Last Wednesday, thanks to a good friend's suggestion, I listened to the entirety of the "Hamilton" soundtrack... and now I'm obsessed. I listened for the first time with two hours left of my drive home to Jersey, then proceeded to pull into an abandoned elementary school parking lot at 11 p.m. to finish the last 40 minutes instead of greeting my parents at home. Now that I'm a converted "Hamilton" lover, I want to share my newfound love with the world... starting with you! So, a) I highly recommend you listen to the musical on Spotify. Though it would be awesome to see the show, tickets are almost impossible to get right now. But I promise, even just listening to the soundtrack will blow your mind. And b) watch the interview where Emma Watson interviews "Hamilton's" brilliant creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, here. The quotes I list below are taken directly from there. So without further adieu, here are just a few reasons why "Hamilton" is a phenomenal play.
1. “It’s a love letter to writers, this is a guy who wrote his way out of his circumstances, wrote his way into power, and also wrote his way into ruin.”
This play served as proof to me that writing is not a skill to be taken for granted. Alexander Hamilton literally wrote himself a legacy, inspiring a dude 200 years later to write about it too. Writing is powerful. This is a shout out to anyone who undervalues their ability to write— writing can quite literally change not only your circumstances but those of others. You can make an impact through writing, even if it takes writing yourself into circles.
2. On having such a diverse cast, Miranda says this:
"I was never picturing the original founding fathers. We know what they look like. You can just open your wallet to find out. This allows us to eliminate the distance even more, because you know, if it doesn’t look like a John Trumbull painting from the 1700s, then we can identify; we can find our way into it.”
In case you didn't know, this is what John Trumbull's founding fathers look like:
and these are "Hamilton's":
In "Hamilton" you will see a black George Washington and a Latino Alexander Hamilton and it works effortlessly. We clearly know from our history books that our founding fathers were white. And obviously, given the circumstances of the time period, it would be impossible at the time for any sort of diversity to exist in politics. But times have changed and "Hamilton" reflects that. Not only does its hip hop and pop sound draw people in, but the cast’s diversity allows an audience to feel more deeply connected to its story— which only makes sense, because it is the story of America. And the cast is as diverse as America itself.
3. “We’ve been fighting about the same things forever. It’s no accident that we’re still fighting about how much the government should be in our lives, it’s no accident we’re still fighting about how much we get involved in the other countries affairs: in our rap battle it’s the French Revolution but it’s still applicable to any foreign venture the United States has today. And it’s also no accident that every character who dies in our play dies as a result of gun violence.”
As the old saying goes, history repeats itself. And "Hamilton" makes this tangible. It’s hard not to see the parallels between then and now listening to "Hamilton's" lyrics. Though this is a story of the past, it really makes you wonder, “why the hell hasn’t something been done about this stuff?"
4. “Jefferson was using ‘immigrant’ as a way of denigrating Hamilton way before Trump ever entered the scene.”
Alexander Hamilton was an immigrant orphan from the Caribbean, who literally wrote himself into coming to America for a better life. The play emphasizes the fact that this is an immigrant’s story, an immigrant who grew to become a hero. It’s essentially the American Dream. Yet we see in the play that people like Jefferson shoot him down for being an immigrant—trying to make it sound like that makes him less. This denigration of immigrants is something that’s unfortunately only grown more and more common and is the biggest irony of our nation: a country founded on immigrants constantly dismisses them as worthless. We see it today with the hateful comments Trump makes about Muslims and Mexicans and arguments over what being a “true American” is. "Hamilton" relentlessly calls this immigrant-blaming propaganda out.
5. “if Angelica Schuyler lived in a different time she’d be one of our founders.”
"Hamilton" is shockingly feminist. It’s Eliza, Hamilton’s wife, who continues his legacy after he’s killed and this is not overlooked in the play— it’s highlighted. "Hamilton" gives a voice to the women behind the men who founded our nation, women history overlooks. The Schuyler sisters are totally badass too, with lyrics like: “You want a revolution? I want a revelation/So listen to my declaration/ We hold these truths to be self evident/That all men are created equal/ And when I meet Thomas Jefferson/ Ima compel him to include women in the sequel!” 
I could go on and on listing every reason why you should see/listen to this play. It's unlike anything Broadway has ever seen and it's 100 percent changing the game. One thing's for sure: Lin-Manuel Miranda must've been taking notes from Hamilton because he's written himself a legacy.
Also... if anyone has a connection or something wanna score me a ticket?
