Lin-Manuel Miranda, Eisa Davis release concept album 'Warriors' with gender-swapped cast
NEW YORK (WABC) -- Do you remember the 1979 cult classic film, "The Warriors?" The movie was about a turf battle between New York City street gangs from Coney Island to the Bronx, and it was Lin-Manuel Miranda's favorite growing up.
Years back, before "Hamilton" and "In the Heights," a seed was planted to turn the movie into a musical. He teamed up with playwright Eisa Davis and has done that in a way.
They just released a concept album, a love letter to the film.
There are 26-tracks and they gender-swapped the cast.
The talent on there includes Lauryn Hill, Busta Rhymes, Marc Anthony, Billy Porter, Ghostface Killah, RZA, Colman Domingo, and Aneesa Folds just to name a few.
"My grandfather owned a video store in Puerto Rico, and that was one, you know, I would watch a new movie every once in a while, but then I would always go back to the week. It was probably my most watched film," Miranda said.
And now it has him returning to his roots.
"Honestly, the canvas and the playground that warriors represents New York in 1979 all the amazing musical genres and subcultures, the graffiti-covered trains, hip hop, is just an infant at this point. It's just a baby, like, coinciding with, like, the emergence of hip hop as a major world force that was our playground in writing these songs and telling this story," Miranda said. "I mean, what this is, is, you know, the diversity of New York expressed musically."
So how did they find the story they were telling?
"Well, I mean, I think the first big shift in this adaptation was Lin deciding that the Warriors should be women and that Cyrus, you know, the leader that they're all going to see is also a woman," Davis said.
"Cyrus could only be Miss Lauryn Hill, because only Miss Lauryn Hill has the authority to have us all show up wherever she's at, and we're like, oh, in the Bronx midnight. Okay, we'll be there. We had no plan B for that particular role," Miranda said.
Miranda set the scene for the album.
"For our opening number, if you remember in the movie, you are a fan of this film it's all the gangs coming up to the South Bronx for this peace summit. We did that by expressing that musically by having an MC represent each borough. So, we have Chris Rivers, aka son of the legendary Big Pun and brilliant rapper in his own right, for the Bronx. We have NAS for Queens. We have Cameron Kelly, Cam from Manhattan. We have ghost face in Staten Island, and then, of course, Busta Rhymes for Brooklyn," he said.
And, this is just the beginning!
"Listen, I don't think it's a movie, because I think it's a love letter to a movie. That's what this is, right? But, you know, we're both theater artists, I think we'd love to see a version down the road where someone tries to figure out how to stage this. We have no plans for that, but the joy of musicalizing this was, was kind of getting to explore it without thinking about that part," Miranda said.
He described the best way for listeners to take it all in.
"I want you to consume it in order, reading along, if that's your jam, listening along, if that's your jam, please pay the extra so you don't listen to it on shuffle. Yes, no, that's what we want final but I basically want people to have the experience I had listening to cast albums and concept albums growing up splayed out on my living room floor, like pouring through the liner notes and creating the story in your head. Yeah, yeah, just feel the entirety of the narrative, which is how we wrote it. And I also think that you know, for me, the lesson of what our collaboration has been. And also, you know, what's in the actual narrative is that you can't dream too big."
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