrestled with but cut. I took six years and fit as much as I could in a 2.5 hour musical.” However, I say he did a pretty good job. I would go further to say that the founding fathers would definitely hate it. They weren’t portrayed as the people we were forced to read about in our history books at all.
Hamilton has created a space on Broadway for Black and brown performers that otherwise wouldn’t exist. I don’t like Hamilton because of its take on inclusion, it was an added bonus, another added bonus was how mad white people were that they couldn’t audition. Those white tears were plentiful, but they still spent their bread to see the show with a smile. Now don’t get me wrong Hamilton isn’t the first musical with a primarily Black cast, and I like Fela, The Color Purple, The Lion King, Ragtime, etc. as much as the next person… BUT you are lying to yourself if you fix your mouth to say that they are better than Hamilton. In spite of the musicals I named previously that have primarily Black actors, Black actors account for only 9% of the roles on Broadway. In fact, Lin-Manuel poses the question “How do we return to a space where backstage is as diverse as our cast on stage, where our audiences are as diverse as our cast on stage? Because the other thing I'm proudest of this movie is, it gives everyone the brag of, 'I saw the original cast for seven bucks.'" THAT is what I care about. Hamilton made theater accessible to people that look like me. The girl that felt so alone in a sea of whites at all the concerts I attend felt relief when I was able to share this experience with people from all walks of life that look just like me, versus the ones I have to side-eye when they try to rap along when “nigga” is dropped in a rap song.
At the end of the day I don’t really care why you feel a way about so many people enjoying Hamilton. The things this musical bring to the world far outweigh your critique of it. I don’t care if white people like it or not, I don’t care if you’re tired of stories about white men. I don’t care if you didn’t like it and don’t understand why everyone else seems to. I do care about the Black kids that have had access to the stuffy and elitist world of theater because of the programs that were put in place to make sure kids that wouldn’t normally have access were able to see it. This was at the expense of the rich white folks that were willing to pay astronomical prices for the seats that these kids were given for free which makes me even happier. I care about the theater kids that look like me that are able to see people that look like them on the stage, and in the America that Lin-Manuel created that reflects what America looks like now, versus then. I care about the people that are now inspired to tell the stories of the people of color whom the statesmen in Hamilton ruled over. I care about the Black people that will have more roles available to them as a result of this musical being made. I care about the additional opportunities outside of musical theater that Black actors received as a result of this musical. And most importantly, I care that five years later the soundtrack STILL BUMPS.
Also… You didn’t ask but my favorite hip-hop reference is in ‘My Shot.’ Lin-Manuel lifts a line more-or-less verbatim from Prodigy of Mobb Deep, telling his peers, “I’m only 19, but my mind is old.” You’re welcome.
Some of my fave vids are below…
I REALLY encourage you to watch the interview on Disney+ entitled “Hamilton: History Has Its Eyes on You” with Robin Roberts, the cast and Harvard historian (Black woman **cough cough**) Annette Gordon-Reed. Trust, they don’t shy away from the “tough” questions the Blavity Blacks were/are posing.
FF to min 4:14-6:24
Daveed gathered this man at 2:50
*A Black Twitter term that refers to Blacks who are often disconnected from everyday Black people and tend to perform what they think Blackness is.