'Hamilton' Mixtape Song Meanings Revealed by Lin-Manuel Miranda | Track by Track

The day has finally arrived. Ever since word got out that creator and star of Hamilton Lin-Manuel Miranda was dropping a Hamilton Mixtape, fans could not wait to hear the highly anticipated release inspired by the critically acclaimed Broadway musical. Several of the album's songs had been released ahead of time to keep fans satisfied (see what we did there 😉), but now they can finally hear EVERYTHING, because The Hamilton Mixtape was officially released today (Dec. 2).

The Hamilton Mixtape is a star-studded record showcasing 23 songs -- over an hour's worth -- of incredible, mind-blowing music from some of your favorite artists. The artists who appear on The Hamilton Mixtape include The Roots, Busta Rhymes, fun.'s Nate Ruess, Nas, Aloe Blacc, Usher, Sia, Miguel, Queen Latifah, Jill Scott, John Legend, Chance The Rapper, Regina Spektor, Ben Folds, Kelly Clarkson, Alicia Keys, Ashanti, Ja Rule, Andra Day, Wiz Khalifa, Common, Ingrid Michaelson, and Lin-Manuel Miranda himself, among many others.

[Buy The Hamilton Mixtape on iTunes] 

Check out our interview with Lin-Manuel where he breaks down the meaning of The Hamilton Mixtape songs below:

We recently caught up with Lin-Manuel during an exclusive interview, and he went into detail about the making and meaning behind each of the 23 tracks on The Hamilton Mixtape. As you read on, you'll get to hear the inspiration behind some of the songs Lin wrote, why some songs were cut from Hamilton the musical, what some of Lin's favorite moments from the making of this mixtape are, how he got to work with the all of the amazing artists involved (plus which star has seen Hamilton the most!), and more.

Track 1: "No John Trumbull (Intro)" - The Roots

"'No John Trumbull' is actually a cut tune from Hamilton the musical. The last time we presented it was in our workshop before the public, and the song went between 'What Did I Miss?' at the top of Act II and the first Cabinet Battle. It was just Aaron Burr setting the scene for what you're about to witness. You think cabinet meetings are these very state affairs, but they weren't like that at all. We cut it because we realized the cabinet battle introduces itself. As soon as George Washington comes out with microphones, you're like, 'We know where we are, oh my god, this is going to be awesome!' So it was redundant within our show, but as soon as the notion of making a for real mixtape came about, I thought, 'What a perfect way to introduce people, who maybe haven't see Hamilton, to our world.'

The founders are not these statues or Greek gods, they were men and they were flawed, and they fought, and they were petty as hell. In the context of our mixtape it's whatever you thought you knew about Hamilton, you don't know. So to start with really the voice of our album, Tariq, AKA Black Thought, AKA what-a-voice, was sort of the perfect way to kick off the album." 

Track 2: "My Shot" - The Roots featuring Busta Rhymes, Joell Ortiz & Nate Ruess) [Rise Up Remix]

"'My Shot,' in a lot of ways this was the most exciting track to put together for the album. Every single person on it is a hero of mine. It shares a chorus with 'My Shot' from Hamilton the musical, but the verses are completely original. When we thought about the chorus and the 'Woahs' from the original, which really were the only things we saved, we said, 'Alright, who's got a great, soaring voice? Oh, Nate Ruess from Fun!' It doesn't get more soaring than that, he's sort of our generation's ... I don't know. Who else has notes like that? Maybe Freddy Mercury? It's such an incredible voice.

That's one where, when he came to the show, he came backstage to say hi, and I go, 'Um, I have an idea for you.' And he said yes right away, so he sang our, 'Woahs.' And then all the original verses are by three of my favorite MCs. Black Thought who's just introduced our album with 'No John Trumbull,' who was the first one to write a verse for this version, and sets the tone perfectly. Joell Ortiz, who is an incredible Puerto Rican, Brooklyn-born MC -- he actually was one of the writing inspirations for my show. There's a song in my show called 'The Farmer Defeated.' We've got this British royalist going (singing) and Hamilton listens to him once, and then sings over him, matching him syllable for syllable, but saying different things. So singing and that technique was something I was influenced by Joell Ortiz's Big Pun Tribute, where he basically covers Big Pun, but doesn't cover Big Pun. He writes his own lyrics but every syllable and vowel match Big Pun's original lyrics. So, that's one where I'm influenced by this MC, and then I get the privilege of watching him write a new verse to this song.

Exactly the same thing is true of Busta Rhymes. Busta Rhymes was the first rapper who came to see Hamilton in previews at The Public. He sat in the front row, and you have never seen anyone as terrified in your life as me performing for my hero Busta Rhymes. There's no missing Busta Rhymes in your audience, he's sitting there like this. He just went in. People have been listening to that song already, it's one of the first tracks we leaked, and it's just incredible. There's no better voice in hip-hop, there's no better breath control in hip-hop, and I'm so grateful for what he contributed."

Track 3: "Wrote My Way Out" - Nas, Dave East, Lin-Manuel Miranda & Aloe Blacc

"'Wrote My Way Out' -- that's a lyric. The song is based on the lyric in a song called 'Hurricane,' where Hamilton is sort of at a personal and professional crossroads, and he's sort of thinking about his life and how he wrote his way out of his circumstances. To me, that's the key to Hamilton is at every stage of his life, writing either saves him or ruins him, and so that to me is what makes him a proto-hip-hop artist. I think my favorite hip-hop artists write about their circumstances and their world so well that they make is universal and they transcend it. No one embodies this more than Nas. Illmatic is a document, it's a time capsule of Queensbridge, it's a time capsule of New York in the '80s and '90s, and the inner-city, and the projects, and it's so beautiful that anyone in the world can relate to it. To have Nas bless us with that verse, and really talk about that, when he says, 'The very definition of what it was written means.' Referencing his own 'It Was Written,' that's incredible ... it's chill-inducing.

Dave East, who is his protégé, also contributing an incredibly powerful verse and writing from his perspective and talking about how he didn't know anything about hip-hop, now hip-hop saves his life, over the course of his verse. And then here's the other thing that happened. Aloe Blacc, who is an incredible singer, wrote this amazing chorus. He took 'Wrote My Way Out' and sort of wrote his own melody and lyrics over it. When I heard his vocals, here's what happened. I had sort of a rule with myself for the Hamilton mixtape. I have an amazing array of artists who perform in Hamilton every night, and they're all talented artists, and singers, and rappers, and so I very early on drew a line. None of them are going to be on the mixtape, because if you include some and not others ... I always want to protect the feeling of, 'These are the guys making Hamilton on stage every night, and this is a separate thing. And then I hear Aloe Blacc's chorus for 'Wrote My Way Out,' and said, 'I have to be on the song.' And I broke my own rule, because I felt I had something to say, and that notion of writing as salvation, and writing as a source of strength really resonated with me, particularly with the character of Hamilton and in my own life. That's why I added my little 16 at the end. And then, that bit at the end is actually Nas from our Hamilton documentary, the bit of him talking at the end; that's from an interview that we shared, so it's a nice little outro."

Track 4: "Wait For It" - Usher

"Usher ... How is this even happening? I've been a fan of Usher since My Way, which was incredible. To watch him grow and evolve as an artist, and is just one of our greats, he's one of our R&B greats. I was thrilled he wanted to tackle 'Wait For It.' His vocals are so unique and so uniquely his, and that's been the fun of the mixtape is seeing someone ... It's almost like fantasy football, I don't know how else to describe it. To hear his voice on this song, which for me, it's a very personal song, it's a lot of people's favorite song in the show, so you have to give it to usher. You have to hear him on it. His vocal delivery and what he sent us back was so wonderful, and so I'm really proud of that one, and how it turned out."

Track 5: "An Open Letter" - Watsky featuring Shockwave

"These are cut lyrics from a cut song in Hamilton called 'The Adams Administration.' I used to deliver these. It was cut in previews off-Broadway, it was actually cut after the first night. [They were] some of the hardest bars in the show. The problem is they're delivered to an off-stage character, John Adams, we never see. We needed to cut time, so it was the first thing to go. But, I think we did it at a talk-back once, and someone had filmed it for Youtube, so it has its own little fan base, that 16 bars against John Adams. Whenever I think of fast, technical, brilliant rappers, Watsky is at the top of that list, and he's a friend, he's a really wonderful guy. I asked him to contribute that to the mixtape, and then I got one of my best friends, Shockwave, to provide the beat for him. So really, it's a fun interlude, but it's also this glimpse of cut material from the show."

Track 6: "Satisfied" - Sia featuring Miguel & Queen Latifah 

"Sia was one of the first people to turn in her contribution to this mixtape, and she actually recorded her vocals over our existing track. She sort of took out the vocals from 'Satisfied' on the cast album and recorded her vocals over that. The looks on all our faces when we heard it ... Here's the best way I can describe it. One of my best friends, Quiara, who this is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, I played her the track very early on. She looked up at me, she said, 'Sia weaponizes vowels.' Which sounds like a weird thing to say, but it's true. No one sounds like her in the world. It is a once-in-a-generation voice, and the way she interpreted Angelica in that was so great. Every person who contributed to that made it even bigger than the sum of its parts.

Queen Latifa is one of my favorite MCs, full stop. 'Ladies First,' her entire run in the early '90s, I mean you stack any of her bars against any other rapper, male or female, of that era, and she's in your top five. She's a brilliant, brilliant rapper, and then she's so good at other things that she hasn't rapped in a while. She had to go win an Emmy and play Bessie Smith, and be in Chicago, and release Jazz albums. But when she came to see the show, she came backstage and I said, 'Angelica exists because of you. Because of your voice as a rapper. That was one of my influences in writing Angelica, and please, please, please we need to hear you rap again.' So I begged her to be on this mixtape, and she, as you will hear, totally delivered.

And then to have Miguel in this eight bar cameo is almost decadent! As soon as he comes in ... Someone tweeted at me, who heard the song for the first time, 'When Miguel comes in,' and they posted a little GIF of Amelie just dissolving into the ground, that's how you feel when you hear Miguel's voice. He's that crooner. The production is by the great Mike Elizondo, who's turned it into a 'Bohemian Rhapsody' level event on the production side. To me, it's one of the highlights of the mixtape."

Track 7: "Dear Theodosia" - Regina Spektor featuring Ben Folds

"This was the first songs recorded for the Hamilton Mixtape. This was actually even recorded before we opened on Broadway, because Regina Spektor saw the show very early. I am a Regina Spektor completist, I have every album. I approached her when I found out she had enjoyed the show, and I said, I would love to hear you sing 'Dear Theodosia' because that is, to me, one of the most affecting ballads in the show. She sat with it for a while, and I said, 'I think you can do it yourself, I don't think you need anyone else singing with you.' Because in the show, it's two people singing. She said, 'It really feels like it needs two voices. Do you mind if I ask my friend Ben Folds to sing it with me?' And I said, 'Yeah, that would be fine, that would be great.' I'm a huge Ben Folds fan as well, so when they turned in their version -- they went and recorded it together in LA -- and we were just thrilled. It's so beautiful. It's a lullaby. I've heard, more than anything, people singing this song to their kids to go to bed. That's what this song has become in the lives of a lot of people, and it's in really great hands with Regina and Ben."

Track 8: "Valley Forge (Demo)" - Lin-Manuel Miranda

"'Valley Forge' is a demo of mine. This was a song I wrote for the first Hamilton concert. It was based on the true events of Valley Forge. Hamilton and Washington survived that thing together, and I wrote it because, to me, I feel like that's when money, and it's value or lack thereof, actually becomes a life or death issue to Hamilton. It's the difference between starving and staying alive. British troops have money that's worth something, they get to live in-house during this cold winter. American money is worthless, and many soldiers die. So I wrote that. If you listen to it, the whole thing is my voice. All of the backing vocals, everything on it is just me going full Bobby Mcferrin. It is like my Garage Band demo. So, we put that on the album because I'm really proud of it. It got cut from the show because there's nothing dramatically interesting about watching people slowly freeze to death, but it's a haunting track, so I thought fans would enjoy it."

Track 9: "It's Quiet Uptown" - Kelly Clarkson

"I wish I could claim the credit for this incredible idea, but actually the credit goes to Craig Kallman of Atlantic. We were brainstorming songs that had been included on the mixtape, and songs that hadn't, and he said, 'Quiet Uptown?' And I said, 'Yeah, I don't know. Is that kind of a third rail?' That occurs in our show at a moment that is so painful and so traumatic. You don't want to have someone who can't get their talent around all of it. It's so easy for it become cheese-ball, and that song means a lot to a lot of people. So, when he thought of Kelly Clarkson I went, 'Oh, that's perfect.' I mean, Kelly as a singer has encapsulated, she's created music that, it's the music we turn to in times of anguish and in times of joy. I can think of so many breakups of friends I have weathered with 'Since You've Been Gone,' 'My Life Would Suck Without You.' She writes those anthems that you think of them in terms of when you heard them in your own life. So for her to sing 'Quiet Uptown,' which is about the worst pain a human can endure, the loss of a child, it's heartbreaking, and she does it full justice."

Track 10: "That Would Be Enough" - Alicia Keys

"'That Would Be Enough' is one of my favorite stories. It's covered by Alicia Keys. Alicia came to the show, and I immediately asked her to do this song. This is one of the fastest written songs in the show. I wrote this song in about 45 minutes, which is really, really fast for me, considering it took me a year to write 'My Shot,' so 45 minutes is very fast. There's' no history book, there's no historical event that necessitates 'That Would Be Enough.' I was looking at Eliza and I was looking at Hamilton, and it felt very important that she sings this to him. As a result, this song is very personal to me, because it doesn't come out of the history books. In a lot of ways it's a love letter to my own wife, and what we say to the people we share our lives with. So, I pitched that to Alicia, and she went away with it. She said, 'Okay let me think about what I would do with it.' She called me one day and said, 'It's ready, do you want to come over and listen to it?' I was in the room with Jonathan Groff, who played King George, and I said, 'Hey Groff, do you want to go to Alicia Key's studio and hear her version of That Would Be Enough?' I will never forget it, because it was the night before the giant blizzard of 2016, which shut down every show on Broadway. We finished our show, and Groff and I jumped into a car, and we went down to Alicia's studio, and we had the very surreal experience of not only hearing her heartbreaking, yet somehow channeling Prince's 'The Beautiful Ones,' it takes the form of the song that I wrote, and then explodes it with emotion the way only she can. Then, she also played us previews of her album, so we got to hear her fantastic new album a year before everybody else. Groff and I kept looking at each other, being like, 'How is this real life?' As the snow began to fall and we went, 'We got to get out of here.' It's two feet of snow about to fall to the ground, and not wanting to leave. So that was one of my favorite nights in the creation of this mixtape."

Track 11: "Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)" - K'naan, Snow Tha Product, Riz MC, and Residente

"This track came out of a conversation I had with Riggs Morales, our A&R at Atlantic, who really in a lot of ways is the reason The Hamilton Mixtape exists. He's the guy who does the leg work, and manages to get all these amazing artists into studios, and into rooms, and making the thing. It begins with Riggs and I talking about the fact that my third cousin is one of the greatest rappers alive. My third cousin is René Pérez, AKA Residente of Calle 13. Calle 13 has [won] roughly 22 Latin Grammys. I think he's an actual genius. He's just one of the best rappers alive, regardless of language. There's such a disconnect in hip-hop, right? If you go to anywhere in Latin America, they will know who Residiente is, but you go to the English language, and people don't know. So, Riggs said to me, 'Hey, your cousin's one of the greatest rappers alive. It would be great to get him on this mixtape somehow.' So we started thinking about an organic way to do that, and I immediately said, 'Well, we got to do something about 'Immigrants (We Get The Job Done). 

I had already seen how that line, which I had written as sort of a throw-away, 'Hey, look at us, we're immigrants fighting for this country' line was getting the most reliably audible ovation every night in the show. I think that speaks to our political climate, I think it speaks to the fact that now more than ever 'immigrant' has somehow become a dirty word, despite the fact that this country was built by immigrants, and they are the renewable lifeblood, and life source, and strength of our country. So we started with, How can we get Residente on this mixtape? And then it quickly expanded to, 'This is a big topic, and I want to hear from my favorite MCs from all over the world.' That's what we did. We called K'naan, we called Riz, Ahmed, AKA Riz MC, we called Snow Tha Product, and just got their perspectives. We said, Your hook is, 'Immigrants, we get the job done. Go.' And the verses they brought are so smart, and needed, and each one bringing their A-Game. It's really one of the most thrilling moments, because it expands what the Hamilton Mixtape can even be. It's not just covers, it's not just remixes, it's taking an idea and exploding it in musical form."

Track 12: "You'll Be Back" - Jimmy Fallon & The Roots

"'You'll Be Back' is one of the great moments of comic relief in our show. There's no reason that King George should be in this show. He lives in a different country, it makes no sense, logical sense, that we'd jump across the pond to hear from him. And yet, as an outside observer of what's going on in the colonies which become this country, he's a fantastic perspective to have. It was sort of a no-brainer to ask Jimmy. Jimmy Fallon was one of the first champions of Hamilton when he saw the show at The Public. He, of course, has a great relationship with The Roots already, who were our partners in crime on making both the mixtape and our cast album, and he's hilarious! He's a great singer, which I think you don't even think about that, because he's so good at impressions. His Neil Young sounds more like Neil Young than Neil Young. I just jumped at the chance to have him be the comic relief on our album. He knocked it out of the park."

Track 13: "Helpless" - Ashanti featuring Ja Rule

"'Helpless' is one of those dream come true scenarios on the mixtape. When I was writing 'Helpless,' I was thinking about Ahanti and Ja Rule, I was thinking about Mary J Blige and Method Man, I was thinking of Beyonce and Jay Z. I was thinking of those great R&B/hip-hop songs, where there's sort of this romance going on. That, to me, is one of the great forms in hip-hop/R&B. You think of those great Ashanti tunes where it's verse, chorus, verse, chorus, Ja Rule, and then back to Ashanti, and then we're out! It's just like pop heaven, it's just like a perfect little moment. When I was writing 'Helpless' for the show, I was imagining Ashanti and Ja Rule. You can even hear, if you listen to 'Helpless' on the cast recording, I'm doing Ja Rule in the last line. That's my homage to Ja Rule, within the show itself.

So when Riggs said to me, 'Alright 'Helpless,' what do you want to do?' I was like, 'Can we get Ashanti and Ja Rule?' And he said, 'I'll invite them to the show, we'll see what happens.' And then they came to the show together. They saw Hamilton together, they came backstage, I pitched them in my dressing room, they said yes, and the next week we we're in the studio making this thing. That was really one of the most fun times we ever had, just getting to sit and talk to Ja about hip-hop in the '90s and the era he lived through, and the early 2000s ... 'Livin' It Up' was the soundtrack for my senior year of college. I literally can't picture driving without that song playing. They were so wonderful, and to hear them together again ... every single person I play that track for, they go, 'Oh, it's so great to hear them together.' I met Kanye and I played him that track, and he was like, 'Oh man.' It's one of those things where it's like we didn't even realize how much we missed it. I feel really proud to get them back together again."

Track 14: "Take A Break (Interlude)" - !llmind

"The 'Take a Break (Interlude)' is one of those beats that is just so good we had to put it on the mixtape. !llmind is one of the unsung heroes of this production, he's an incredible producer. He contributed production to countless tracks on the mixtape itself. And then for fun, he just kept making these other beats. He made me an amazing Schuyler Sisters remix for a 'Ham 4 Ham' show I did. He was just really inspired by the material and just kept making beats. I think that 'Take a Break' will have some future life as it's own thing, but he made this beautiful beat out of the counting in that song from Hamilton and we said, 'Well, this is going on the mixtape. This is just so good, we don't even need a rapper on it, we just need to hear this beat.' It's a wonderful transition."

Track 15: "Say Yes To This" - Jill Scott

"Jill Scott is one of the greatest R&B singers alive. She came to the show, and I was so nervous to perform for her. I told her about the mixtape that day when she came to see us after the show. She said, 'What did you have in mind?' And I didn't really have anything in mind, I said, 'How about Say No To This?' That is our most R&B song in the show.' She said, 'All right, let me think about it.' Again, went away for a while, and then, really close to us finishing the album, we still hadn't heard from her. And then, she turns in this ... I don't even know how to describe it! She took the actual track of 'Say No To This,' took out everything but the backing vocals, and wrote a new song on top of it. You'd never know it was on an existing song. Her own melody is so beautiful, her own lyrics are so beautiful. It's a Jill Scott song, and yet it also the definition of flipping the script. It's this song that is a guy describing his version of how an affair took place, and she takes all that away, and makes it a very simple, and yet very compelling seduction. It's one of my favorites."

Track 16: "Congratulations" - Dessa

"This is another cut song from Hamilton. We did this at the workshop before we went to the public. It's a great tune. Narratively, it was treading water. It happened at a really critical juncture in the show, where Hamilton has disclosed his extramarital affair publicly. We have this song, 'The Reynolds Pamphlet,' where everyone finds out, and then we had this song where Hamilton's sister-in-law basically verbally beats the crap out of him. And then, we go see his wife Eliza's reaction to the affair in 'Burn.' What I realized was what we care about most is Eliza's reaction, so we cut 'Congratulations' because we need to hear, 'This is the affair, the world knows about it, how does the person most affected by it feel.' So, dramatically, that's what needed to happen for the show. But you know ... Bootlegs be bootlegs. 'Congratulations,' someone got a recording of it at workshop, and 'Congratulations' has sort of been out in the world, and people love that song, so I wanted someone who could really do it justice. I've been a fan of Dessa's for a really long time. Her song, 'Dixon's Girl,' is one of my favorite hip hop songs, and yet she sings and she raps with equal dexterity and force, and that's what this song requires. She was a no-brainer for the mixtape, I was thrilled she agreed to do it. She got all her own musicians, she recorded it in Minnesota, and then what she sent back to us was just overwhelmingly powerful. It's a really faithful cover, at the same time, there's very few people in the world who can pull that song off, and Dessa's one of them."

Track 17: "Burn" - Andra Day

"Andra Day on 'Burn' ... She's really one of the most powerful new voices we have. That's someone who I think the world took notice of this year, and these past couple years, so to hear her interpretation is thrilling. Again, back to incredible production by Mike Elizondo on the track. It's really ... I don't know how to describe it. It's a powerhouse vocal performance. It's faithful to the story line, and where it exists in the world of Hamilton the musical, and yet she takes it to this whole other place, to this place where only she can take things."

Track 18: "Stay Alive (Interlude)" - J.PERIOD & Stro Elliot

"This was created by J. PERIOD, who is, again, another unsung hero of this mixtape. When we started putting this thing in order, J was the architect of it, he's figuring out the flow. Again, we're not bound to the narrative structure of Hamilton, what we're bound to is we're making a mixtape, and what does that mean? That means we're creating an experience. An aural experience from beginning to end. J created that, he wanted to get us from point A to point B, and it's sort of a great little breather before what's to come."

Track 19: "Cabinet Battle 3 (Demo)" - Lin-Manuel Miranda

"I think 'Cabinet Battle 3' is probably the cut song from Hamilton that people have been most eager to hear. We actually printed the text of it in the book on the making of Hamilton. It's one of those songs that ... It's fascinating from a dramaturgical perspective and from a historical perspective. Slavery is something we talk about a lot in Hamilton. In the show itself, we make very clear from the third line of the show, this is a world in which slavery exists. Some of these men own slaves, and this is one of their chief flaws. At the same time, this was the big song to address it in the context of the Cabinet Battle. I spent months writing this thing, and we did it in the workshop. Even when we were looking for a version to present on the mixtape, I couldn't find one that matched the text in the book, I went through so many versions of it, so this is my demo. Just like 'Valley Forge,' it's all me, it's me battling with myself. It's my writing of the thing. It was very cathartic to have these arguments, and having to research if there was a cabinet battle about this, and it's a hypothetical one, this is not something that historically existed, what would the positions be?

You read Jefferson's writings on slavery, and you contrast that with his actual practice, and you read Hamilton's position, and then you read what Madison did. What Madison essentially did in real life was ... Two Quakers did bring the banning of the slave trade to the congress floor, and Madison said, 'We're not going to talk about this until 1808. We're not even going to discuss it.' What you have is interesting, but it's not interesting dramatically, because given the momentum that Hamilton has as a narrative experience, to stop for six minutes and watch all these men be hypocrites and do nothing, and then continue with our story, it stopped the show cold. Not in a good way, it wasn't a show stopper. It was a, 'Oh, these guys are all the worst, and no one did enough, and that doesn't progress our story forward.' Every other song in Hamilton gets us from point A to point B to point C, and narratively it treaded water. At the same time, it's interesting to hear these positions, and it's interesting to hear that argument. The music is based on Tupac's 'Hail Mary.' I was looking to the great battle songs that I always loved. 'Penitentiaries is packed with promise makers' is one of Tupac's immortal lines. I sort of flip that to, 'Plantation states are packed with promise makers' and really sort of looked to Tupac's rage and gifted use of language to articulate Hamilton's points. The only thing we did for the album was we just kind of treated my voice slightly differently, so you could tell the difference of when I'm playing Washington, when I'm playing Hamilton, and when I'm playing Madison, and when I'm playing Jefferson. Other than that, that's my demo. I think it's going to be interesting for people to hear/see a little bit of how the sausage gets made."

Track 20: "Washingtons By Your Side" - Wiz Khalifa

"I wish I could claim all the credit in the world for this, but I can't. This is the mind of Wiz Khalifa. He saw the show, he was so wonderful to our company, and said hi to everyone and hung out with everyone. We approached him about the mixtape, and he said, 'I got it. Washingtons By Your Side.' I didn't know what that meant. And then he came back with this track, and it's just so Wiz. That's the other thing that we have to talk about when we talk about hip hop. The thing that I love most about hip hop is that we take things that already exist, and flip them, and make them intensely personal. So that song that may have existed in some form, we flip it to make meaning for ourselves. Wiz took this song that was about fighting Hamilton legally, and turned it into a very personal song. That's also part of the greatness of hip hop, it's taking something and flipping it, and making it personal to you. He did an amazing job of that with his track."

Track 21: "History Has It's Eyes On You" - John Legend

"John Legend lives up to his last name every time he's at bat. One of my absolute songwriting heroes, and one of the people I had in my head when I was writing the role of George Washington. I said, 'This has got to be someone who can sing like John Legend, rap like Common, and have a moral authority to sort of lead our nation.' It was, again, one of those dreams-come-true you write thinking of your heroes, and then you get to work with your heroes. He totally did a brand new arrangement of it, and it sounds every bit as new and fresh and organic to him as it could. It's remarkable, the gospel version of 'History Has Its Eyes On You.' I think one of the more powerful lyrics in the show occurs in that song, which is, 'Let me tell you what I wish I'd known when I was young and dreamed of glory/You have no control who lives, who dies, who tell your story.' When you hear John Legend sing that it crackles in a totally different way."

Track 22: "Who Tells Your Story" - The Roots featuring Common & Ingrid Michaelson 

"Again, this began with production by !llmind, he made this for fun. The beat was incredible, and we said, Who could do this justice?' Common. I was so thrilled at how inspired he was by the show. Of all the artists on the mixtape, he's probably seen Hamilton more than anyone else. It's probably a tie between him and The Roots. To see your own line quoted and then reinterpreted by Common is a thrill, the Black Thoughts verse is so great on it, and the perfect counterweight to Common's verses, and then Ingrid Michaelson's sort of the surprise guest vocalist on it. That came about because she saw the show and on her own made an Instagram post where she sang 'Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story' in four-part harmony with herself. That just knocked me out. I said, 'Oh, come with us! You're going to be on this mixtape now!' She wrote that hook inspired by the lyric itself, and the way it came together was really organic and beautiful."

Track 23: "Dear Theodosia (Reprise)" - Chance The Rapper & Francis and the Lights

"Chance the Rapper is one of the brightest lights in hip hop. I look forward to so many years of music from that guy. I'm so excited to be in on the ground floor of his career. When he saw the show, I said, 'What inspires  you?' And he said, 'I just had a daughter, I'm doing Dear Theodosia.' At this point we already had Regina's version, which is also fantastic. Riggs was like, 'Chance wants to do Dear Theodosia, we already have one, what do you want to do?' And I said, 'He should do Dear Theodosia.' That's also the beauty of the mixtape is you see how two different artists get to interpret the same song in totally different ways. That's the beauty of music. I think one of my favorite things about the mixtape itself is the diversity of talent on display. You learn that genre and orchestration are all fluid, and every artist brings their own voice to something. So Chance and his beautiful arrangement with Francis and the Lights, it's the perfect way to close the album, because it's not about the past, it's about what's next. That song is about what's the future we're leaving behind for our kids. I couldn't think of a better way to close it, so I'm very proud that he joined us."