(AllHipHop News) A new audience was exposed to Hamilton after a filmed version of the production was added to Disney+ this weekend. According to reports, the streamer’s app saw a 75% increase in downloads in the United States from July 3 through July 5.
While facing some criticism for historical inaccuracies, Hamilton was a huge commercial and critical success. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s multicultural re-imagining of 18th-century American politician Alexander Hamilton and the founding of America incorporated elements of Hip Hop into the show.
Apple Music’s Zane Lowe spoke to Miranda about his Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical being presented as a movie. The social distancing and self-quarantining caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic played a role in Hamilton making its way to Disney+.
“We all just got the news that there’s really not going to be any theater in the U.S. for the rest of the year, and it just felt like we’re sitting on a big love letter to live theater. If Hamilton is nothing else, it is a love letter to Hip Hop and it’s a love letter to musical theater,” declared Miranda during the interview.
The 40-year-old New York City native added, “[Director Thomas Kail’s] film of it is what it felt like in that room during that magic year when we got to do the show. And so at a time when none of us can gather, the fact that we have this love letter to gathering and hearing a story is really cool.”
Hamilton won 11 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Choreography. Miranda’s magnum opus also took home a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
The Hamilton mixtape featured contributions from The Roots, Busta Rhymes, Nas, Dave East, Usher, Alicia Keys, Ashanti, Ja Rule, Jill Scott, Wiz Khalifa, John Legend, Common, Chance The Rapper, and more. That project debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart in 2016.