Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, why does Listen and Bill have the
Speaker 2: same interior? My gosh, are you all the same person
Speaker 2: our guest today, Ladies and gentlemen, Oh actually wait, let
Speaker 2: me let you know where you are. My name is
Speaker 2: Quest Love and this is another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: We're here with Teams Supreme, Sugar Steve, Hello there, Yo,
Speaker 2: how are you great?
Speaker 1: Fan? Takeo? What up? What up? And we have Laiah.
Speaker 3: Still here, yes, yes, and we.
Speaker 2: Have unpaid Bill new Bill, Bill's Bill's Bill's yeah, Bill
Speaker 2: two point h. I'll say that our guests absolutely well.
Speaker 2: I always say that our guest needs no introduction, but
Speaker 2: I guess our guest does introduction because he's literally done
Speaker 2: everything except for bounce.
Speaker 1: The budget, save us from COVID. He's worn a.
Speaker 2: Pulitzer, a MacArthur Genius Grant, a Kennedy Center Honor. I
Speaker 2: thought you had to be like at least three hundred
Speaker 2: years old to get a Kennedy Center Honor. I didn't
Speaker 2: realize that one could be nineteen and win a Kennedy
Speaker 2: Center honor.
Speaker 4: He's won a lot, said, he's.
Speaker 2: Won a lot of Grammys. He has an Emmy, and
Speaker 2: he might have a tony or two. I don't know,
Speaker 2: be it forty thousand dollars on stub Hub or on
Speaker 2: Disney Plus. You literally have zero excuse if you're not
Speaker 2: seeing our guests. His creation one of the biggest global
Speaker 2: phenomenons in entertainment, probably short of thriller. See, this is
Speaker 2: what happens when I don't That's what happens when I
Speaker 2: don't have three by five cards.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: Literally, Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the quest lof Supreme,
Speaker 2: the creator of in the Heights of Hamilton. Let's not
Speaker 2: forget Fossey, Vernon, actor, playwright, mc producer.
Speaker 1: What else are you? You're director, your father, your.
Speaker 5: Son, first time caller, thrilled to be.
Speaker 2: Here, Washington Heights, own Lin Manuel Miranda.
Speaker 1: All right, so check it all right?
Speaker 2: You know, like, if I really know guests, I won't
Speaker 2: prep notes. I'll just go off the top. However, I'm
Speaker 2: googling you and the questions, the questions surrounding your name.
Speaker 2: This is this is hilarious to me because under your
Speaker 2: name comes these following questions. Did Burgh regret killing Hamilton?
Speaker 2: Why do people like Hamilton so much? Why is Hamilton
Speaker 2: so expensive? How old she wouldn't be to go see Hamilton?
Speaker 2: What's the most famous Broadway show? What is Will Smith's
Speaker 2: net worth? I don't know where that came from.
Speaker 1: But that came out of no where.
Speaker 5: I asked that every day.
Speaker 1: Who's limit?
Speaker 2: Wels Miranda's best friend? Who is the highest note in
Speaker 2: into the unknown? And who is a mortal technique? So
Speaker 2: basically you have you have Oh wow.
Speaker 5: That runs again?
Speaker 4: It pretty good?
Speaker 2: Yeah you're yeah, you literally run the whole spectrum of
Speaker 2: hip hop and and uh in history and one in
Speaker 2: ten questions, one fell swoop. I wish it was that
Speaker 2: for for me, this this has taken a long time.
Speaker 2: Do you do you remember your the pilot episode Bill, Yes,
Speaker 2: that you came to and you just casually flick you know,
Speaker 2: we get them, no problem, And it's like four and
Speaker 2: a half years later.
Speaker 4: Wow, it's got a busier schedule than me. It's you
Speaker 4: and getting those to line up is like the death
Speaker 4: star window of just like, okay, these forty five minutes,
Speaker 4: here we go.
Speaker 1: Dude, I know, I trust me. I know I do
Speaker 1: not take for granted.
Speaker 4: I remember asking you had a.
Speaker 1: Spare hour to even talk to us.
Speaker 5: I wait, a minute. But it's funny.
Speaker 4: I remember you had agreed to dj I think our
Speaker 4: opening night party, and I saw you a few days
Speaker 4: before and I said, hey, thanks again for doing that,
Speaker 4: and you were.
Speaker 5: Like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's up right, and I said, you're djaying the
Speaker 4: opening night party and he went forget me show you
Speaker 4: something about my life, and you showed me your schedule
Speaker 4: and you like literally opened your phone and it was
Speaker 4: more colors than the rainbow in terms of like hour
Speaker 4: to hour what you were doing. And Hamilton hadn't really
Speaker 4: happened yet. Hamilton hadn't opened yet, and I was like,
Speaker 4: how can one person, be one human do this much?
Speaker 4: And it was like a glimpse of it was a
Speaker 4: glimpse of my future. I was like, no, you're going
Speaker 4: to be busy.
Speaker 2: That you show for Grace Harry who insists if we
Speaker 2: have a future, you're going to drop ten jobs.
Speaker 3: So thank you, Grace.
Speaker 1: The low down.
Speaker 2: Wait, speaking of which, uh Lynn and Bill, do you
Speaker 2: know do you truly know that my involvement with this
Speaker 2: was an accident To show you how aloof I am
Speaker 2: about my schedule.
Speaker 1: You're involved with what Camill tell?
Speaker 2: Do you know how aloof and how like mister McGoo
Speaker 2: accidental tourist.
Speaker 1: It was all right, let me let me walk you
Speaker 1: through it real quick.
Speaker 4: You you meant to go see a show at Joe's
Speaker 4: Pub and you wandered into our show. Is that what
Speaker 4: you're telling me?
Speaker 1: Basically? Yes, No, I'm serious. John.
Speaker 2: When John Ridley had won for twelve Years of Slave,
Speaker 2: you know John Ridley and uh have wrote twelve Years
Speaker 2: of Slave and what's his name famously directed it.
Speaker 1: Stephen Queen quin Queen.
Speaker 2: Right, So when Ridley had written Twelve Years of Slave,
Speaker 2: in about maybe six months after he won his oscar,
Speaker 2: he had a meeting with us about working on a project.
Speaker 2: So in trumeir fashion, arriving and Steve can attest to this,
Speaker 2: I came like to the meeting six minutes late, okay,
Speaker 2: really sixteen minutes late. And what I didn't realize was
Speaker 2: that he was giving us homework to do. And part
Speaker 2: of that homework was look research these plays that I
Speaker 2: think that are cutting edge and you know, like going
Speaker 2: to change the shift. And he had five plays that
Speaker 2: he wanted us to see and homework number one was
Speaker 2: seeing an unknown Hamilton at the public So me not me,
Speaker 2: not putting two two together. I didn't realize because when
Speaker 2: you started talking to me backstage, you had already gone
Speaker 2: into pitch mode about joining being down, and in my head,
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I talked to John earlier.
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, I'm down.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that at that point, I talked myself
Speaker 2: into a second production and it became a who's on
Speaker 2: first situation for about two weeks with the Roots organization,
Speaker 2: until Sean and Tarik were like, Noahmir, what we're doing
Speaker 2: with John Ridley is something different. Hamilton's a whole nother animal.
Speaker 4: I've never met John Riddle in my life.
Speaker 2: Now I know so, but literally the whole time backstage,
Speaker 2: I was just like saying yes to everything and not
Speaker 2: just literally having zero clue that you guys weren't associated
Speaker 2: with Ridley. I thought Ridley was just ending us there
Speaker 2: as a part of this project he was with and
Speaker 2: it wasn't until later to.
Speaker 4: Finalize I obviously knew nothing about that since I've never
Speaker 4: met that man.
Speaker 5: Sorry to this man, but sorry man to this man.
Speaker 1: The but I.
Speaker 4: For me, you coming to the show was like waiting
Speaker 4: for Guffman. It was like, I love is finally coming
Speaker 4: to the show Man. You were so been manifesting the
Speaker 4: roots coming to our show while I was writing the show.
Speaker 1: One was about the roots.
Speaker 6: The one was both Steph like most De's gonna be here,
Speaker 6: like it is most de gonna be in the show.
Speaker 1: That was always like the biggest thing, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: The way you were talking was.
Speaker 2: So like like coument, No, it was. It was just
Speaker 2: so exciting and in my head, I'm like, you guys
Speaker 2: had me at a little like I already knew, you know,
Speaker 2: like you people already talked to me at nine a m.
Speaker 2: Yesterday morning like I'm I'm a board, Like I didn't realize.
Speaker 4: That's also why it's like Guffman, because you know in
Speaker 4: the movie that guy's not Guffman who shows up and
Speaker 4: they're like because we're like Quest loves in, but he
Speaker 4: thinks he has said yes to a totally different thing
Speaker 4: that I know nothing about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I just musical theater, lib I Quest loves
Speaker 1: yes to everything. What do you.
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: What are you what's your what's your daily routine? Are
Speaker 2: you still able to stay creative despite what we're in
Speaker 2: or are you also having just stop moment?
Speaker 4: And I had a I had like a solid month
Speaker 4: and a half two months where I didn't I didn't
Speaker 4: do any I didn't do anything.
Speaker 5: I was about to start directing my first movie.
Speaker 4: We'd shot eight days of footage when Netflix, I'm directing
Speaker 4: his musical for Netflix.
Speaker 5: And they shut us down, which was.
Speaker 4: Both a bummer and a huge relief because we were
Speaker 4: already social distancing on set. We were already asking ourselves
Speaker 4: hard questions of like how do you do a musical
Speaker 4: where you singing to each other and not spin on
Speaker 4: each other? And so when Netflix said we're shoving me
Speaker 4: on everything, it was like, good, someone higher up than
Speaker 4: me has has answered it for us. But you know,
Speaker 4: the momentum that goes into making a movie, it's your
Speaker 4: whole life. You spend every waking hour and like it's
Speaker 4: go time. And then that just stopped.
Speaker 1: So when did they shut out down? How far are
Speaker 1: well around? What time was this This was? It's like
Speaker 1: the day March ninth or.
Speaker 4: March March eighth, and I we were doing a night shoot,
Speaker 4: so they shut us down at They told us this
Speaker 4: is going to be your last night filming at nine
Speaker 4: pm and we still had like three shots left to go.
Speaker 5: So for a while, it was just me and the producers.
Speaker 4: And like our happy crew and actors with jobs and
Speaker 4: like at that moment, like you know where you can't
Speaker 4: tell anyone yet, and we you know, we waited till
Speaker 4: the end of the night to tell everyone. Luckily it
Speaker 4: was before weekend, so everyone was going home for the
Speaker 4: weekend anyway. And then, you know, a lot of it
Speaker 4: was just the new what's the new normal? Like what's
Speaker 4: the procedure to leave the house? What is school? We'd
Speaker 4: already stopped sending my kid to school, just on our
Speaker 4: own gut shit like of just like.
Speaker 7: Like the same thing too, I stopped sending to my kid.
Speaker 7: I think like a couple of days before they finally
Speaker 7: called it.
Speaker 1: It was like even a little like a week or
Speaker 1: something before they find it.
Speaker 4: It was it was a week for me too, And
Speaker 4: so you know it that first month was just what
Speaker 4: do we do?
Speaker 5: I'm so grateful my wife was so ahead of it.
Speaker 4: My wife was a scientist, so like in January, she
Speaker 4: was like, this is coming here and we have to
Speaker 4: take it seriously.
Speaker 5: And it was like, wow, I'm in pre production on
Speaker 5: a movie.
Speaker 4: Like I agree with you, but I also can't stop
Speaker 4: doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 5: It's not my money.
Speaker 1: In your mind?
Speaker 2: Did you think that this is just going to be
Speaker 2: like maybe a six week thing, maybe a two month thing.
Speaker 8: I I.
Speaker 4: When my wife explained the science of it to me,
Speaker 4: of like, this two week break is bullshit because it's
Speaker 4: it doesn't even show up in people, and that's why
Speaker 4: it's spreading so fast, like healthy people spread this and
Speaker 4: then find out they're sick after they've already exposed however
Speaker 4: many people they've been in contact with, and so like
Speaker 4: she was like, this is not gonna be two weeks.
Speaker 5: She just saw she saw the whole thing early.
Speaker 6: His wife, for those who don't know, is the most
Speaker 6: beautiful person ever to attend m I T oh, okay, so.
Speaker 3: What was that me? That's as.
Speaker 2: You just made it weird by saying that, like you no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I mean was she in the college squad?
Speaker 1: Was she in the no? Because we didn't go to T.
Speaker 9: But now I can't imagine myself that is a YouTube
Speaker 9: series that we need I.
Speaker 5: T Animatics immediately. Please Yeah, but.
Speaker 8: Lin, does she get some insight to as well as
Speaker 8: because now that we're in it, and that was her
Speaker 8: insight before I'm sure she got some things to tell
Speaker 8: you now as you are approaching production thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I mean she you know, we are. We
Speaker 4: started filming again in a week, and it's it is,
Speaker 4: we're doing everything we can to be safe. And we've
Speaker 4: learned from the movies that have already gone into production.
Speaker 3: The stop production.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the actors are in their own bubble and in
Speaker 4: their own quarantine. There's the red zone and the yellow
Speaker 4: zone and the green zone. I basically see my kids
Speaker 4: on the weekend. They get tested before they can see
Speaker 4: me again. Like I can't even break that for just
Speaker 4: hanging out with my kid. Like we're taking it as
Speaker 4: seriously as possible because it is it's life and death.
Speaker 5: We you know, as we all know and so so.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but my wife saw it early and so by
Speaker 4: the time I kind of they shut down production on
Speaker 4: the movie and I looked up, Vanessa was like, well,
Speaker 4: here's everything that's going on, Like she had already kind
Speaker 4: of figured out how to get in and out of
Speaker 4: the house, like all of the stuff that is normal
Speaker 4: to us now and we were still learning. She was
Speaker 4: on top of that. So I'm grateful to her for that.
Speaker 4: So anyway, a month and a half of nothing, and
Speaker 4: then I basically pivoted to the writing projects that I
Speaker 4: wasn't going to be touching for a year because I
Speaker 4: was working on this movie. I'm writing two scores for
Speaker 4: two different animated movies, one for Disney and one for
Speaker 4: Sony Animation, and so I basically just that's been keeping
Speaker 4: me busy during the pandemic. It's just like all right,
Speaker 4: like go back to writing, back to your keyboard.
Speaker 2: Wait, it just hit me. I really want to start
Speaker 2: from the very beginning, in the beginning. I want to
Speaker 2: start with Lynn can he tells three things about unpaid.
Speaker 1: That we don't know? Yes, it is really the.
Speaker 2: Unpaid Bill episode. We're just using limit limits.
Speaker 4: I knew that's how I end up here, and I'm
Speaker 4: happy to be of service. All My entire career, and
Speaker 4: Bill's entire career is as the result of an accident,
Speaker 4: UH and and an infidelity.
Speaker 5: Do we want to tell that story?
Speaker 1: Name names?
Speaker 4: We won't.
Speaker 6: We want to bode not mine. It's your episode, Bill,
Speaker 6: we hold mine. And it was tragically great. So so.
Speaker 4: My college girlfriend produced a musical at the school Theater
Speaker 4: at Wesleyan and she produced Once on This Island and
Speaker 4: it had a music director and Bill was the sax
Speaker 4: player in the pit. However, the music director was dating
Speaker 4: the director of the show and he cheated on her.
Speaker 4: She walked in on him cheating, and I mean, this
Speaker 4: is college theater, guys, and she was like, you're fired
Speaker 4: guy playing saxophone. You're the music director now. And so
Speaker 4: Bill Shea's the music director of this and then like
Speaker 4: proceeded to kill it. Like I remember going to see
Speaker 4: the show being like, why does this college show sound
Speaker 4: so good? And was just like amazed at how professional
Speaker 4: and great the band sounded and so and they were like,
Speaker 4: that's Bill Sherman. He became the band conductor after he
Speaker 4: fired fucking around.
Speaker 6: And so I then re hired to play the bass
Speaker 6: because we didn't have a bass player there was, so
Speaker 6: in fact re hired and he was in the band.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So wait, awkward, Bill, you paid a saxophone. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys replays the didn't know this. We did not
Speaker 1: know this.
Speaker 4: Bill was player. And Bill had an African high life
Speaker 4: band in college called on.
Speaker 1: An African highlight band. So you white fail, o, Bill,
Speaker 1: you have selective remembering.
Speaker 6: So like I majored in West African music, do you
Speaker 6: know that deep into it bruh.
Speaker 1: So I played the saxophone and I was I was
Speaker 1: really big into fail out.
Speaker 2: But something like you know, like you just took a
Speaker 2: trip to Africa like a vacation.
Speaker 1: Oh you guys.
Speaker 5: Are talking to philastin.
Speaker 1: New Name. Oh my god, oh man.
Speaker 4: If I had known we were going to go this deep,
Speaker 4: I would have brought cuts.
Speaker 3: I really would like to hear some of your West
Speaker 3: African music.
Speaker 6: Bill Professor was a dope band. It was like fifteen
Speaker 6: white guys played.
Speaker 3: We couldn't find no black people.
Speaker 1: No. See, here's the thing, if you really want to
Speaker 1: get into it. So wesley we would have played West
Speaker 1: African music fair. It's fair.
Speaker 4: But also Wesleyan world music is I mean the guys
Speaker 4: with dreadlocks.
Speaker 1: Okay, a lot of weed, my boy.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 6: But what was interesting about Wesleyan is that it was
Speaker 6: billed as uh like diversity university as it were, but uh,
Speaker 6: it was so segregated that it was affable. So like
Speaker 6: Lynn lived in Latin guy house, which is called and
Speaker 6: then and then all of the black folks lived in
Speaker 6: Malcolm X's house. Like I'm not even I'm not even making.
Speaker 5: This up the street We saw that all the time.
Speaker 1: We wait and house party, uh boy from Young Black.
Speaker 4: The movie PCU was based on wesley and the writers
Speaker 4: of that movie went to west like every nationality and
Speaker 4: affinity group had its house.
Speaker 6: I was part of the White Boys Stoner World music group.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, and Lynn was like the Latin guy.
Speaker 1: Guess what he continues to this.
Speaker 2: Is this is this the Santi gold Angela Yee era
Speaker 2: of Wesleyan. But or afterwards, I think between better than
Speaker 2: MGMT was year you.
Speaker 1: Guys, where's your class were?
Speaker 5: Class of two thousand and two? MGMT was like the
Speaker 5: year after us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh wow, they were like maybe three years before
Speaker 1: you guys. Okay, yeah, yes, before ahead of us Miranda era.
Speaker 6: If you didn't know that what is now we were
Speaker 6: part of what is now referred to as the line
Speaker 6: Manuel Miranda era. Actually, like that's if you ask anybody
Speaker 6: that's those years, what's funny.
Speaker 4: Is I mean one of the lessons of that I
Speaker 4: got out of Wesleyan was when I did the first
Speaker 4: version of In the Heights at wesley and it was
Speaker 4: an eighty minute show and to get latinos in a show,
Speaker 4: I had to go beyond the like six white theater
Speaker 4: majors that were theater majors. So I had Ralphie from
Speaker 4: Ebony Singers in the cast, and I had the result
Speaker 4: of like me casting the net across campus instead of
Speaker 4: just people who auditioned for musicals, was that we were
Speaker 4: a huge hit show because everyone had a friend in
Speaker 4: the show. Because that's how you get people to your
Speaker 4: show when you're in college.
Speaker 3: How did you appeal to him Land? How did you even? Oh?
Speaker 4: I fly, I fly it everywhere and I was in
Speaker 4: the gospel choir and I fly in the gospel. I
Speaker 4: just like went beyond like the theater board call sheet.
Speaker 6: Lynn posed for art classes as the naked guy he knows, come.
Speaker 5: On, we're going.
Speaker 1: Yes, the highest thing at the time girlfriend started.
Speaker 6: Lynn's girlfriend started in the Heights and she was Filipino
Speaker 6: and she remains Filipino to this day. But she was
Speaker 6: like she was the Filipino girl who played like the
Speaker 6: Latin girl from fucking Washington Heights, which was hilarious but
Speaker 6: great casting.
Speaker 4: I didn't succeed in finding latinos. I cast the net
Speaker 4: as winded as as I could.
Speaker 5: And at Wesleyan Filipino is close enough.
Speaker 1: Both is this on tape? Right down. The version of
Speaker 1: this on tape.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you'll never see it. You'll never see it.
Speaker 1: There's a record.
Speaker 4: Toot I put the opening I actually did put the
Speaker 4: opening number on YouTube.
Speaker 5: You can see the opening number. You can see a
Speaker 5: little Filipina Aleen.
Speaker 6: But just for the record was part of it at
Speaker 6: that moment. So don't wait a minute.
Speaker 4: You went so fast, Bill, you sped past. First of all,
Speaker 4: posing for drawing one class was the highest paying job
Speaker 4: on campus.
Speaker 3: How much does that learn?
Speaker 4: Fourteen dollars an hour that's paid.
Speaker 1: You never told me that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I was like, it's not photography, it's just
Speaker 4: people's bad drawings of me naked.
Speaker 5: I can live with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, until for like all kinds of cash, you can.
Speaker 4: The way it worked, you start with quick poses, right
Speaker 4: the first time in this class, it's like ah one minute,
Speaker 4: ah yeah, one minute, and then you have the long
Speaker 4: poses where it's ten minutes where they're going to kind
Speaker 4: of bring out the colors and the chark holes and
Speaker 4: those you have to choose very carefully because if you
Speaker 4: try to be cute, like you're holding that shit for
Speaker 4: you hold. Yeah, so a lot of there's a lot
Speaker 4: of drawings to be lying down that have surfaced since
Speaker 4: my fame. People were like, well, you've been making a
Speaker 4: picture of you and it's just a drawing. Gonna be
Speaker 4: lying down because I didn't want to hold standing up
Speaker 4: for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3: That's at least ten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh naked Lee Manuel, that's the new room brand
Speaker 1: right there.
Speaker 4: It was one guys, they can't be that good.
Speaker 5: It was intro to drawing.
Speaker 1: Wow, boy, that's crazy.
Speaker 4: So anyway, so Bill killed being music director, and then
Speaker 4: I was like, you're working with me, You're coming with
Speaker 4: me on my shows. I write my own ship. And
Speaker 4: he sort of had no choice. It's sort of like
Speaker 4: how he wound up on your show.
Speaker 5: He was just like, oh good.
Speaker 6: And then there was Lin's been doing the same impression
Speaker 6: impression of me for like almost twenty years.
Speaker 4: Here's here's here's my line on Bill, because he says
Speaker 4: it at every juncture in our career is from college onward.
Speaker 4: I didn't think it was gonna be a big deal.
Speaker 4: It was a big deal.
Speaker 6: He makes me an idiot, my boss, Now that's you.
Speaker 3: Why do you always have to tell everybody what I do?
Speaker 3: My whole resume every show?
Speaker 1: I just want to know why. Yeah, fuck because.
Speaker 3: You're fucking amazing whatever.
Speaker 8: Okay, anyway, so they you guys, did they know how
Speaker 8: great you guys were At the time, it was the
Speaker 8: whole theater department like, oh, this is going to be
Speaker 8: our this is going to be a hit, and people
Speaker 8: are going to always come back to Lesley Bill.
Speaker 2: There has to be that professor that was like scoffing
Speaker 2: at this, and now you you came back like giving
Speaker 2: a master class ten years later, like.
Speaker 1: There has to be The.
Speaker 4: Issue actually was that In the Heights was I kind
Speaker 4: of peaked sophomore year because he was really good. It
Speaker 4: was a huge hit. We sold cast albums of a
Speaker 4: college show mainly because I couldn't get any This is
Speaker 4: so dated, but like the weekend I had the theater
Speaker 4: was the weekend of the Wesleyan Millennium Concert, So all
Speaker 4: the good musicians were playing the Wesleyan Millennium Concert. So
Speaker 4: I couldn't get any the musicians I wanted to play
Speaker 4: the weekend you played the Millennium Concert. I took my
Speaker 4: sound budget and I created karaoke tracks. So even in
Speaker 4: the first performance of In the Heights they're singing to
Speaker 4: playback that I did at like a studio in Middletown,
Speaker 4: and so and then I paid the money back by
Speaker 4: selling albums and.
Speaker 2: So we were copy of the original, never oone saying yes.
Speaker 1: No anyway my so uh wow, you haven't Organics under
Speaker 1: your belt. That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Organics Records the first roots album. That's not a roots album,
Speaker 2: but it's a roots album.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 6: Who played our senior concert at Wesleyan anyone?
Speaker 1: The roots? Y'all playing saved ten feet before we even
Speaker 1: knew each other, many many years ago, even there while
Speaker 1: you guys were there yep, with Ben on the base Wow,
Speaker 1: during phrenology period, look at God only.
Speaker 2: The only reason why I remember the santi era was
Speaker 2: only because the infamous by Mob Deep came out.
Speaker 1: The day that we had to play their.
Speaker 2: Their spring Fleeing and in ninety five, and we were
Speaker 2: So that's the only time I remember.
Speaker 1: That. And the and the sopran knows uh.
Speaker 2: Uh the Sopranos ending season series ending? Do I remember
Speaker 2: abbreviating the show the Roots show so we could rush
Speaker 2: off stage to do something else.
Speaker 8: What's funny is the Roots played at all our college shows.
Speaker 8: Like I'm sure he's a fante.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I was at my I saw him at
Speaker 1: un CG.
Speaker 7: They never came to They never came to Central Butt
Speaker 7: un CG.
Speaker 1: And they came to Duke.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you guys have biz Marquis as the DJ beforehand.
Speaker 3: Perfect college.
Speaker 1: It was awesome.
Speaker 6: It all the white kids were friends six times, six
Speaker 6: times without even giving a ship without like there was
Speaker 6: no nothing.
Speaker 1: He was just like, fuck it, So were you doing
Speaker 1: any were you putting together? Now?
Speaker 2: I know there's a difference between participating in productions and
Speaker 2: putting it together. What what gave you the the spark
Speaker 2: or the coumpsion or the nerve to even say I
Speaker 2: have to put this together myself? Like why does one
Speaker 2: to do that at a college? Like I want to
Speaker 2: put something together.
Speaker 5: It's funny because I went.
Speaker 4: I chose Wesleyan because it's one of the few places
Speaker 4: that lets you double major in theater and film, and
Speaker 4: I really loved film and I really love theater. And
Speaker 4: then like like I just got really practical once I
Speaker 4: got there. If you're a film major, this was pre digital,
Speaker 4: so you're paying for film. To make your senior film,
Speaker 4: you have to pay for it yourself, and the best
Speaker 4: you can do is get your short into a festival
Speaker 4: or maybe get an agent. If the head of the
Speaker 4: department likes you more than the other kids and like
Speaker 4: kind of pushes you. If you make theater, it's three
Speaker 4: hundred bucks for a show and the school pays for it.
Speaker 4: So I just remember thinking, like, I'm going to make
Speaker 4: as much theater as I can in these four years.
Speaker 4: Because I knew my parents were killing themselves to pay
Speaker 4: for school. My dad like literally quit his non for
Speaker 4: profit job and went to like a higher pay because
Speaker 4: I was going to college.
Speaker 5: Like I was very aware of that burden.
Speaker 1: What was like to do what My.
Speaker 4: Mom's psychologist and my dad was the head of a
Speaker 4: nonprofit called Hispanic Federation that's sort of this umbrella organization
Speaker 4: for Latino organizations, and he went into political consulting the
Speaker 4: year I went to school because he was like, I have.
Speaker 1: To go to make this breed money.
Speaker 4: And so, I mean, it's not an accident that one
Speaker 4: of the major plot lines of In the Heights is
Speaker 4: like parents killing themselves to pay for Nina's school and
Speaker 4: her kind of accepting that sacrifice and instead of being
Speaker 4: like I don't want this life, it's it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm going to make the most of it. I'm going
Speaker 4: to make the most of what you guys have done
Speaker 4: that I could be here. And so I just was like,
Speaker 4: if I leave Wesley with just a degree in theater studies, like,
Speaker 4: I don't know what that's going to be. So I
Speaker 4: just like tried to treat it like a four year workshop.
Speaker 4: Like I wrote a musical every year and I would
Speaker 4: put it up and I acted in other people's stuff too,
Speaker 4: And I you know, the cool thing about theater majoring
Speaker 4: is that you you learn you hang lights for other
Speaker 4: people shows. I did set design for other people's shows.
Speaker 4: I did sound as like, you learn all these other
Speaker 4: different skills, which helps you in the world because you
Speaker 4: kind of know what everyone else does in their respective departments.
Speaker 1: Hustle you.
Speaker 6: Because I will say this as stoner hippie music guy,
Speaker 6: I got laid X amount of times as music director
Speaker 6: in Lynn shows. I got laid x times a thousand
Speaker 6: more times than being stoner hippie drum circle guy.
Speaker 2: That's what was the time for me to have the
Speaker 2: damn sound effects of machines.
Speaker 1: I wish a mere hit it know that you can't
Speaker 1: do it on stud.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wait, I do want to know I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: no one, no one can plan lightning in a battle,
Speaker 2: or plan a phenomenon or any of those things. But
Speaker 2: I have to say that if anyone has been privy
Speaker 2: to many a meeting or a summit meeting for these
Speaker 2: pitches in which they promise you the world, I've been
Speaker 2: that guy, meaning since nineteen ninety nine, since two thousand,
Speaker 2: I've heard many a pitch about. You know, there was
Speaker 2: a point where they were going to try to bring
Speaker 2: Wild Style the Broadway.
Speaker 1: And they described how we're going to change the world.
Speaker 2: And I was part of the meeting when they first
Speaker 2: started at you know the famous Tupaca too. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: play that that you know got deaded in three weeks.
Speaker 2: Everything there was even a play based on I probably
Speaker 2: the furthest. I got involved with hip hop and Broadway.
Speaker 2: If you remember the the Nike commercials where they were
Speaker 2: like bouncing the ball and rhythm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: I wanted they signed ll up. They wanted to do
Speaker 2: something about like street ball, like on the Rucker.
Speaker 1: That sort of thing. We got.
Speaker 2: I'll say that we got about three months into it,
Speaker 2: three months into workshops. Here here's the music lineup, Bootsy Collins,
Speaker 2: Nonah Hendricks Quest Love, Bootsy Collins, Nona Hendricks Questlove, and
Speaker 2: I think Mums so that you know, they they were like,
Speaker 2: He's just gonna be poetry and basketball and Llo cool
Speaker 2: Jay and and you know the thing is is that
Speaker 2: Broadways so addicted to this, like to this ten pan
Speaker 2: alley jazz fingers like this, this this Gershwind thing.
Speaker 1: They can't let go. And it's like you, I mean,
Speaker 1: out out of And there's there's four or five other.
Speaker 2: Plays that I've seen or been involved with, pitches in
Speaker 2: which they go over the top and describing it. I mean,
Speaker 2: in your mind, are you thinking, Okay, I'm finally gonna
Speaker 2: rid Broadway of its of its disease of being stuck
Speaker 2: in the nineteen thirties and just updated, Like, are you
Speaker 2: thinking this at all when you're when you're putting these
Speaker 2: productions together? Is it just like, Hey, it's Thursday, and
Speaker 2: I have a clever idea I want to get down.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a combo of both.
Speaker 4: And it's actually it brings us back to tiktick Boom
Speaker 4: because I think that I have parents who grew up
Speaker 4: with I grew up with cast albums. My parents were
Speaker 4: like that generation who just collected didn't even see the shows,
Speaker 4: but collected.
Speaker 5: The cast albums, and so I grew up with those
Speaker 5: and loving those.
Speaker 4: But again, I think like for a lot of people,
Speaker 4: it just felt like something old white people did and
Speaker 4: old white people saw.
Speaker 5: And I enjoyed it, but it didn't seem.
Speaker 1: Like a place in it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was like a walled garden. And then I
Speaker 4: saw Rent, and that really changed it for me because one,
Speaker 4: it took place in the present, and that sounds so normal,
Speaker 4: but I hadn't seen any musicals. It took place in
Speaker 4: the present by the time I'm a teenager. Even a
Speaker 4: chorus line is a period piece.
Speaker 1: And okay, I hate to be that guy. What year
Speaker 1: did you see Rent?
Speaker 4: I saw first year on my seventies. You saw it
Speaker 4: in ninety six the last row of the Neederlander Theater.
Speaker 1: Mezzani me too, So you saw it in ninety six.
Speaker 5: I saw it in ninety seven because I saw it
Speaker 5: for my seventeenth birthday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I didn't know if it was ninety six
Speaker 2: ninety seven. And for you that was life changing, because
Speaker 2: the thing was when I saw Rent in two thousand
Speaker 2: and four, two thousand and.
Speaker 1: Five, Yeah, I was kind of like it's a different thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Maybe no, you're you're right, because I remember seeing Rant
Speaker 4: in two thousand and four, two thousand and five, and
Speaker 4: it was it felt like a copy of a copy
Speaker 4: of a copy by then, Like I remember seeing it.
Speaker 4: We had a friend who was a swing in it,
Speaker 4: and so I got to go around the era you
Speaker 4: saw it. I remember seeing one of the actresses like
Speaker 4: straight up falling asleep during lave v Bom and it's
Speaker 4: like that show doesn't work if like everybody doesn't believe
Speaker 4: in it in every iota of their being. And you
Speaker 4: saw like that twentieth cast, and but I remember.
Speaker 2: That really shows the power of you, because Hamilton is
Speaker 2: able to resonate powerfully with or without the nucleus cast.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but I.
Speaker 4: Also think we also as a production team are so
Speaker 4: much more involved than other production teams at this stage
Speaker 4: in the musical's life, Like still weekly zooms with our
Speaker 4: cast member like we're Tommy checks in, our director checks
Speaker 4: in like more than anybody.
Speaker 5: But but for me, Rent in ninety seven.
Speaker 4: Was a contemporary show and it's not like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 4: that sounds like it could be on the radio. It
Speaker 4: still sounded very rock on Broadway, but to me it
Speaker 4: ended the conversation about rock on Broadway. It was sort
Speaker 4: of like Jonathan Larson was like, rock music and pop
Speaker 4: music and Broadway should reflect each other. They just should
Speaker 4: be friends. That's why we liked to gershawin he on
Speaker 4: the radio, and then you would go see the song
Speaker 4: you heard on the radio in the shows that night.
Speaker 4: And there's no reason popular music and theater music shouldn't
Speaker 4: be in conversation with each other all the time. And
Speaker 4: that was I mean, if anything, that's the thesis of
Speaker 4: Rent and the Score, and so I just extrapolated that
Speaker 4: to hip hop. I was just like, I don't understand
Speaker 4: why every time I see hip hop reference in a
Speaker 4: Broadway musical, it's like in quotes, it's like, isn't it
Speaker 4: crazy that characters are rapping? I was like, hip hop
Speaker 4: is thirty years old, it's so way past a joke
Speaker 4: at this point. That and it's some of the best
Speaker 4: storytelling in music. So why aren't you all in conversation
Speaker 4: with each other? So even in the musicals I wrote
Speaker 4: in high school, I was always putting hip hop in them.
Speaker 4: In the Heights had a ton of hip hop in it.
Speaker 4: It was just I just felt like it was a
Speaker 4: more exciting way to tell a story through music than
Speaker 4: what I was seeing.
Speaker 7: I think with hip hop too, but with Ryman, like
Speaker 7: you can get more content in Like you know what
Speaker 7: I'm saying. If you give a singer sixteen bars and
Speaker 7: you give a rapper sixteen bars, I'm saying, I'm gonna
Speaker 7: say a whole lot more, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 7: because it's just more content.
Speaker 8: There's something to say too about the audience that hip
Speaker 8: hop attracts and what that would bring to Broadway in
Speaker 8: the theater and what they were afraid of, right, yeah, No.
Speaker 4: I mean it's so funny when I see when I
Speaker 4: would see Dave do the first round of interviews on
Speaker 4: Hamilton and like people be like, you're rappid so fast,
Speaker 4: and He's like, oh no, I'm not being fast for Broadway,
Speaker 4: right right right. The laugh I think is it's slower
Speaker 4: than anything tech nine's ever said in his life.
Speaker 1: Right, technolog the same thing, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Exactly, all tho the Worldlife Shoppers. But like you know,
Speaker 4: it is in a way Hamilton's so passed to do.
Speaker 4: But the reason Hamilton works is because it is the
Speaker 4: story of a writer, and I don't think people think
Speaker 4: of hip hop artists as writers. And that was that
Speaker 4: was the only that was the insight I brought to it,
Speaker 4: was like, this is a guy who wrote himself into
Speaker 4: every situation. And that's what our favorite mcs do. They
Speaker 4: write about their reality so well that they transcend them
Speaker 4: that when you go across the world with your African
Speaker 4: High Life band Bill, you will meet people on the
Speaker 4: other side of the world who can wrap every lyric
Speaker 4: of Ready to Die or the eight Mile soundtrack or
Speaker 4: things Fall Apart, like it transcends because of its specificity.
Speaker 4: And that's you know, when I was reading that book,
Speaker 4: that's to me what Hamilton did. And so I was like,
Speaker 4: this is a hip hop is the only way to
Speaker 4: do this story?
Speaker 1: And how long did you spend writing Hamilton? How long
Speaker 1: the process was.
Speaker 4: That I started in two thousand and eight and we
Speaker 4: opened on Broadway in twenty fifteen. Shit, yeah, it was
Speaker 4: like because it was also like I kind of felt
Speaker 4: like a snake staring down an elephant, like for me
Speaker 4: to digest this history and then be able to like
Speaker 4: spit it back out in a way that it like
Speaker 4: told the story, you know, because I had to just
Speaker 4: do a ton of research full stop, and then you know,
Speaker 4: attack every moment and decide. You know, it's just a
Speaker 4: million decisions. And I had to read a lot of
Speaker 4: boring papers by people who are smarter than me, right,
Speaker 4: and have it make sense to me in a way
Speaker 4: that then I could write it and embody it and
Speaker 4: tell those stories and make it.
Speaker 1: Make it make sense to the audience.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it makes it makes sense to myself.
Speaker 4: The other thing in the Secret Sauce is like a
Speaker 4: lot of the energy in Hamilton is like, can you
Speaker 4: believe this should happen? Can you believe this should happened?
Speaker 4: Because I'm experiencing that as I'm reading this story, like
Speaker 4: and then he's vice president and then he shoots it
Speaker 4: like it's fucking crazy.
Speaker 5: And it's a soap opera. But yeah, it took a
Speaker 5: long time for me to digest it.
Speaker 2: I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact
Speaker 2: that when you go on vacation, you take like right now,
Speaker 2: Obama is about to turn in a two volume book,
Speaker 2: and volume one, I believe, is seven hundred and ninety pages,
Speaker 2: so already a book the size of Hamilton that you
Speaker 2: read when you went on vacation. You finished that book
Speaker 2: on vacation. You couldn't, don't.
Speaker 4: I don't know that I finished it on vacation. But
Speaker 4: this was pre kindled. This is before you could put
Speaker 4: fifty books.
Speaker 1: In your backund Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: You don't want to pack twenty books. I'm just gonna
Speaker 4: pack one big book and that'll be my vacation book.
Speaker 1: It was just like, who takes a seven hundred page
Speaker 1: book on vacation?
Speaker 5: I just knew the guy died in a duel at
Speaker 5: the end.
Speaker 4: That was it made that to what made it interesting?
Speaker 5: And like I learned that in school and I was
Speaker 5: just like.
Speaker 4: This would be interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that was my quine.
Speaker 7: That was my next question. I was like, why Hamilton
Speaker 7: and not Lincoln or Jefferson or whoever?
Speaker 1: Right? Like why or Icebergs? What made you speak?
Speaker 4: I think, honestly, it's because there was so much I
Speaker 4: didn't know by the time I started writ Like what
Speaker 4: got the book off the shelf and into my hands
Speaker 4: was I knew this guy got shot by the vice president,
Speaker 4: like and I think around the time Dick Cheney had
Speaker 4: just shot a dude like an accidental hunting money in
Speaker 4: the face and his face the face, and so that
Speaker 4: was enough to just like pique my curiosity because that's
Speaker 4: really all I knew other than he was on the ten.
Speaker 4: And then when I opened the book and realized he
Speaker 4: was born and grew up in the Caribbean, that was
Speaker 4: interesting to me.
Speaker 5: I didn't know any of the white dudes on money were.
Speaker 4: Not born here. And then when he got the scholarship,
Speaker 4: this hurricane destroys the island, he writes about it, and
Speaker 4: they collect money for a scholarship to send him to
Speaker 4: not the States. It wasn't the States yet the fucking mainland.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: That's when I was like, well, this guy, that's what
Speaker 4: my dad did. Like my dad grew up in Puerto
Speaker 4: Rico and got a scholarship to come to New York
Speaker 4: at the same age. Because my dad is way smarter
Speaker 4: than me, he had graduated college by the time he
Speaker 4: was eighteen.
Speaker 5: He skipped all the grades.
Speaker 4: He was like Puerto Rican doogie. And so it that
Speaker 4: temperament of like how he was like I gotta get
Speaker 4: the fuck out of here. I gotta make a life
Speaker 4: for myself, Like that was a very It reminded me
Speaker 4: of my dad. And it also felt fundamentally like a
Speaker 4: hip hop story, like I'm gonna get the fuck out
Speaker 4: of where I am and get to a better place
Speaker 4: in life. And that's the stuff of good musicals. You
Speaker 4: want the character who has a really strong want. You
Speaker 4: want you know, fucking Tony singing, Something's coming. You want.
Speaker 5: Alpha Ba singing, I'm gonna meet the fucking Wizard.
Speaker 4: You know, that's the stuff of good musicals because they've
Speaker 4: just got this engine in them.
Speaker 3: So can I ask you a question?
Speaker 8: I'm curious in between like the heights, how does as
Speaker 8: a working artist? Because you said how long it took
Speaker 8: for you to get to Hamilton? Like, what are you
Speaker 8: doing in the in between years?
Speaker 4: It was Sesame Street Songs for Bill.
Speaker 1: That's okay, that's.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, hold on, we haven't completed this full start.
Speaker 6: So we creduated from college. All right, So graduated from college.
Speaker 6: We don't even get the freestyle of supreme Wait, hold.
Speaker 1: On, we're getting in there. That's there, you go. So
Speaker 1: then so we graduated college, and then so we both
Speaker 1: moved home for like six months.
Speaker 5: I never moved home.
Speaker 4: I went to apartment.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so he we we if I moved home, stay apartment.
Speaker 6: So Lynn rents this apartment with two other people. It's
Speaker 6: five thousand Broadway and so two on a twelve street,
Speaker 6: which is like twenty blocks now, like ten blocks from
Speaker 6: Lynn's parents.
Speaker 1: Who live on b Boo boo boo boop treat.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, get that address too. I forgot you're like
Speaker 6: an important person. Stop looking at me like that.
Speaker 1: So so so.
Speaker 6: Uh okay, So I move into this apartment. So if
Speaker 6: it rains outside, it rains inside. We made we make
Speaker 6: pizza bagels, like solely because we.
Speaker 1: Don't have any money.
Speaker 5: We skate.
Speaker 1: Beans get we skateboard in the house. There's like a
Speaker 1: mattress like if you fall on the skateboard, you take
Speaker 1: a nap on the mattress.
Speaker 6: Like it's gross. It's gross, and you bring people there
Speaker 6: and they're like, this is fucking gross. Anyway, we lived
Speaker 6: there for like four years, and.
Speaker 5: I was just a substitute tea shirt right, and I worked.
Speaker 6: At MTV because my dad got me a job working
Speaker 6: in the IT department at MTV. So I was like
Speaker 6: answering emails sent into MTV. This is all true. And
Speaker 6: during during my lunch breaks, Lynn and I would meet
Speaker 6: at the drama bookshop, which was then on fortieth Street
Speaker 6: between Something and Something, and we would go down in
Speaker 6: this basement and we would work on in the heights.
Speaker 6: So he would bring a song, we would do a thing.
Speaker 6: Blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: We're talking and I'm more like that crew.
Speaker 6: Right, And this went on for years and then and
Speaker 6: then finally, after you know, charming enough people and doing
Speaker 6: enough work, we went up off Broadway on thirty seven
Speaker 6: Arts on thirty seventh Street and that was like an amazing,
Speaker 6: humongous moment. Meanwhile, we're both He's still subbing. I'm still
Speaker 6: working this totally dead end job. At one point, I
Speaker 6: think I was like being paid to transcribe things for
Speaker 6: people like us request live Yeahdale to.
Speaker 1: The translator for Carson Davis. I mean, yeah, car uh
Speaker 1: what we other? We had other weird jobs. Lynn what else?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Lynn wrote music for his dad's like camp ads.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just like I mean, that's the easiest gig of
Speaker 5: just like sad Chord. This politician wants to kick puppy.
Speaker 8: That's crazy because as your career is blowing up, so
Speaker 8: is your dad's. Like he's going in a whole different Okay,
Speaker 8: So go ahead, Bill.
Speaker 6: So every Sunday we would go to lynn parents house
Speaker 6: and watch the Soprano It was live, like we would
Speaker 6: get off the.
Speaker 5: Stage and they had cable and we didn't, right, and.
Speaker 1: We had no food.
Speaker 6: So it's like the only real real we ate was
Speaker 6: every Sunday at Lynd's parents house with like Lynn's grandmother,
Speaker 6: his cousin like his parents.
Speaker 1: It was awesome and we went every Sunday, and we
Speaker 1: want to watch the Sopranos every week. Yeah.
Speaker 6: In fact, we saw the Last School okay uh, and
Speaker 6: then in the Heights went went up off Broadway two
Speaker 6: thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: We were like, holy shit.
Speaker 4: My first acting job, my first TV job was on
Speaker 4: the last season of The Sopranos. I got on.
Speaker 1: I was a bell hop, Oh, bell hop, mister Herman,
Speaker 1: paging mister Herman.
Speaker 5: Literally my line is I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 5: and I'm so great.
Speaker 4: You can see me.
Speaker 5: Look down from my mark where to stop in the
Speaker 5: episode you're seeing me.
Speaker 2: Go, wait, do you know the name of the episode.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, My Apple TV is right in front of
Speaker 2: me right now.
Speaker 8: Miss It's called remember when I mere you missed the
Speaker 8: re enacted damn.
Speaker 4: Then was about to do yes, I don't know, I
Speaker 4: don't know.
Speaker 5: And then uh goes fucking guy.
Speaker 3: But you got to share screen time with the great Gandolphine.
Speaker 1: Paully was in that scene too, right, Paul.
Speaker 3: Was the scene?
Speaker 8: Okay, that was okay, PAULI is pussy, No pussy is different. Okay,
Speaker 8: I gotta go back.
Speaker 2: Damn, you're in the last Wow, that's amazing when you
Speaker 2: went to Vegas.
Speaker 5: Right, stopped talking. I'm sorry watching the Sopranos.
Speaker 1: This is what happens on Quest of Supreme. I'm still listening.
Speaker 1: Go ahead.
Speaker 6: So during this time getting towards off Broadway, Uh, I
Speaker 6: moved out of that house and moved in with my girlfriend,
Speaker 6: who then became my wife.
Speaker 1: Don't go and and then and then wait where are
Speaker 1: they coming from? The right on time? You're welcome.
Speaker 6: Were we were rehearsing that before we did this, And
Speaker 6: then what happened Lynn Lynn started dating his now wife.
Speaker 6: We had children anyway, and so then in the Heights
Speaker 6: happens and we have careers, poof careers.
Speaker 1: How long was that in the Heights? How long was
Speaker 1: writing at that process?
Speaker 4: It was from I mean basically from the moment I
Speaker 4: met Tommy Cale, when I graduated in two thousand and
Speaker 4: two to opening night, like January of two thousand and eight,
Speaker 4: it was.
Speaker 5: My twenty like basically in the Heights was my twenties thirty.
Speaker 4: So like lots of other gigs and and sort of
Speaker 4: amazing things in between, but those are the broad strokes.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So with theater, I'm curious to know how long
Speaker 7: do you have I guess to edit something before it
Speaker 7: goes up?
Speaker 1: You know how if you've it happens long.
Speaker 4: You know, in terms of every show is different. For
Speaker 4: for Heights, we gave ourselves a solid four weeks so
Speaker 4: that we can make changes because the audience is the
Speaker 4: last collaborator and and they'll they'll tell you what's working,
Speaker 4: what's not, and what needs finessing.
Speaker 5: And it may not even be the writing of it.
Speaker 4: It may be that that number is not ending with
Speaker 4: the right light, or this dance sequence isn't landing the
Speaker 4: way we want it to land. So pre that's what
Speaker 4: previews is for, is to get the audience in and yeah,
Speaker 4: and and I mean Hamilton was interesting because we did
Speaker 4: the first performance at the Public and it ran at
Speaker 4: three hours and ten minutes. Yeah, about three hours and
Speaker 4: ten minutes and it was sort of like, well, shit,
Speaker 4: I like lame Is, but I don't want to be
Speaker 4: longer than Lamys. And so first and Tommy was so,
Speaker 4: you know, Tommy is is smart full stop, but he's
Speaker 4: also politically really smart, because sometimes people get salty when
Speaker 4: their stuff is cut, like you can do cuts the
Speaker 4: wrong way, in a way that the cast doesn't feel
Speaker 4: in on it. And he said, the first thing we
Speaker 4: need to do is cut any song addressing any character
Speaker 4: that is not on stage. And I had a hot
Speaker 4: sixteen bars about John Adams, who was never played by anyone.
Speaker 4: It was like an off stage address. And that was
Speaker 4: the first thing we cut. And it was great because
Speaker 4: it also sent a message to the rest of the cast,
Speaker 4: like we just cut the composer's best sixteen.
Speaker 1: So this is not as it's not a.
Speaker 5: Value, it's a what's best for the show.
Speaker 4: It's not about whether you're doing it well or not,
Speaker 4: like this is about honing the material. So we cut
Speaker 4: all my Ship first and brought like brought down ten
Speaker 4: minutes and then and then you know, we got it
Speaker 4: down to about we got it down to like two
Speaker 4: fifty at the public and then we use the jump
Speaker 4: to Broadway to cut another fifteen.
Speaker 1: Minutes, so before it goes to Broadway.
Speaker 7: You have the previews that are foreign audience, where that's
Speaker 7: almost kind of like, I don't say a focus group,
Speaker 7: but that's what you like said, it's.
Speaker 4: A nightly focused group, and it's and again it's also
Speaker 4: it's not even about like they laughed at this. They
Speaker 4: didn't laugh at this, because sometimes you get the wrong laugh,
Speaker 4: Like we had a line in History Has Its Eyes
Speaker 4: on You where Chris Jackson was getting a laugh at
Speaker 4: the top of the song because I can't remember what
Speaker 4: it was, but he basically Nane checks the French and
Speaker 4: Indian War, and the nerds in the audience were like, aha,
Speaker 4: I know about that, and it was like, no, no,
Speaker 4: we don't want to laugh here, like that may be true,
Speaker 4: but it's a laugh when we don't need it.
Speaker 5: Similar with the ll quote we had.
Speaker 4: We used to have an I need love quote in
Speaker 4: the show, and that's the affair, right That song used
Speaker 4: to start when I'm alone in my room sometimes and
Speaker 4: you took it out all yeah, I took it out
Speaker 4: because the audience was laughing at the reference and they
Speaker 4: weren't listening to what was happening to what was saying,
Speaker 4: you know, like it was a free reference and even
Speaker 4: Ll reached out was like, you be clear, I'm cool
Speaker 4: with it, and that was amazing. She like literally like
Speaker 4: tweeted at me like let's talk about it.
Speaker 5: But it was just a laugh at the wrong moment.
Speaker 11: So we cut it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I saw in the Heights. I still I've still
Speaker 7: yet to watch themton I saw in the Heights. A
Speaker 7: local the original theater group did it here in probably
Speaker 7: North Carolina, and a good friend of mine, Carly Jones,
Speaker 7: she played Camilla and we saw it and it was
Speaker 7: a great show man. I hit Bill afterwards, I send
Speaker 7: in the program. I was like, Yo, this was this
Speaker 7: is really dope because I'm not a theater.
Speaker 1: Guy, you know at all.
Speaker 7: You know, I hadn't really you know. That's why I
Speaker 7: just hearing all these stories. I'm just curious to know,
Speaker 7: like how they're worked out and how they're fleshed out.
Speaker 7: And you know when you say you started something, oh too,
Speaker 7: and y'all were working up until oh eight, It's like, damn.
Speaker 1: Because I feel like you would shine in theater.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, indeed, absolutely, but in fund that you should
Speaker 6: be Inhilton in the new in.
Speaker 2: I mean any new version of it, not again, like
Speaker 2: I feel like there's not jazz hands thirty.
Speaker 11: Yeah, like input too, though not just the performing well
Speaker 11: again like that, I have to say, like after Heights
Speaker 11: Close we ran from two thousand and eight through the
Speaker 11: end of twenty ten, there was a part of me
Speaker 11: that was a little frustrated that.
Speaker 4: Hip hop land was over here and musical theater was
Speaker 4: over here, and there was so little ven diagram, Like
Speaker 4: I could not get the hip hop artists I admired
Speaker 4: too into the Rogers. I could not get awareness of
Speaker 4: the show in the hip hop community. It did well
Speaker 4: in the Latin community, and it brought Latin audiences to
Speaker 4: Broadway in a big way while it was there, but
Speaker 4: it was just like no one was even checking for it.
Speaker 4: I felt like I was jumping up and waving my
Speaker 4: arms and and it hadn't happened in a real way.
Speaker 4: Like I remember Run DMC came to the show, like
Speaker 4: a couple of like like legends came and they were
Speaker 4: it was really like huge for me. But with with Hamilton,
Speaker 4: I just I remember wanting so I was just like,
Speaker 4: this thing is such a fucking love letter to hip
Speaker 4: hop like it would be a shame.
Speaker 5: And I know it's sailing over the heads of the strictly.
Speaker 4: Musical theater fans. We're not getting the ten Crack Commandments
Speaker 4: reference or the mob Deep reference or the you know,
Speaker 4: brand Nubian reference because.
Speaker 5: It's all the nineties hip hop shit. I like, I
Speaker 5: crammed into the show.
Speaker 3: And so do you think point was an issue?
Speaker 8: Because maybe not not for those those famous people, but
Speaker 8: for their audience or for the people who surround them
Speaker 8: that they couldn't have a conversation with.
Speaker 4: I think it's I think it's always an issue. It's
Speaker 4: one of the biggest issues facing theater.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's a lot.
Speaker 8: I definitely wanted to see and I still have yet.
Speaker 8: I gotta now, I gotta get Disney Plus.
Speaker 1: Or Disney Plus password.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, I'm working on that.
Speaker 4: Device's friends. I got to so I was I was
Speaker 4: really gratified when Hamilton was received the way it was
Speaker 4: because the folks that I knew would enjoy it were
Speaker 4: able to see it.
Speaker 1: Have you seen it?
Speaker 7: Have you seen it now since it's on Disney Plus
Speaker 7: and it's becoming more accessible, do you have you seen
Speaker 7: or do you foresee an influx of it being used
Speaker 7: as a tool and teaching like in school and stuff
Speaker 7: like that.
Speaker 4: Well, that was one of the first things that we
Speaker 4: realized coming out of it, Like two hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: thousand students have seen Hamilton thanks to Edgeham, this educational
Speaker 4: program we did because we realized really quick like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is becoming a buzz that is bigger than we
Speaker 4: can control. And if kids can't see the show, be
Speaker 4: fucked up because this is like a semester of ap
Speaker 4: history in about two and a half hours. And so
Speaker 4: we partnered with a nonprofit called the Gilded Learnment Association
Speaker 4: that basically deals in teaching American history, and we created Edgeham,
Speaker 4: which is these dedicated shows that are these student matinees.
Speaker 4: We start with the students do a curriculum where they
Speaker 4: write about whoever they want in American history.
Speaker 5: And I mean you can go if you google Edgeham,
Speaker 5: you'll see the most amazing shit.
Speaker 4: Like Phyllis Wheatley poems and Sally Hemming songs. I Like,
Speaker 4: people really like take the assignment and like of like, oh,
Speaker 4: what's the history I'm not learning about, I'm going to
Speaker 4: write about that, and they perform it for us. They
Speaker 4: get their Broadway debut, and they perform on stage and
Speaker 4: the best group from each school performs and they all
Speaker 4: scream for each other. Then they do a Q and
Speaker 4: A with the cast, and then we perform the matinee
Speaker 4: for them, and it's the It's the biggest legacy of
Speaker 4: the show because I feel like it opens up, it
Speaker 4: opens up history in a way that says, this is yours.
Speaker 1: This is ours.
Speaker 7: Oh no, no, uh now, I was just gonna ask you,
Speaker 7: you know, in regards to Hamilton. Uh, this was a
Speaker 7: couple of this is a while back. You're on Twitter
Speaker 7: and H Tracy Clayton, H Tracy Okay, playing family. I
Speaker 7: was like, we all kind of go way back. But
Speaker 7: y'all were having a discussion about about Hamilton, and you
Speaker 7: were very open, like to the criticisms of like, you know,
Speaker 7: what didn't really address kind of the horrors of slavery
Speaker 7: and him being like the slave owner like all that stuff,
Speaker 7: and you know, and I thought what you said was
Speaker 7: very fair of just like, look, I tried to get
Speaker 7: in what I could only had, you know, two and
Speaker 7: a half hours. You know, how do you decide what
Speaker 7: to cut, what to leave in, what's pertinent to the story.
Speaker 7: How do you I guess, how do you wrestle with
Speaker 7: all that and tell him the story?
Speaker 5: Every show is different. With Hamilton, the relentlessness was the thing.
Speaker 4: Like if it didn't, I mean, we had we cut
Speaker 4: characters because they were in Hamilton's life for long enough,
Speaker 4: you know, Like the guy who eulogized him is not
Speaker 4: in the show because he didn't meet him till later
Speaker 4: in his life. Ben Franklin, kind of an important guy
Speaker 4: not in the show because he didn't interact with Hamilton enough.
Speaker 4: And so it's interesting when when you have the success
Speaker 4: that Hamilton has had, what what happens is everyone like
Speaker 4: gets interested because the show has made them interested, and
Speaker 4: then they go and they do their research and they go,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, this city for this senor and put
Speaker 4: this in. And I'm over here, like I know, I've
Speaker 4: been researching this thing for six years, but I wanted
Speaker 4: to get you know, I'm writing a musical, I'm not
Speaker 4: writing a history report. And so I'm I'm open to
Speaker 4: the criticism because I know what's on the cutting room
Speaker 4: floor and I know that, you know, you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 4: Like I remember in the first year people really discovered
Speaker 4: John Lawrence John Lawrence was the most anti slavery of
Speaker 4: that group of friends, and he also people believe, and
Speaker 4: there's a really strong case for it, that he and
Speaker 4: Hamilton were lovers. Like the letters they write to each
Speaker 4: other are just as passionate as some of the ones
Speaker 4: Hamilton wrote to Eliza. And people said, what about this,
Speaker 4: and I said, yeah, maybe probably. The thing is Lawrence
Speaker 4: doesn't survive the act, so I can't really go there
Speaker 4: because I'm not going to get to explore it in
Speaker 4: act too.
Speaker 5: So that's why I didn't explore that facet of him.
Speaker 3: Yet to lean on on others.
Speaker 8: I'm curious because there's a lot of people who've had
Speaker 8: the experience of creating by epics or you know, things
Speaker 8: based on people's lives. Did you ever have to talk
Speaker 8: to other folks that had that similar experience that they
Speaker 8: had to cut.
Speaker 3: Out stuff and they were criticized because I thought about as.
Speaker 8: You were talking, I was like, yeah, I know, I
Speaker 8: rememb when people came to Spike Lee because even with
Speaker 8: that long ass movie, it wasn't enough for Malcolm X.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean that's just the part of the and the
Speaker 4: and the only thing you can say is everyone's right
Speaker 4: but it's not all in there. And also, like criticism
Speaker 4: is not cancelation, it's criticism. And I can take criticism,
Speaker 4: do you know what I mean? Like that's I'm a
Speaker 4: big boy, and I know what's not in there. And
Speaker 4: what I console myself with is it sparks conversations about
Speaker 4: what's not in it and about the faults of these
Speaker 4: folks and and how flawed the documents are and how
Speaker 4: flawed these men were. The thing I take issue with
Speaker 4: is I don't think we'd glorify these guys for a second.
Speaker 4: I just don't think.
Speaker 5: That was not my aim.
Speaker 4: My aim was to tell as compelling a story as
Speaker 4: I have while I have you in that theater for
Speaker 4: two and a half hours, and paint them as flawed
Speaker 4: as a piece of musical theater can paint them. But like, yes,
Speaker 4: you're all right, that's not in it.
Speaker 5: That's not in it. That's not in it, that's not
Speaker 5: in it, like and you know, and and and this
Speaker 5: was the springboard for that discussion.
Speaker 7: Yeah do you think you know? Because seeing in the
Speaker 7: heights and just seeing yeah, just seeing like all like
Speaker 7: just you know, black and Latino faces on stage, you
Speaker 7: know what I mean? That was probably the first theater,
Speaker 7: you know, show I've been to since I was small.
Speaker 7: You know, I hadn't been in like decades. And you know,
Speaker 7: do you think that these stories and the way you're
Speaker 7: telling them, have you seen that open the door for
Speaker 7: more black and Latino people to tell their stories on Broadway?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I'm always pessimistic about Broadway. I'm actually really
Speaker 4: optimistic about this moment because we're in the middle of
Speaker 4: a civil rights movement in our country and business.
Speaker 5: Is on pause. So you cannot say you don't have
Speaker 5: time to deal with this.
Speaker 4: You cannot say you don't have time to talk about
Speaker 4: equity and the kinds of stories you're choosing to put
Speaker 4: your money into as Broadway producers. But listen, I started
Speaker 4: writing in the Heights because I don't dance well enough
Speaker 4: to be in West Side Story and I when I
Speaker 4: was a senior in high school, this musical by Paul
Speaker 4: Simon called The cap Man came out and it was
Speaker 4: about Puerto Rican gang.
Speaker 5: Members in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 4: And as much as I love Paul Simon, I was like,
Speaker 4: what the fuck, Like, this is a very overrepresented group
Speaker 4: on Broadway at this point. Putan gang members from the
Speaker 4: nineteen fifties, can we literally have a show where we
Speaker 4: don't have a fucking knife in our hands? And so
Speaker 4: In the Heights was born out of him, Oh shit,
Speaker 4: no one's gonna write your dream show.
Speaker 5: Because Paul Simon's one of my favorite writers.
Speaker 4: He didn't write about.
Speaker 1: Porto Rican like I'm not expecting Paul Simon, and.
Speaker 4: He loved the music and he wrote music that really
Speaker 4: fits in that world. But like I just I just
Speaker 4: remembered because it also had Mark Anthony, had Ruben Blades,
Speaker 4: like it had a lot of my heroes in it.
Speaker 5: Like I remember having the highest hopes.
Speaker 4: Of like, oh shit, here comes your dream show. It's
Speaker 4: the Cape man, and then it super wasn't and I
Speaker 4: it was like it was the wake up moment of
Speaker 4: like you have to create the thing that you want
Speaker 4: to for it to exist because no one's going to.
Speaker 1: Make it interesting enough.
Speaker 6: When when In the Heights first came out, we got
Speaker 6: bad press saying that like In the Heights didn't have
Speaker 6: enough teeth, like it wasn't a real representation of Washington
Speaker 6: Heights because.
Speaker 1: Lis and we were like all it's about but we
Speaker 1: were like we lived there, We lived there. Man like
Speaker 1: we lived there the whole time, you know.
Speaker 4: Because if your only access to a neighborhood is seeing
Speaker 4: it on the eleven o'clock news and you have no
Speaker 4: engagement with it beyond that, that's all you see.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I was curious what spoke to y'all, you and Bill,
Speaker 8: since we talked about there weren't many spaces for hip
Speaker 8: hop in that way, but when you were growing up, Like,
Speaker 8: what were the shows? I know you listened to the
Speaker 8: cast albums. What were the shows that spoke to y'all
Speaker 8: to is that this is.
Speaker 3: I might want to be in this.
Speaker 4: Well Again, I'm born in nineteen eighty, so there's just
Speaker 4: never a point where hip hop's not a part of
Speaker 4: my life. I have an older sister. She gets all
Speaker 4: the credit from my hip hop education. She took me
Speaker 4: to Beat Street in the theater. I cried, Yeah, she
Speaker 4: took me to Wild Style. She took me to Crush
Speaker 4: Groove for my sixth grade graduation. My sister's present to
Speaker 4: me was a pair of Drabo jeans, and she took
Speaker 4: me to see Class Act starting. Oh, my.
Speaker 1: Sister, you'd be like, that's her, that's hip hop straight.
Speaker 4: I stole her Black Sheet album I stole her day
Speaker 4: Sola's Dead album Like that was like digging in my
Speaker 4: sister's albums. Was how I fell in love with hip.
Speaker 3: Hop's It's funny y'all say that to somebody.
Speaker 8: I told somebody yesterday that we were interviewing Lynn, and
Speaker 8: it literally was like, do you make sure you bring
Speaker 8: up the fact that Kid and Play changed how hip
Speaker 8: hop was proceived in media and changed the way, like
Speaker 8: started the real diversification of hip hop.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I never thought about that, Like
Speaker 3: that Kid and Play class act.
Speaker 1: House Party with the cartoon, they had a cartoon. Here's
Speaker 1: another great thing sequels.
Speaker 4: House Party three has one of the funniest lines in
Speaker 4: cinema history when they accidentally give the grandma the porno
Speaker 4: instead of the.
Speaker 5: One of the funniest lines in cinema history.
Speaker 6: Well, literally, talking about Lynn is like a mere going
Speaker 6: record shopping for people. One of Lynn's great things when
Speaker 6: we were younger was he would make mix CDs like
Speaker 6: for everything and all the time, and so like we
Speaker 6: had this bathroom that had like this wallpaper sort of stuff.
Speaker 6: It had like like hundreds of mixed CDs. So like
Speaker 6: we had this, we had a boombox, what a CD
Speaker 6: player in the bathroom, and it was only in the bathroom,
Speaker 6: so we would play we would turn on his big
Speaker 6: CDs and we would listen to everything. And so like
Speaker 6: those were the days of like pun and and that
Speaker 6: kind of stuff and b Ig like that's all we
Speaker 6: listened to. It was like really heavy Latin music, so
Speaker 6: like Juan Luis Ghetta and Hilberta Santa Rosa and like
Speaker 6: William and then like fucking just like hip hop all
Speaker 6: day long and like all this stuff that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: And so that's also where I sort of.
Speaker 5: Was that dance.
Speaker 3: Dance New York.
Speaker 7: So just with all the the speaking of dance, like
Speaker 7: with all the the dancers, like specifically in the Heights,
Speaker 7: like the break dancing that you found were they were
Speaker 7: those people on Broadway that already knew how to break
Speaker 7: or did you have to go and find.
Speaker 4: It was a mix of like breakers and folks who
Speaker 4: had who had a little theater experience. But we had
Speaker 4: a lot of debuts within the Heights, Like there were
Speaker 4: so many debuts with Heights and with Hamilton.
Speaker 5: Made his debut.
Speaker 4: Like you know, the thing is the shows I write
Speaker 4: are made for people who don't ordinarily get invited to
Speaker 4: get us on the board, like so with Heights, Bring
Speaker 4: It On broke the record for the number of debuts.
Speaker 4: We had thirty two Broadway debuts with that show.
Speaker 1: And that's the one I wrote.
Speaker 4: I co wrote in between in the Heights and Hamilton.
Speaker 4: But you know, sort of the same principles at work,
Speaker 4: like of just like pop music and theater music should
Speaker 4: be friends, like there's no reason there should be a separation.
Speaker 1: There is there a pressure to bring a name to
Speaker 1: the show when you present it.
Speaker 2: I remember in Fla maybe during the last well well
Speaker 2: not during the last run, but basically us getting a
Speaker 2: name would ensure that it could have an additional four months,
Speaker 2: an additional.
Speaker 4: That's why pressure comes with time, I think, I think,
Speaker 4: And every show goes through reversion of it where the
Speaker 4: you hope, the novelty of a new musical catches on
Speaker 4: in the word of mouth catches on. But there's a
Speaker 4: point at which the professional Broadway goers have all seen
Speaker 4: it and unless you have something to attract them, you know,
Speaker 4: and that's when the name thing comes. But like I
Speaker 4: remember a Broadway producer told me, like getting a name
Speaker 4: a quote unquote celebrity name to be in your show
Speaker 4: is like starting hard drugs, Like you don't get off it.
Speaker 4: Once you start off, you can't just put so and
Speaker 4: so from Dancing the Stars and then have like just
Speaker 4: a talented guy who auditioned after him, Like, once you're
Speaker 4: on that ride, you don't get off.
Speaker 2: Wow, who's the who's the biggest name that we would
Speaker 2: know that has approached you about wanting to do.
Speaker 1: Hamilton?
Speaker 4: For like a second, like YouTube, every white actor wants
Speaker 4: to play King George really yeah, because they yeah, because
Speaker 4: they love Hamilton. But they know it's not right to
Speaker 4: ask to play Hamilton or Bird because those are us,
Speaker 4: And so they go, can I pla King George? I
Speaker 4: mean insert white to hear and they go kind of
Speaker 4: And also they realize it's not a lot of work.
Speaker 4: It's one song and two repriezes, right right, So that's
Speaker 4: been the most probably most requested.
Speaker 5: It's like mad famous white people are like I could planking.
Speaker 2: George the way that the way that I don't know
Speaker 2: the system of how Broadway works, but is it that
Speaker 2: only in your first year are you eligible for Tony run?
Speaker 1: And then that's it.
Speaker 4: Tony happens sort of within the season in which you
Speaker 4: come out, which pre pandemic was sort of June, because
Speaker 4: that's when the Tonys are to June to like May April,
Speaker 4: May of the following year, and then that's your that's
Speaker 4: your class.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So if there wasn't if there wasn't a pandemic, and
Speaker 2: say Clooney wanted to or bad Brad Pitt wanted to
Speaker 2: play King George and he killed it, would he would
Speaker 2: he be eligible?
Speaker 4: It would be for the love of the game. Wow,
Speaker 4: that already happened. Yeah, there's no There have been occasionally
Speaker 4: campaigns for a Tony Award for like best Replacement, which
Speaker 4: I think is honestly like celebrities being like can I
Speaker 4: just be in Chicago, ton.
Speaker 5: And sometimes it's really like warranted, you know, like I
Speaker 5: remember seeing you know.
Speaker 4: The most famous case is they did a production and
Speaker 4: to Get Your Gun with Bernadette Peters and she was amazing,
Speaker 4: but then they got like Reba McIntyre, Like nobody's more
Speaker 4: fucking perfect for that part than McIntire, and so people
Speaker 4: were like, man, I wish there was a Tony for
Speaker 4: Best Replacement because she really like transformed.
Speaker 5: So there's a case to me.
Speaker 2: But they do have a revival category, So how long
Speaker 2: would Hamilton have to be dormant for it to get
Speaker 2: best revival or is it a five or ten year ruld.
Speaker 5: I don't think there's a hard and fast rule.
Speaker 4: You just get like I guess, like all the way
Speaker 4: people being like that was quick that you're back, Like
Speaker 4: I remember when like le Mins did their revival, everyone
Speaker 4: was like was closed.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know the.
Speaker 4: Way.
Speaker 1: Man, what are some of your favorite musicals?
Speaker 7: Because I'm you know, this is all like it's very
Speaker 7: new to me, and I remember, actually you talk about
Speaker 7: theater nothing.
Speaker 1: But I actually did hair when I was a senior
Speaker 1: in high school. I did. I didn't tell you, but.
Speaker 7: Come on, man, this was in high school. This is
Speaker 7: in North Carolina. Like we had to cut all kinds
Speaker 7: of ship out of the play, like it was so
Speaker 7: much No, we didn't even we cut that ship out.
Speaker 4: We were so much a lot of appropriate.
Speaker 1: That ship was like an hour.
Speaker 7: Yeah that ship was an episode of datelineig, so you
Speaker 7: know what I mean. But like but yeah, but but
Speaker 7: I did it. But but now, so I was curious
Speaker 7: to know, like, what are some of your favorite musicals
Speaker 7: and like what makes them good? Because to me just
Speaker 7: kind of as an outsider, it all kind of sounds
Speaker 7: the same.
Speaker 1: Like Hair spoke to me because I knew Pete Rock sample.
Speaker 1: The break.
Speaker 4: Was just like just wrote great bass ship like mcermott,
Speaker 4: you know what, incredible basslines in all of Goalt mcdermot's ship.
Speaker 4: So like from that to all of this stuff, Like.
Speaker 8: I can tell you they're gonna shout out Annie in
Speaker 8: this episode. An ain't gonna get no love. But that's fine.
Speaker 8: It's a girl thing.
Speaker 3: It's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 4: Well, I was gonna start with Annie, you know what?
Speaker 2: You know what? Wait, the secret secret uh fact, I
Speaker 2: was part of the of the of the letter writing
Speaker 2: process of Jay Z asking permission to use that sample.
Speaker 1: Of the use you talked about.
Speaker 5: She was like I listened to this and it gave
Speaker 5: me faith that I was going to get out one day.
Speaker 1: Wait that that letter got out, it's in his book.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I didn't know. Right after Hamilton, right before
Speaker 1: Hamilton he read Jay's book, I was I.
Speaker 2: Was the sounding board for do you think this will work?
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, okay, Like and I was like,
Speaker 2: this really happened.
Speaker 5: I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, no, they did not still.
Speaker 8: Want to be the best songs of all musical time,
Speaker 8: decide everything that happened in.
Speaker 7: The whiz so andy, Like, what's what's your take on Cats.
Speaker 7: I've never seen Cats, but like I've heard it kind
Speaker 7: of get trashed later.
Speaker 4: And I was not a Cats guy, so like when
Speaker 4: I was a kid, you know, my parents had a
Speaker 4: lot of cast albums, but I was like a lot
Speaker 4: of Hamilton fans and that, like I just kind of
Speaker 4: imagined the shows we didn't have money for. Probably, you know,
Speaker 4: no production of Made Lamont is going to match my
Speaker 4: mental version of man A la Mancha. I've still never
Speaker 4: seen it, but we saw the like eighties Holy Trinity
Speaker 4: of Phantom, lame Is, and Cats. Those were the three
Speaker 4: musicals in the eighties, and lame Is like what I
Speaker 4: remember most about it. I fell asleep. I was seven.
Speaker 4: I remember sort of the fact that the Confrontation, which
Speaker 4: is as hip hop as that show, gets where it's
Speaker 4: like Valjean and Javer singing their parts of each other.
Speaker 4: And I always wanted a meth Redman version of the
Speaker 4: Confrontation and I was just like, I am warning you
Speaker 4: Shoven and it's like yelling at each other.
Speaker 5: I love that song.
Speaker 3: I'm just glad they made it a movie, so I
Speaker 3: know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like I couldn't find go through once.
Speaker 4: But what I remember the most is my parents buying
Speaker 4: the two CD set. It was like one of the
Speaker 4: first CDs we owned, because this is when they still.
Speaker 1: Sold them in the long box.
Speaker 5: And my March would cry every time they played.
Speaker 4: She would play bring Him Home and just like weep,
Speaker 4: and I remember I think the seeing how that music
Speaker 4: affected my parents made it more interesting to me, Like
Speaker 4: the fact that it could make my parents cry was
Speaker 4: a huge deal.
Speaker 5: And then Phantom was just my shit. Like Phantom is about.
Speaker 4: An ugly songwriter who was like, if you don't like me,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna fuck everybody else well, and I related to that.
Speaker 4: I was like, yes, go on Phantom. And then Cats
Speaker 4: like I just remember the cats coming out and pawn
Speaker 4: at you in the audience. I didn't really have any patience.
Speaker 4: I didn't get it and I wasn't into it like
Speaker 4: it had a moment.
Speaker 5: I wasn't. I missed the moment.
Speaker 2: I was too young any well, not any thoughts on
Speaker 2: the movie, but is there fear or in trepidation when
Speaker 2: something that's such a sure shot doesn't translate well on screen.
Speaker 4: That was never a sure shot. That's that's the That's
Speaker 4: the thing is that like.
Speaker 2: You from outside looking time out from the outside looking in, Yeah,
Speaker 2: looking looking in, and I'm thinking like, Okay, they got
Speaker 2: all their all their porns in a row, and and
Speaker 2: it's coming out for Christmas, and how can I not
Speaker 2: expect this to be like this is it?
Speaker 5: Like what? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What happened? How did that turn into istar?
Speaker 5: Because it's about cats.
Speaker 4: And it has period, it has so it has one
Speaker 4: incredible eighties ballad for the ages with memory and Jennifer
Speaker 4: Hudson singing that is not enough for a whole movie,
Speaker 4: although it is a wonderful sequence in the movie. No,
Speaker 4: it's not, as it's even due to It's that it
Speaker 4: was sort of like this cult favorite that I think
Speaker 4: was successful because it was so out of the box
Speaker 4: that you had to see it. And then I think
Speaker 4: it ran a long time because you don't need to
Speaker 4: speak a word of English to enjoy cats. So it
Speaker 4: was a huge international hit. You could just be like
Speaker 4: what's on Broadway? Like you come from any country in
Speaker 4: the world, what's on Broadway Cats, Let's go see Cats
Speaker 4: like it just became this hit that you had to
Speaker 4: see it just it became synonymous with Broadway in a
Speaker 4: very real way. But if you look, if you actually
Speaker 4: took a closer look like, there's no story. These cats
Speaker 4: all say, I want to go. This is a song
Speaker 4: about me. This is a song about me. Jennifer Husinsing's memory. Okay,
Speaker 4: it's her, Let's go.
Speaker 3: Do you remember the last play that worked on film?
Speaker 4: I see it. That's the It's interesting because.
Speaker 6: Conversation was just as it was the Whiz Men Everything
Speaker 6: to men conversation, because it's about to be a real
Speaker 6: black conversation about the Here we Go.
Speaker 3: I was trying to avoid the Whiz I was trying
Speaker 3: to listen.
Speaker 1: The Wiz is one of the greatest horror movies of
Speaker 1: our time. It is.
Speaker 4: The trash Monsters.
Speaker 1: As you say it, the Whiz on Mushrooms is even better.
Speaker 5: I'll bet Cats on Mushrooms is much more experience.
Speaker 3: Is there is there an answer to that question? Has
Speaker 3: there been a great film play on film?
Speaker 4: So here's my thing. I believe there are great movie musicals.
Speaker 4: I think adapting a stage musical to film is one
Speaker 4: of the hardest things you can do.
Speaker 3: I like the churse line.
Speaker 5: You like the course Line movie?
Speaker 1: Do you like the course Line the movie?
Speaker 4: I did?
Speaker 1: Is there?
Speaker 3: Do you have a I watched it like fifteen times?
Speaker 4: Are I think if you watch the course Line the
Speaker 4: show first, the movie is like what's happening? Okay? Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's about it's having how you experience it, you know,
Speaker 4: because there's great performances in the chorus Line movie, but
Speaker 4: the show is so much about that line and everyone
Speaker 4: being equal that like the movie is like where are
Speaker 4: we what's happening? Like, so are we following Michael Douglas.
Speaker 3: Yes, he was the director.
Speaker 4: What talking about the record?
Speaker 2: I will say so, knowing that you have that level
Speaker 2: of scrutiny as a fan, you still treat movies and
Speaker 2: you know you're still a fan first before you're a suit.
Speaker 2: How much adjustment did you have to make to in
Speaker 2: the Heights the movie?
Speaker 4: I think the gold standard of an adapt movie adaptation
Speaker 4: is Cabaret. The Cabaret movie is completely different from the show.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't recognize it, but it's genius and it is
Speaker 4: its own thing, and when you go see the show,
Speaker 4: it is genius in its own way. But it's it's
Speaker 4: just they're different things. And that's how we approached in
Speaker 4: the Heights. We were like, we cannot put the show
Speaker 4: on stage.
Speaker 1: It's a different medium.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you can't put a two act show in a
Speaker 5: three act structure.
Speaker 4: And so a lot of the credit for I think
Speaker 4: Heights is an amazing adaptation, but a lot of the
Speaker 4: credit goes to Kiara, who really had distance from it.
Speaker 5: When she wrote the screenplay.
Speaker 4: She was the she was my co writer for the show,
Speaker 4: and she wrote the libretto for the show, and she
Speaker 4: made a bunch of really bold choices to update it.
Speaker 4: That means cutting some songs, that means, but it also
Speaker 4: means opening up the world in the way. The other
Speaker 4: thing we did that was so important was we shot
Speaker 4: on location and we cast this thing, like you can't
Speaker 4: just be like Hollywood good. You have to like be
Speaker 4: you have to not look out of place on one
Speaker 4: hundred and seventy fifth and Watsworth things that make sense,
Speaker 4: Like you've got to it's got to work some authenticity. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's got to have real authenticity. And and so I
Speaker 4: think our movie is a good adaptation because it's not faithful,
Speaker 4: but it's faithful in the right way. It's faithful to
Speaker 4: the spirit, but not the this happens, and this happens,
Speaker 4: this happens, and this happens. Like I think that's where
Speaker 4: like I think that's where The Red Movie is less successful.
Speaker 4: They use the original cast fifteen years after the fact,
Speaker 4: and they're all incredibly talented, but.
Speaker 5: Those aren't twenty somethings anymore.
Speaker 1: It's a different story, different story.
Speaker 4: It just is a different story.
Speaker 5: And so you know that's that's the tricky thing.
Speaker 2: Now, this is totally off subject, but I feel like
Speaker 2: only you can explain this to me. Okay, So in Quarantining,
Speaker 2: I got caught up. One of the best movie podcasts
Speaker 2: that you can listen to is the A twenty four channel.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, they got to the production yo, the Saftie
Speaker 2: Brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson alone that episode where they
Speaker 2: have like directors interview each other. So when Uncut Gems
Speaker 2: came out, Paul Thomas Anderson and interviewed the Safti brothers.
Speaker 2: But there's an episode where Martin Scorsese finally talks about
Speaker 2: New York, New York and as a Scorsese fan for
Speaker 2: the life of me, and this is weird. Of all
Speaker 2: the films, what convinced Michael Jackson to do the Bad
Speaker 2: Film with Scorsese.
Speaker 1: Was New York, New York. He had never seen Raging Bull,
Speaker 1: none of that stuff.
Speaker 2: But as a Scorsese fan, I knew that he had
Speaker 2: a nervous breakdown doing New York, New York. But I
Speaker 2: never knew how that film. I don't know if I
Speaker 2: can't judge musicals on film to know, Like I'm like
Speaker 2: light Ye with the Cortius line, like I like everything,
Speaker 2: like I'm the guy that's all staying alive and was
Speaker 2: like it was.
Speaker 1: Good right to like. But that's the thing. You can't
Speaker 1: trust nothing under if you're under the age of twelve,
Speaker 1: you like any thing, you know.
Speaker 4: What I'm saying, probably right after Beat Street, right, I.
Speaker 1: Liked all that ship. I didn't realize that that ship is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what I'm asking is, was assuming that you least saw
Speaker 1: New York, New York, was it bad or like?
Speaker 4: I don't think it was so much that was bad.
Speaker 4: I just think it was an uneasy mix of styles.
Speaker 4: It's Jake Lamatta in a musical, It's Travis Bickle in
Speaker 4: a musical. Like Scorsese doesn't stop Scorsese and he's mean
Speaker 4: Tolzam and Ellie and he beats her up, but then
Speaker 4: you're bursting into song and I don't think that to me.
Speaker 2: Okay, similar similar to Jungle Fever. Like for some reason
Speaker 2: Scorsese won't let this out.
Speaker 4: On you know, it's really hard to find.
Speaker 8: It is.
Speaker 1: Somewhere in my storage room. But this is my first
Speaker 1: I've ever hearing of this movie. I've ever heard of it.
Speaker 4: He did it, and he did all the Yankee games
Speaker 4: is from that movie that was never written for a musical,
Speaker 4: like that was written for that movie. And then Sinatra
Speaker 4: did his own version, you know. Candor and I like
Speaker 4: don't love Sinatra's version. They're like he fucked up all
Speaker 4: the lyrics, but version that's the.
Speaker 1: Version that right, Yeah, he did it seventy seven.
Speaker 4: After Taxi Driver, Right, ain't number one?
Speaker 5: You just said that twice?
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Scorsese did it in uh seventy six or
Speaker 2: seventy seven, right after tax Driver, and it it was
Speaker 2: almost like it's his version of I love it. Well,
Speaker 2: I'm interested only because that's his apocalypse. Now as far
Speaker 2: as how it nearly destroyed him, like he almost didn't
Speaker 2: make Razing Bull because he was almost driven to the
Speaker 2: brink of suicide because.
Speaker 1: Of this film.
Speaker 4: I'm going to bring up The Whiz one more time
Speaker 4: in that pant Okay, there's a I mean any director
Speaker 4: like you read making movies by Sidney la Mette. Sidney
Speaker 4: Lamette made Cirproco and All Day Afternoon and directed The Whiz,
Speaker 4: and it's one of the few times he cops to
Speaker 4: a mistake in the book. All he says is, I
Speaker 4: felt the look of the movie getting away from me.
Speaker 4: I felt like a distance between what I pictured and
Speaker 4: what my different departments were making and when they were
Speaker 4: doing the the Emerald City sequence, and you know, it's
Speaker 4: those beautiful dancers and like the colors change and then
Speaker 4: all that change like they the footage because the gel
Speaker 4: was so hot that it like it's like blew out
Speaker 4: the exposure. So it was sort of I mean, you
Speaker 4: will never get a better cast again in the history
Speaker 4: of movies than the cast of The Whiz.
Speaker 3: But sorry, I got selfish play.
Speaker 5: And the news like you can't win is not in
Speaker 5: the stage.
Speaker 4: Show you can't win.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not in the state the stage show,
Speaker 3: the stage you don't remember home? Is that what we're doing.
Speaker 1: You remember my home was the home.
Speaker 3: But I'm just saying, I.
Speaker 4: Mean you've seen as like a two year old singing.
Speaker 8: Ye.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's a lot of new songs.
Speaker 2: Well in the Quincy and the Unheard Quincy episode, he
Speaker 2: did six new songs for the Whiz that you know.
Speaker 2: That's why he was up all night writing them. You know,
Speaker 2: he's writing them joints on the spot that that that
Speaker 2: Emerald City.
Speaker 3: Charlie Small who wrote most of the music.
Speaker 2: The songs that weren't Charlie involved, Like I know, but
Speaker 2: his name doesn't get He was literally flying by the
Speaker 2: seat from his pants, like writing stuff three days before
Speaker 2: they were due on set in a rap and you
Speaker 2: have the ship ready and like they were.
Speaker 1: Kind of winging. It sounds like a morand deadline. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got, I can imagine that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know what, I'm a less project between just
Speaker 7: you know, being you know, uh playwright, actor, uh you know,
Speaker 7: MC songwriter.
Speaker 1: Like I have, I.
Speaker 4: Try to go by two criteria. One, am I gonna
Speaker 4: learn from this a thing that I could? Like I
Speaker 4: always think of the DeVry Technical School commercial.
Speaker 5: Commercial, like like.
Speaker 4: You use that tool, it goes in your toolbox, like
Speaker 4: you learn each tool one at a time, and that's
Speaker 4: how it worked.
Speaker 5: So like that's how I like. It's like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna learn. You know, Mary Poppins returns.
Speaker 4: I was not a big Mary Poppins guy, but I'm
Speaker 4: gonna watch the director of Chicago Directive musical like and
Speaker 4: I'm gonna learn from watching him do that, and that's
Speaker 4: gonna help me for the next thing.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: And then the other ship is just like stuff I'd
Speaker 4: kick myself forever if I said no, like duck Tails
Speaker 4: do a voice gizmo duck on duct. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I if I say no, I'm gonna hate the person
Speaker 4: who did it forever.
Speaker 8: Like I'm gonna please tell me about your curby your
Speaker 8: enthusiasm experience.
Speaker 5: That's an example of like I kick myself forever.
Speaker 3: Yes, in which I know everything. Please show what you.
Speaker 5: Have to know is that not a word of it
Speaker 5: dialogue is written.
Speaker 4: I do know this. But he has the whole season
Speaker 4: like and he calls you like he's like they're like
Speaker 4: Larry David wants to talk to you, and you go,
Speaker 4: oh my god. And so he calls you and he
Speaker 4: pitches you the whole season goes.
Speaker 10: You know, I don't know if you know the show,
Speaker 10: but there was a fouta on me and I'm gonna
Speaker 10: I'm gonna figure, I'm gonna lift the fotoa because I'm
Speaker 10: gonna help a guy cut the line and like I'm
Speaker 10: gonna say he was here before and because of that,
Speaker 10: he's gonna cut the and I'm gonna Okay, So can
Speaker 10: I go on with Fox while the musical?
Speaker 4: And the people in charge of the Fox say you
Speaker 4: can do fout while the musical, but only if Linnmann
Speaker 4: will Miranda's involved? Oh, Hamilton, we love Hamilton, Yes, yes,
Speaker 4: we love Hamilton. And then like you're involved, but like
Speaker 4: we don't get along and like you're pain in the
Speaker 4: ass and we don't like each other. And then somehow
Speaker 4: we're gonna get to like a duel and I'm gonna
Speaker 4: shoot you with a paintball gun.
Speaker 1: Like it was all in.
Speaker 5: On the phone, and like how fuck you say no
Speaker 5: to that?
Speaker 1: You don't and there's no script, Like there's no and.
Speaker 4: There's no script. And so I told him I have
Speaker 4: to do that with you, but I'm about to leave
Speaker 4: the country. For eight months, I was doing I was
Speaker 4: doing Mary Poppins returns, and so he said, well, they
Speaker 4: let me film it whenever I want, so we'll work
Speaker 4: around you. So I filmed my stuff for the first episode,
Speaker 4: like the weekend I was in town for the oscars.
Speaker 4: I filmed all the office ship and then they like
Speaker 4: broke until I got back, and then they reassembled the
Speaker 4: crew filmed my scenes and coming again. Because he has
Speaker 4: such cachet at HBO, he just goes, I got an idea,
Speaker 4: and they're like, all right.
Speaker 5: We're doing another season.
Speaker 4: Like that's what's amazing is he really like has he's
Speaker 4: a genius because he's created a system where he doesn't
Speaker 4: have to learn online, but he can create a whole
Speaker 4: season in TV. Like Jeff Schaeffer, who's his number two,
Speaker 4: who's sort of the show runner, has these pieces of paper.
Speaker 4: He's kind of keeping track of the plot lines and
Speaker 4: so like there would be times when he'd come in
Speaker 4: and be like, all right, remember in this scene, you've
Speaker 4: just come from your cousins and and and Larry would
Speaker 4: just show him away like a we'll figure it out,
Speaker 4: we'll figure it out. He's like, I don't like knowing
Speaker 4: too much stuff. We'll get there, and he just wants
Speaker 4: to get there organically. He doesn't want to have to remember, shit,
Speaker 4: it's Jeff Schaeffer and and uh and Larry Dave. Like
Speaker 4: Larry David gets an idea and he works with his
Speaker 4: showrunner and they kind of work out the beats and
Speaker 4: they schedule it by episode what they want to happen,
Speaker 4: but not a line of dialogue. And it was funny
Speaker 4: because then you also have to figure out your own
Speaker 4: relationship to Larry.
Speaker 5: So like I figured, like, all right, I can't be
Speaker 5: Nina Esmond because no one curses out Larry like Nina Esmond.
Speaker 4: And I can't be the hype guy because like JB's
Speaker 4: move is a legit genius and I can't do what
Speaker 4: he does. So I was like, I'll be the antagonist,
Speaker 4: but I'm just gonna be like really positive while I
Speaker 4: do the opposite of whatever he wants me to do.
Speaker 5: Like that was my whole thing, was Like you like.
Speaker 4: This shirt, Larry. He'd be like, yeah, I like it, Okay, Okay,
Speaker 4: we need to look at more shirts.
Speaker 1: Like just do the opposite.
Speaker 5: To him, because he knows how to deal with aggressive,
Speaker 5: but he doesn't.
Speaker 1: Know how to deal with like passive aggressive positivity that is.
Speaker 5: The opposite of what he wants.
Speaker 4: So that was my way of being an age.
Speaker 2: So thank you have you have you planned it at
Speaker 2: least that you can talk about. I guess the white
Speaker 2: elephant in the room is people were dying to know
Speaker 2: what your next Broadway venture will be, which you know
Speaker 2: again is you know, I assume that this time is
Speaker 2: sort of like what nineteen eighty five was to Michael
Speaker 2: accident after a joke.
Speaker 5: But there's lessons in that, right, Like I think.
Speaker 4: There's stuff in Bad that I love, Like Dangerous is
Speaker 4: legit my favorite album because I was twelve when it
Speaker 4: came out, and the music that comes out with twelve
Speaker 4: is what means the most to you forever.
Speaker 5: I remember being in the mirror being like there will
Speaker 5: be and it's just trials and my obsessions, like yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, but the thing, but the thing is just let
Speaker 1: me wait, let me Like artists.
Speaker 4: I think one of the dangers is to go bigger,
Speaker 4: Like there's a temptation to be like this one's going
Speaker 4: to be even we can thrill, like if you go
Speaker 4: to the like topping yourself place, like that's where I
Speaker 4: think people mess up and and so like I'm not
Speaker 4: gonna write like a three act historical musical, like it
Speaker 4: hits twenty times a day on Twitter every day, Oh
Speaker 4: really every day? Can you please write something about this
Speaker 4: so people finally know. I was like, I think people know.
Speaker 4: It's just a matter of what side people are chosen
Speaker 4: exactly because don't care.
Speaker 2: The thing is is, though most artists will do what
Speaker 2: they call the departure album, which is like the opposite
Speaker 2: of that. I was actually gonna say I kind of
Speaker 2: admire Mike's balls for actually saying you know what, I
Speaker 2: get top thriller, Like, yeah, he's literally the only one
Speaker 2: that had a mountain and was like, all right, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna climb this other mountain, which I gotta give it
Speaker 2: to him. Okay, five five albums, five number one songs
Speaker 2: from an album is not a failure.
Speaker 4: To me, man in the mirror, leave me Alone just
Speaker 4: on the knee, but wasn't on the cassette.
Speaker 2: But what I'm saying is it's jam bad. Though yeah
Speaker 2: it's it's weird. It's a success, but it's still not
Speaker 2: my favorite. But what I'm say thing is that people
Speaker 2: either like we'll do the opposite or they'll try to
Speaker 2: top it. But there's also middle ground, and people never
Speaker 2: explore the middle ground. I guess for you, what would
Speaker 2: the opposite of Hamilton be, like a one man play
Speaker 2: or Shakespeare in the Park.
Speaker 4: Or you know. One of my favorite books, which.
Speaker 1: Like a Latino, I'm gonna write.
Speaker 5: A play for every decade. Oh god, I wish no.
Speaker 4: The one of my favorite books in high school was
Speaker 4: because I remember I was like a film guy. Was
Speaker 4: Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez, who directed Desperado
Speaker 4: and directed In City. And his whole thing was like
Speaker 4: he made his first movie for eight thousand dollars. He
Speaker 4: maxed out all his credit cards, sold his blood and
Speaker 4: was like a lab rat in like like experiments to
Speaker 4: make the money. Yeah, clinical truck for clinical trial for
Speaker 4: his first movie and she's and he did on eight
Speaker 4: thousand dollars, damn. And so he wrote this book about
Speaker 4: like stop waiting for Hollywood, just make your own ship.
Speaker 4: Like that was really influential to me, Like stop waiting
Speaker 4: for anybody, make your own ship. And he said, after
Speaker 4: I made Desperado, everyone was waiting for the sophomore slump.
Speaker 4: And everyone is waiting for the sophomore slump, so just
Speaker 4: do so much different shit that no one knows what
Speaker 4: your sophomore project is like that, and that's basically what I've.
Speaker 5: Been trying to do. Like he did a segment for
Speaker 5: Four Rooms. Remember four Rooms?
Speaker 4: He did an episode for like a show on Showtime.
Speaker 4: Like he just did like lots of different ship, and
Speaker 4: that's kind of like I was like, Okay, I'm not
Speaker 4: going to go right into writing another musical after Hamilton.
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna go do lots of different ship until
Speaker 4: I amass enough ideas.
Speaker 5: And I have ideas for stuff I want to write
Speaker 5: that is the length of Hamilton, but it doesn't tell
Speaker 5: me what form it wants to be.
Speaker 4: Like, remember I thought Hamilton was gonna be a mixtape.
Speaker 4: Like I thought I was going to be doing like
Speaker 4: a Prince among Thieves, Like that's what Hamilton was. In
Speaker 4: my head. It was like it was a concept album.
Speaker 4: I'd have rappers play the founders. I just didn't know
Speaker 4: any rappers yet, Like I had to write the show
Speaker 4: to get there. And so I have ideas for full
Speaker 4: length things, but I don't know whether their movies, or
Speaker 4: whether their concept albums, or whether they're shows.
Speaker 8: But there's all say because you know rappers now, so
Speaker 8: that whole concept album thing is like a thing. It
Speaker 8: can't of course, it can't be Hamilton, but it can be.
Speaker 4: So yeah and yeah. So I have an idea for
Speaker 4: something that I think could be a concept album and
Speaker 4: could be a play. But until I start like really
Speaker 4: writing it, I'm not gonna know what it is.
Speaker 2: It'll tell me what it is, all right, So you're
Speaker 2: just planning seeds, Yeah, okay, the fun stuff. Gun to
Speaker 2: your head? What are the five albums? And they can't
Speaker 2: no greatest hits? Man, Okay, That's why I hate that
Speaker 2: Rolling Stones list. It's like, come on, you can't put
Speaker 2: James start Time in there. That's every James Brown record ever.
Speaker 1: Right, Gun to your head.
Speaker 2: Five records that you are forced to listen to in
Speaker 2: solitary confinement four years straight.
Speaker 1: Weird.
Speaker 6: Five records from Neon Wesley University professor Neon my college
Speaker 6: highlighte Yeah.
Speaker 5: Bizarre, Right to the far Side. Yes, yes, I probably listened.
Speaker 1: To that more than any other team lab Cab. I
Speaker 1: think me and just Blaze might be the only two dudes. Yes,
Speaker 1: you born in seventy eight. I was on seventy eight.
Speaker 1: Seventy eight motherfuckers. So contrary man.
Speaker 4: Like Team Black Cabin Man, if you, if you, I
Speaker 4: have a theory about that, okay, seventy three to seventy eight.
Speaker 4: The reason you also contrary is because your formative Star
Speaker 4: Wars movie is Empire strikes Back, and it is the
Speaker 4: one with the sad ending and it taught a generation
Speaker 4: like I imagine seeing Empire strikes Back and being like,
Speaker 4: and that's the end of the movie.
Speaker 1: What that's theory. I've never seen War about to say,
Speaker 1: but no, I've never seen Star.
Speaker 8: Most contrary seventy eight people more return to Jedi, but
Speaker 8: I know is out of that regardless.
Speaker 1: So I can see all right, because I feel like
Speaker 1: that's the album that birthed Eminem.
Speaker 3: That's what I told you.
Speaker 1: What hmm, all right? Number two Forest, That's that's Eminem
Speaker 1: all day everything.
Speaker 4: As if that album drops and you're fourteen years old
Speaker 4: and you hear passing me by.
Speaker 3: What and the remix.
Speaker 4: M number one Fish the Burp, right, I mean, just
Speaker 4: like it is love that album.
Speaker 5: I found with lab Cat too. It's just that album
Speaker 5: was like, takes this much real estate in my brain.
Speaker 2: I just I don't like records that I learned early.
Speaker 2: We almost we almost made a mistake on idel or
Speaker 2: we were going to do like industry complaint songs, the industry,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, industry complaint songs.
Speaker 1: And my A and R is like no, like no
Speaker 1: one cares that SOCD label doesn't care.
Speaker 5: About vils of fame album, right that.
Speaker 1: WASPS is about like the record label. And I learned early,
Speaker 1: like never made songs about the record label, So I
Speaker 1: learned early, you know, all right? Number two? What's your number? Two?
Speaker 4: Number two is an album that I remember more as
Speaker 4: like a vinyl in my dad's collection. It's a Ruby
Speaker 4: Blades's album called Buscando America looking for America, and it
Speaker 4: was it's it's one of those moments where like, you know,
Speaker 4: you just you dance to your parents ship when you're
Speaker 4: like with dym dancing dancing, and then you listen and
Speaker 4: then like you learn enough Spanish to understand the lyrics
Speaker 4: and you go, this is about capitalism or like this
Speaker 4: is about the perils of like religious fanaticism. Like there's
Speaker 4: deep ship in the lyrics of those songs. But I
Speaker 4: experienced it as like a kid dancing to it, and
Speaker 4: then I had a whole other like thing when I
Speaker 4: was old enough to appreciate it.
Speaker 5: So that's an album I can fuck with forever.
Speaker 3: All the kids that don't relate him to the guy
Speaker 3: from the Predator.
Speaker 4: Movies Predator too with Danik Lover, Yes, and then another
Speaker 4: generation who just knows him as a guy on the
Speaker 4: Walking Dead sequel, and yes he is, he's the father,
Speaker 4: Oh my god, Yes, and he's like he's like Dylan,
Speaker 4: and then like kids know him as Predator to.
Speaker 3: Put me on who he really was, But that's some
Speaker 3: New York ship.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's the New York ship because he was.
Speaker 4: He was, He was the seventies Sign. He wrote all
Speaker 4: the best songs of Sound Sign in the seventies, him
Speaker 4: and Willie Quimber three.
Speaker 5: I gotta pick a theater album at some point, right,
Speaker 5: But I've listened to Rent so many times.
Speaker 4: I don't think I would. I would stay in it.
Speaker 4: It would probably be it probably would be something I
Speaker 4: don't know as well, like Gershwin's Porgie and Bess, or
Speaker 4: or like any sound time show like those are so
Speaker 4: fucking dense you you will hear new shit in it
Speaker 4: every time. Listening to Sondheim like Arrangement Wise is like
Speaker 4: listening to pun lyrically like you will get a new
Speaker 4: ship every time you're here. It so probably like Sweeney Todd.
Speaker 4: I think Sweeney Todd is a good number three. And
Speaker 4: it's also so I'm kind of cheating.
Speaker 1: Do you play land you talk about like just composition,
Speaker 1: do you play keys or.
Speaker 5: Like piano just well enough to write my ship?
Speaker 4: And actually, when I started working with Bill will appreciate this,
Speaker 4: Like it used to be like four tracks, Like I
Speaker 4: would play the bass here, in the piano here, and
Speaker 4: it was like terrible. And then finally like most of
Speaker 4: Heights got written a garage band and Hamilton got written
Speaker 4: on logic like I just like anything. That's the distance
Speaker 4: between my brain and like these keys, and to the
Speaker 4: point where it's part of the editing process, like a
Speaker 4: melody has to survive my shitty chops.
Speaker 1: Right, that's that's did you get melody through the rough stages?
Speaker 4: Then you got some Yeah, yeah, there are composers who
Speaker 4: have no distance between their brain and their hands. I'm
Speaker 4: I'm just not one of those guys. It's got to
Speaker 4: survive my chops. And then sometimes I find shit along
Speaker 4: the way while I'm trying to get it out of
Speaker 4: my head. Uh okay. Number four songs in the key Life.
Speaker 4: I could listen to that forever and be very very happy.
Speaker 4: I could pick any Stevie. I could pick intervisions like
Speaker 4: you know, like we were.
Speaker 7: We were talking on Twitter about like I think like
Speaker 7: Talking Book being better than songs, and I was like,
Speaker 7: I'm not mad.
Speaker 1: I think I play.
Speaker 7: I played Talking Book more. I mean, songs is a masterpiece.
Speaker 7: But talking about that kind of come back to more.
Speaker 4: Yeah, two discs, So I'm cheating, all right. I'm just
Speaker 4: trying to get more music into this little desert island
Speaker 4: situation you've got me into.
Speaker 1: That's why I picked the least liked one, which is
Speaker 1: feeling this.
Speaker 8: Oh it's like plants, plants, That's what I thought he
Speaker 8: was gonna say, because he.
Speaker 1: Well, if I'm stuck with the record for a year,
Speaker 1: I just haven't.
Speaker 4: Been question why hasn't there been a great Stevie jukebox musical.
Speaker 4: I've imagined it many times, like you yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 4: like you enter the world okay, and then it's tell.
Speaker 5: Truth.
Speaker 1: Talk about that a sort of like the Prince musical
Speaker 1: Trust Me when one day in the musical, I'm telling
Speaker 1: you one day your last one, my last one. I
Speaker 1: think you say some Pun record.
Speaker 5: At this point, I mean I still fun.
Speaker 4: With capital punishment like it's the one.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 4: Everything else after it's.
Speaker 1: Sort of like the hell yeah you baby, Yo. You
Speaker 1: know what, here's the thing Spotify list on my Spotify playlist.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. First of all, I love one.
Speaker 10: I love.
Speaker 2: I should not love that nigga ship, but I love it.
Speaker 2: I love I'm laughing at you now.
Speaker 1: I don't even have.
Speaker 4: You. Now.
Speaker 2: There's like five songs that I really really on the
Speaker 2: yeah this on the yeah baby, yeah baby. Yeah, there's
Speaker 2: five joints I really like. I like the sketches. My favorite,
Speaker 2: My favorite part of sketches, and I know he was
Speaker 2: doing scar phase was when the guy's laughing during the
Speaker 2: shooting scene like thanks Pun, and he's like when he.
Speaker 1: Gets shot exactly exactly, You'll you'll appreciate this Lynn Pun.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, well not really. Pun was supposed to be
Speaker 2: on adrenaline on things fall apart what like, It's just
Speaker 2: the conversation with Pun. To talk to him is another language,
Speaker 2: because he'll call the studio like, hey, what's up, how
Speaker 2: you doing?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 2: It's like talking to the Charlie Brown teacher that's how
Speaker 2: it is to talk to Big Pun like he he
Speaker 2: was on his adrenaline. Should have been a uh four
Speaker 2: man operation with Pun, Beanie Tarique and Molik and Pun uh,
Speaker 2: but he never made it.
Speaker 4: So wow, you've seen that footage of it's like Pun
Speaker 4: d m X and they're all sitting in that booth
Speaker 4: and they're daring each other to freestyle and like it.
Speaker 4: She's like, no writtens, no writtens.
Speaker 5: It's a great little video really. Oh yeah yeah, and
Speaker 5: spit some ship.
Speaker 4: He definitely spit on someone else's album and it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well forgot. Oh you're a spot in the
Speaker 1: God Watch the Night Watter maccado joint. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7: Kind of it's explained to us and kind of tell
Speaker 7: you know, our viewers what Walter mccado meant to the
Speaker 7: what what he meant to the Latino community.
Speaker 4: The way I try to explain it to like Americans
Speaker 4: who didn't grow up with Walter muccado is like, imagine
Speaker 4: Bob Ross told you your future. Like imagine Bob Ross
Speaker 4: came into your home each day and was like, forgo,
Speaker 4: it's gonna be okay. You have a fortune coming down
Speaker 4: the lane and then like Pisces, and so like I
Speaker 4: remember most of my because remembering to a room being
Speaker 4: loud and my grandmother being like the fuck up waiting
Speaker 4: for Sagittarius, like waiting for Walter to tell her what
Speaker 4: was going to happen her day.
Speaker 5: And I would sit through Sagittarius because Capricorn was after that.
Speaker 3: Radio personality.
Speaker 4: No, he was a TV personal Also remember Bob Imagine
Speaker 4: Bob Ross tells you your horoscope and he dresses like Liberocchi.
Speaker 1: When he's feeling he dress Baker. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 4: Incredibly flamboyant at a time, you know, like machismo in
Speaker 4: Latin culture is like off the charts talks sometimes. But
Speaker 4: because Walter was so positive and he told us our future,
Speaker 4: he was just a fixture in.
Speaker 3: Our wow and so like remember I never knew his name.
Speaker 4: My Christmas present every year to my grandmother was the
Speaker 4: almanac Walter meccaldoll like next year Almanac to tell her
Speaker 4: what she could expect in the coming year. And one
Speaker 4: of the producers of the docs Friends with Foucars who
Speaker 4: was in Freestyle of Supreme with us. So I got
Speaker 4: a text from woodcarsh being like, hey, would you be
Speaker 4: interested in being in a Walter medcal when I wrote yes,
Speaker 4: I didn't let him finish because I got a chance
Speaker 4: to meet him. I could feel my ancestors doing backflips
Speaker 4: that I was meeting the guy who told them their
Speaker 4: future every day, and and I feel really grateful. I was.
Speaker 4: I was doing Hamilton Porto Rico at the time, so
Speaker 4: I got like an afternoon with him. He read me
Speaker 4: my chart, he read me my kids charts, like he
Speaker 4: like looked up my birthday and was like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: this was happening in this moon and this is like
Speaker 4: of course you were going to go into writing like
Speaker 4: of course.
Speaker 5: It was just like I was crying so much, not
Speaker 5: in the movie of me, just like holy shit.
Speaker 4: And then he passed away like within the year. So
Speaker 4: I felt I feel extra grateful for that moment because
Speaker 4: it was like, you know, that was that was like
Speaker 4: that's as close as I've gotten to like meeting a
Speaker 4: celebrity that Westy on my TV every day.
Speaker 7: I was a great documentary man. I you know, I
Speaker 7: had knew who he was, I didn't know his story,
Speaker 7: and I thought that was really good.
Speaker 1: I think, say I got it.
Speaker 8: Look then got a couple because I still gotta witch
Speaker 8: se him for Luis too, So it's.
Speaker 5: That's coming out on Tuesday.
Speaker 8: That's not out yet, oh god, okay, but it'll be
Speaker 8: out by by the time this episode place.
Speaker 4: Yes, And then there's the Freestyle doc which Quest is
Speaker 4: in and uh is like, what's crazy about that? Is
Speaker 4: they got footage of us at our peak, like at
Speaker 4: Baked Beans era substitute teaching, Like the guy who directed
Speaker 4: that movie started following us with a camera in two
Speaker 4: thousand and five.
Speaker 3: So this movie is about you, guys at your beginnings.
Speaker 4: It's about like the fifteen years of freestyle when like
Speaker 4: we were, I was a substitute teacher, Bill's working MTV
Speaker 4: and then we were making up funny raps for people
Speaker 4: where that's all Hulu.
Speaker 1: Okay, how do you stay sharp?
Speaker 2: Because I now realize one of the things about being
Speaker 2: in quarantining is that us doing the Tonight Show every night,
Speaker 2: at least when we were doing it before quarantining, I
Speaker 2: mean to re expending two hours every day wrapping, so
Speaker 2: that keeps his mind sharp, which explains like the amount
Speaker 2: of fire that he's which is.
Speaker 4: It's probably that ten minute freestyle because I've watched that
Speaker 4: more times than any album, any album of the past
Speaker 4: few years.
Speaker 2: So how do you say, Because the thing is as
Speaker 2: a freestyler, you're like you're super or one point, I've
Speaker 2: never seen you fall or slip yet, And in doing
Speaker 2: freestyle love supreme the amount of times I've seen it,
Speaker 2: Like the amount of pressure that it takes to make
Speaker 2: that happen. Like how often every day are you guys,
Speaker 2: especially now in quarantining, Like how often every day you
Speaker 2: guys even practicing?
Speaker 4: When quarantine happened, we were doing our Broadway run and
Speaker 4: we were doing an eighth show week, and that was incredible.
Speaker 4: I wasn't doing eight shows. I was doing two or
Speaker 4: three a week, but still that was enough. My my
Speaker 4: learning curve with freestyle was, oh, if you try to
Speaker 4: plan your rhymes, you're gonna fall the fuck on your face.
Speaker 4: Like I that's that was my learning curve because when
Speaker 4: we started doing it, I was trying to be cute
Speaker 4: and I was like, all right, I got two punch
Speaker 4: lines that if I can't think of anything, I'll say
Speaker 4: these funny punch lines and then like I would get
Speaker 4: out on stage, I would fuck up the punch lines
Speaker 4: and then be terrible like and so you learn the
Speaker 4: only answers to just be truly open and truly present,
Speaker 4: and then like you get enough reps that like it
Speaker 4: becomes another language filter, like, oh no, everything I'm gonna
Speaker 4: say is gonna rhyme, but I'm gonna express this. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna express this and it will just rhyme because I've
Speaker 4: had enough reps and I know how to do it.
Speaker 4: And if you get, like chess, enough on it, you
Speaker 4: can know where you're going and build your way there,
Speaker 4: which Tarik's amazing at. Every time we play Wheel of Freestyle,
Speaker 4: I love hearing what his first line is.
Speaker 5: Because I already know he knows what his last line is,
Speaker 5: and he's.
Speaker 4: Building to it and builds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he builds backwards.
Speaker 4: He builds backwards, but he builds backwards in real time.
Speaker 4: And that's what I try to do too. Of Like
Speaker 4: I'm going to end on Dinosaur, so now I got
Speaker 4: to think of three rhyns for Dinosaur.
Speaker 1: And I got to do it as I go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he's the best in the world at it.
Speaker 4: But that's that's what I try to do in the shows,
Speaker 4: and that's my own little discipline for myself. Like Anthony
Speaker 4: will literally build to rhyme and say the opposite just
Speaker 4: to surprise himself. I don't think Anthony's rhyme three times,
Speaker 4: Like he just likes to fucking zig and zag ootcars,
Speaker 4: just like u TK is, just like he hits these
Speaker 4: pockets where like he's got twenty syllables and then he can't.
Speaker 4: Like everyone kind of approaches it differently, which I think
Speaker 4: also works well. Like my technique wouldn't work for Anthony
Speaker 4: and u tk's wouldn't work for me, But we all
Speaker 4: kind of meet in the middle because we're all just
Speaker 4: trying to be present and listen to each other and
Speaker 4: like say what comes out right?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think like freestyling for MC's that's like DJing
Speaker 7: for producers. Like I think just being in that coming
Speaker 7: up in there, if you came up in battle culture
Speaker 7: or like cipher culture, like freestyling that definitely you know
Speaker 7: you talk about earlier, you were saying they don't really
Speaker 7: teach rapping his songwriting or they don't think of it
Speaker 7: as songwriting. That's something that's always kind of been a
Speaker 7: thing for me. And just that your I tell I
Speaker 7: tell all EMC's, anybody want to rap for me?
Speaker 1: Whatever? Like I'm like, no, please don't rap me. I
Speaker 1: don't hear it.
Speaker 7: But you got four bars to close me, Like that's
Speaker 7: my home, you got you got four bars to close me.
Speaker 7: I know I can tell within four bars if somebody
Speaker 7: really got some shit or not, because you gotta. You
Speaker 7: have to pretty much a you know, attack grab the
Speaker 7: listen about a throat in that beginning, and you got
Speaker 7: a close strong you know what I mean. And the
Speaker 7: middle you can you know, the middle gotta be strong too.
Speaker 7: But that opening, that closing, like you got to bring
Speaker 7: that mofucker home.
Speaker 8: Lynn.
Speaker 3: I just want to ask you. It's interesting because we
Speaker 3: were talking.
Speaker 8: About like, as you're growing, your father is growing, and
Speaker 8: we know that this documentary is coming out about his life.
Speaker 8: And it's interesting because it's it's it's an interesting responsibility
Speaker 8: put on your shoulders. It feels like at this time
Speaker 8: in your life as a new Eurekan man, as a
Speaker 8: Puerto Rican man, same thing with this. It's like an
Speaker 8: activism versus capitalism kind of line. Like I just wanted
Speaker 8: you to speak on it for a second and speak
Speaker 8: on this weight that has kind of been thrust it
Speaker 8: upon you and you've taken on a lot voluntarily in
Speaker 8: that sense, you know.
Speaker 4: I used to use Twitter to just like live tweet
Speaker 4: buffy and shit like everybody else on Twitter.
Speaker 5: Like you can't do that when you have three million
Speaker 5: people follow you. It's a particle.
Speaker 4: Like every tweet's a press release, so your relationship to
Speaker 4: that change is But also like I try to treat
Speaker 4: the causes I get involved in the same way I
Speaker 4: treat creative impulses of like what's the shit that doesn't
Speaker 4: leave you alone?
Speaker 5: Like, what is the thing that like you went to
Speaker 5: bed thinking.
Speaker 4: About it and you woke up and You're like, this
Speaker 4: is so fucked up. I can't stop thinking about it.
Speaker 4: It hurts my heart, it hurts my stomach, Like I'm
Speaker 4: going to get involved in some way. And I tried it,
Speaker 4: because you could go on Twitter all day and see
Speaker 4: all the things going on in the world and drown
Speaker 4: in it, like and drown in how much need there
Speaker 4: is in the world.
Speaker 5: But you can only listen to the shit that doesn't
Speaker 5: leave you alone, And so I try to.
Speaker 4: I try to do that, and then I think the
Speaker 4: biggest lesson I got for my dad because I'm the mellowest,
Speaker 4: laziest guy in my family by a lot, but the
Speaker 4: median is so high because my dad is such an
Speaker 4: achiever that like even falling below the media and I
Speaker 4: still get a lot of you dun. Yeah, but I
Speaker 4: am I'm the slow poke. I'm the one who like
Speaker 4: like just want you know, I'm very happy that we
Speaker 4: have all successfully skipped watching this first debate live.
Speaker 1: And let's talk about it. Let's talk about it.
Speaker 3: Listen, I'm about to DV here. I don't know what
Speaker 3: you're saying. It's an addiction.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I can't. I can't.
Speaker 4: Date with you guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to be.
Speaker 4: Like, you know, this guy's got some good ideas.
Speaker 8: But the pressure is on because everybody's pandering to the
Speaker 8: Latin vote, which I found it is so interesting because
Speaker 8: it's so many countries that you just put under an
Speaker 8: umbrella with different classes and ship But like, even with that,
Speaker 8: for you, it's even pressure in this election year in
Speaker 8: a way, right for you to speak up say things
Speaker 8: where do we you know?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: But but the thing that my dad and I are
Speaker 4: always on about is like that we're not a monolith
Speaker 4: and you have to talk with nuance. Don't be playing
Speaker 4: mid a gay and the fucking Texas for Biden. Thing
Speaker 4: like they're fucking with Nathaniel Music down there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, like.
Speaker 4: Me, but it's it's it's it's as simple as speaking
Speaker 4: to our issues and speak like and and really understanding them.
Speaker 4: And the you know the fact that we we've never
Speaker 4: had a president more hostile to Latinos than this president.
Speaker 4: And he told us who he was the moment he
Speaker 4: came down the elevator and was like, Mexican's are rapists.
Speaker 4: They're not sending over the best people, like they're sending
Speaker 4: over the rapists and killers.
Speaker 3: Like and like there's went Datinos for Trump.
Speaker 4: And it went downhill from there, Like that was his
Speaker 4: opening salvo and it went downhill from there. So you know,
Speaker 4: I think, I mean, if you want to go down policy,
Speaker 4: we talk another hour, but like.
Speaker 1: I don't have to.
Speaker 5: You have to just you know, speak to the issues
Speaker 5: that that that affect us.
Speaker 4: This motherfucker through paper towels and did everything he could
Speaker 4: not to send aid to Puerto Rico, and what he
Speaker 4: did to Puerto Rico after Marie is exactly what he's
Speaker 4: doing to this country in this pandemic. He wasn't to
Speaker 4: Matty and then he lied about how not ready he
Speaker 4: was okay on our island, and then it happened in
Speaker 4: our country.
Speaker 2: You opened the door, And I guess I have to
Speaker 2: ask one question every you know, every culture has their
Speaker 2: group of people that are willingly ignorant to actual facts
Speaker 2: and truth. How easy do you think it will be
Speaker 2: to convince? As Laya mentioned, Uh, there's a a sizable
Speaker 2: population of Latinos for Trump that you know, feel as
Speaker 2: though he's right and he speaks for me. And I'm
Speaker 2: actually shocked that a lot in what I or my
Speaker 2: hip hop I would expect it from, you know, the
Speaker 2: the old uncle that you think about at Thanksgiving or
Speaker 2: at least that you know comedians joke about.
Speaker 1: But is this at all? Is this something that could
Speaker 1: be turned around or in you're at So.
Speaker 4: Much of it is just misinformation. You're trying to play
Speaker 4: fair with someone who lies as easy as breathing, and
Speaker 4: the fact that he throws around words like socialism and
Speaker 4: they're coming to get your this or coming to get
Speaker 4: your that. Sometimes to populations that have fled countries where
Speaker 4: that real shit has happened, lies can take root, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, Like there's all manner of atrocities
Speaker 4: happening in insert Latin American countries here, and if Trump
Speaker 4: says they're going to do that here and you've just
Speaker 4: come from there, that shit takes root. And I really
Speaker 4: think that a misinformation is a big part of it,
Speaker 4: and the fact that in Spanish language like misinformation can
Speaker 4: spread even more wildly because like you know, the fact
Speaker 4: checkers of the Washington Post aren't listening to the Latin
Speaker 4: radio station, but the Latin radio station is spouting some
Speaker 4: right conspiracy.
Speaker 5: It goes unchecked. It just straight up goes unchecked.
Speaker 4: And so you know, to me, that's a big part
Speaker 4: of it, is just like misinformation campaigns with vulnerable populations.
Speaker 4: And you know, the larger part of it I can't
Speaker 4: speak to, Like there's you know, I can't know what
Speaker 4: goes on in that mindset because I'm certainly not of
Speaker 4: that mindset. Like I'm just seeing with my own eyes
Speaker 4: the lies this guy is told. Like with Puerto Rico alone,
Speaker 4: like he said, only sixteen people died. We know that
Speaker 4: thanks to mismanagement, it was closer to four thousand, but
Speaker 4: he got stuck at sixteen and kept them moving.
Speaker 8: You know, just released the funds like a week ago,
Speaker 8: right right right, type of the election right.
Speaker 4: And when when you see him with this, with the
Speaker 4: pandemic stuff, and how unprepared he was and how much
Speaker 4: he downplayed it, he will continue to say, but China,
Speaker 4: but China. Like It's like he gets the one fact
Speaker 4: in his head and he sticks to it. So, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't know the answer to turning around, but I
Speaker 4: know that misinformation is a big part of it.
Speaker 5: Misinformation that is just sticky enough to take hold.
Speaker 1: My last question on pay bill, uh is there anything
Speaker 1: about Lynn that we haven't learned yet?
Speaker 4: Ending with you, Fela Kutstein, I just saw that you
Speaker 4: replaced the name.
Speaker 6: I mean, there are many stories about Lynn that are
Speaker 6: fantastic and uh, you know, uh, maybe we could do
Speaker 6: a second episode and get into the real mental.
Speaker 1: Situ I mean that, Yeah, No, what did you just say?
Speaker 4: That was a word salad.
Speaker 5: Make fun of how you talk.
Speaker 4: But what did you just say?
Speaker 1: I don't know how to answer this question.
Speaker 6: The answer is, yes, there are many stories about Linda
Speaker 6: that I that I could tell here, but uh, there
Speaker 6: are none that will take the short amount of time
Speaker 6: we have left to coagulate.
Speaker 1: I think it's dope now, I think it's dope for y'all.
Speaker 7: Have been been homies for all these years, you know,
Speaker 7: like twenty years for y'all to still be homies, are
Speaker 7: still working together, and you know the heights that you've
Speaker 7: both achieved.
Speaker 1: I think that's just a great story, man.
Speaker 3: It's a plan for this to be forever, forever, forever.
Speaker 1: Answer that question, like you.
Speaker 3: Plan for you.
Speaker 2: There's only there's only two people in my life not
Speaker 2: related to me that i've no longer. You're actually one
Speaker 2: of them, which is serious, that's real though.
Speaker 5: Kiss today, goodbye?
Speaker 4: What I did?
Speaker 1: Did you really? Did you have a Comodo?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Comodo six.
Speaker 1: I used to watch the play Tony Hawk's Skateboarder for
Speaker 1: like hours up.
Speaker 5: The remasters still over again.
Speaker 1: We used to watch Little Mermaid. We have a lot
Speaker 1: of weird times.
Speaker 4: Dominator, that was a big game.
Speaker 1: Do you do you still game? You still game it?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I just got the remaster Tony Hawk because that was
Speaker 4: that was the game that got me back into games.
Speaker 4: Like I started playing with that in college and then
Speaker 4: I never got off again. I'm replaying Red Dead too.
Speaker 1: Like that's like and I never opened it. It was
Speaker 1: just this so much game. I finished the game.
Speaker 4: But once you start hunting Theres.
Speaker 5: It's like.
Speaker 7: U P S four, U Xbox PS four, U ps
Speaker 7: FOALKM P four two. I just finished a couple of
Speaker 7: months ago U Ghost of Sushima.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 1: That ship is amazing that.
Speaker 5: My wife likes, Like she plays Zelda forever. She will
Speaker 5: be every book in the room. I just want to fight.
Speaker 5: I just want to fight.
Speaker 1: I can still go okay if you just want to
Speaker 1: fight ship. There is a game. It's four. It's like
Speaker 1: twenty bucks.
Speaker 7: It was on Xbox but now it's They made it
Speaker 7: for PS four called Cuphead, Cuphead, Cuphead.
Speaker 1: Dude, dude, I'm getting head. It is like I heard
Speaker 1: I like I saw somebody in the form.
Speaker 7: They described it as cartoon Dark Souls and it is
Speaker 7: the realist ship ever, Like it is as hard as fuck.
Speaker 7: It's super hard, but the animation style is in like
Speaker 7: that nineteen thirties Tom and Jerryles.
Speaker 4: My first date with my wife was Grand Theft, Autos
Speaker 4: and Andres. That's how I got this to come to
Speaker 4: my house to play that with what.
Speaker 1: I used to play Burnout Revenge. I used to watch
Speaker 1: them crash cars for like hours and hours.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's all.
Speaker 4: I don't think none of that was the best.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, man, ladies and gentlemen. You asked for it,
Speaker 1: you got it.
Speaker 2: The four years red linn Manuel Miranda episode of Quest
Speaker 2: Love Supreme. We thank you very much for joining us
Speaker 2: on behalf of Team Supreme. Uh Laya Sugar, Steve, Finn,
Speaker 2: Tickeelo and Bill's Bill.
Speaker 4: Bill.
Speaker 1: It's the best name ever. Please call me in there
Speaker 1: you go, boy, all right, this Quest Loves signing off.
Speaker 1: We will see you the next go round. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much, Lynn, We appreciate you.
Speaker 5: Guys.
Speaker 1: Must Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.