[MUSIC - LESLIE ODOM JR., "THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED"]
Two Virginians and an immigrant walk into a room,
diametrically opposed, foes.
What I knew about Hamilton before I picked up
Ron's biography to read was, he was the guy on the ten
and he died in a duel.
I loved learning that even though women couldn't vote,
they were extremely influential.
The flaws of these men and women
were something I was discovering as I was writing it.
Our founding fathers were trifling
and were constantly engaged in the kind of behavior
that seems sort of normal now.
So when people say it's gotten so bad
and I was like, oh, no, no, no, no.
James Callender was a--
was a beast.
When you can look at somebody who accomplished great things,
and they were as petty and brash and childish at times as you,
it can set you free.
It's sort of like just bringing an awareness
to the fact that human beings have
always been the way we are.
(SINGING) We just assume that it happens, but no one else
is in the room where it happens.
Along the journey, what I realized was,
we weren't telling stories about oil painting people.
We were telling stories about people
who had needs that were like ours and struggles
that were like ours.
(SINGING) When he was ten, his father split,
full of it, debt-ridden.
Two years later, see Alex and his mother
bed-ridden, half-dead, sitting in their own sick,
the scent thick.
And Alex got better but his mother went quick.
Getting to know Eliza was a very interesting journey.
I spent some time, you know, kind of lamenting as Angelica.
Her whole life was dedicated to lifting up others,
lifting up Hamilton's legacy.
How frustrating it would be to be the most intelligent person
in this new country and the only person
that cannot run for president.
The job of making a piece of art
is to try to do so with authenticity and truth.
This is an immigrant story because Hamilton
didn't grow up on the mainland.
He grew up in the Caribbean and wrote
his way out of the Caribbean, wrote
his way towards a scholarship.
It was eye-opening to relearn these things,
but like the audience would relearn them,
learn them in a way that felt more accessible somehow.
That to me sort of implied a hip-hop
narrative because that's what our favorite
hip-hop artists do.
They write about their reality so brilliantly that we
can sing it around the world.
(SINGING) New York, New York.
(SINGING) Just you wait.
ENSEMBLE: (SINGING) Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton,
we are waiting in the wings for you,
waiting in the wings-- you could never back down.
You never learned to take your time.
Oh, Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton,
when America sings for you, will they know what you overcame?
Will they know you rewrote the game?