Lauryn Hill was announced Wednesday as one of the lead singers on Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis’s new concept album of The Warriors.
As for whether the concept album, which also features Busta Rhymes, Rza, Ghostface Killah, Colman Domingo and more alongside an all-female gang, will become the Hamilton creator’s next full-length stage show, Miranda said it will depend on the reception.
“The plan is just to release it and see how people respond,” Miranda said at a Fast Conference summit in Manhattan Wednesday. He added that the project did not have a director or producers yet attached.
The album, due to be released Oct. 18, musicalizes the 1979 film that follows a street gang making their way from the Bronx to their home in Coney Island and encountering other gangs en route.
Miranda was initially presented with the idea in 2009, after writing In the Heights, but did not think it could work as a musical. He returned to the idea in 2017-2018, after starring in Hamilton and was intrigued when he found a new way in by making the main gang all female and wondering about their experience fighting their way back uptown. The gang is also wrongly accused of murdering another gang’s leader, Cyrus of the Gramercy Riffs.
On the album, Hill voices Cyrus of Gramercy Riffs, with the gang played by Kenita Miller as Cochise, Sasha Hutchings as Cowgirl, Phillipa Soo as Fox, Aneesa Folds as Cleon, Amber Gray as Ajaz, Gizel Jiménez as Rembrandt, Jasmine Cephas Jones as Swan and Julia Harriman as Mercy.
The composer, who has also written songs for Moana and Encanto, noted that it’s still “a tricky story to adapt musically or for the stage,” so the concept album will show whether it will be feasible, as had been the case for several other musicals, including The Who’s Tommy, Waitress and Hadestown.
Each neighborhood of New York will get a different sonic landscape, Miranda said noting: “It was really exciting to write.”
Miranda has also written songs for Mufasa: The Lion King, due to be released in December. The composer said he approached the project with “great trepidation” and given that the original film has “five songs, all bangers,” written by Elton John and Tim Rice, and has become a large part of the cultural zeitgeist.
He was tapped to write six songs for the upcoming film, and said he wanted to join once he knew Barry Jenkins was directing the film.
“That’s sort of like Greta Gerwig directing Barbie,” he said.
The cultural impact of The Lion King, and this film, which shows “how Mufasa and Scarr became Mufasa and Scarr” has become even more profound, Miranda said, after the passing of James Earl Jones, who had voiced Mufasa. Miranda was not sure whether Jones saw the final cut, but said Jenkins had previously spoken with him about it.
“I know we had his blessing,” Miranda said of the film.
