A commenter on this video on YouTube used the term “Linnamon roll” to describe Lin-Manuel Miranda in this interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers, and it’s now my new favorite phrase. So, check out our favorite Linnamon roll in the above conversation about Hamilton‘s history and continuing relevance.
Their conversation starts by Meyers bringing up the fact that the conflicts in Hamilton are (sadly) still relevant today. After joking “when will it stop being relevant,” and after they discuss the fact that Hamilton lyrics now grace protest signs, Miranda says that conflicts like the ones Hamilton dealt with will likely continue to be a part of America.
“I think it’s because I stumbled on sort of the origin story of the United States,” he says. “This is, you know, the United States was bitten by a radioactive spider, and this is how we became who we are. And the fights that Hamilton and Jefferson had—when are we a state? When are we one nation? When do we get involved with other countries? When do we mind our own business?—These are the fights we’re going to have for as long as we’re a republic.”
They then talk about the fact that Miranda basically had the nerve to “workshop” Hamilton at the White House, when the Obama administration invited him to participate in an evening of poetry and spoken word. Describing it back in 2009 as a hip-hop “concept album” about Alexander Hamilton in this now-viral video, he reveals to Meyers that he really only had this one song written at the time. Now, of course, we know it as the opening song from his Tony-winning hit musical, but then, he just wanted to make sure the one song would play in a room in which the actual, current Treasury Secretary sat!
Toward the end of the exchange, Meyers asks him how it feels to have something that started very much with him, and over which he had very much control, morph into something that has several touring companies, each of them doing their own thing. Miranda says, “It’s the sensation of going from being a parent to a grandparent. It’s from Is the baby okay … what are we gonna to today? To You’re all so pretty! Do whatever you want! You’re all so beautiful and talented!” It’s the hand-clapping he does in this moment that is Miranda at his Linnamon roll-iest.
I remember being dumbfounded by the White House video of him performing what is now the song “Alexander Hamilton,” showing it to a friend, and having that friend enjoy it, but also kinda roll his eyes and snark Oh, so the only way to make history interesting is to make it hip-hop? and be skeptical of anything more happening with it. Um, WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, BUDDY?
(via Late Night with Seth Meyers on YouTube, image: screenshot)
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