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The GRAMMY/Tony Awards Pedigree

Get ready for the 2013 Tony Awards with an overview of the individuals who have shined on Music's Biggest Night and Broadway's biggest stage

GRAMMYs/Dec 3, 2014 - 05:06 am

Cyndi Lauper was 31 and having plenty of fun when she picked up her first career GRAMMY for Best New Artist at the 27th Annual GRAMMY Awards in 1985. Nearly three decades later, "Kinky Boots," a musical with music and lyrics by Lauper, leads the field with 13 nominations for the 2013 Tony Awards, taking place June 9 in New York.

The production's collective nods include Best Musical, Best Choreography and Best Sound Design of a Musical, as well as a nomination for Lauper for Best Original Score (Music And/Or Lyrics) Written For The Theatre category. Should Lauper emerge a winner, she would join a select company of individuals who have won both a GRAMMY and a Tony and form one of the latest connections between the two awards shows, which have more than 120 years of collective history between them.

That history has intersected on numerous occasions. For example, recent Tony Award-winning musicals that have won GRAMMYs in the Best Musical Theater Album category include Once — A New Musical (2012), American Idiot — Featuring Green Day (2010) and West Side Story (2009).

Actress Julie Harris, who won a GRAMMY in 1977 for Best Spoken Word Recording, ranks as the performer with the most Tony Awards with six. Seven-time GRAMMY winner Stephen Sondheim ranks as the composer with the most Tony Awards with eight.

Of the nearly 1,000 recordings in the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame, 31 have been inducted in the Musical Show category to date. GRAMMY Hall Of Fame-inducted recordings of musicals that have earned Tony Awards include the original Broadway cast recordings of "Camelot" (1960), "Fiddler On The Roof" (1964), "Hello, Dolly!" (1964), "The Music Man" (1958), and "My Fair Lady" (1956).

Of course, these examples represent but a taste of the GRAMMY/Tony shared lineage. In advance of Sunday's 67th annual Tony Awards, here is a serving of individuals who have doubled their career pleasure with both a GRAMMY and a Tony.

GRAMMY/Tony Awards Playlist

 

Mel Brooks*
Brooks has worn many hats in his esteemed career, including actor, comedian, composer, film director, lyricist, producer, and screenwriter. After winning his first GRAMMY for Best Spoken Comedy Album in 1998, Brooks took home two GRAMMYs in 2001 for "The Producers," his hit musical based on his 1968 film of the same name. "The Producers" currently stands as the musical production that has been awarded the most Tony Awards with 12. In addition to his career awards, Brooks earned a World War II Victory Medal for his service in the U.S. Army. 

David Bryan
Bryan's day job as keyboardist for Bon Jovi has yielded platinum albums and sold-out tours worldwide. The New Jersey rockers picked up their first career GRAMMY for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals for "Who Says You Can't Go Home" with Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles in 2006. A classically trained pianist, Bryan turned his talents to a different stage with "Memphis," a production based loosely on Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips, one of the first white DJs to play black music in the '50s. The musical, which made its Broadway debut in 2009, earned Bryan two Tony Awards for Orchestrations and Score (Music And/Or Lyrics) in 2010. 

Cy Coleman
Impressively, Coleman earned GRAMMY nominations in five consecutive decades, from the '50s to the '90s. His first career nomination came at the inaugural GRAMMY Awards in 1958 for Song Of The Year for "Witchcraft," a Top 10 hit for Frank Sinatra. In 1991 Coleman broke through with his first career GRAMMY for Best Musical Show Album for The Will Rogers Follies. That same year, Coleman picked up his third and final Tony for Score (Musical) for "The Will Rogers Follies," a production based on the life and career of humorist Will Rogers. Coleman died in 2004. 

Whoopi Goldberg*
The multitalented Goldberg has scaled heights as a comedian, singer/songwriter, actress, and talk-show host. She won a GRAMMY in 1985 for Best Comedy Recording for Whoopi Goldberg — Original Broadway Show Recording. Goldberg's lone Tony to date came in 2002 as a producer of the musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie," a tale of small-town girl Millie Dillmount who moves to New York. 

Marvin Hamlisch*
In 1974 Hamlisch took home four GRAMMYs, including Song Of The Year for "The Way We Were." Featured in the 1973 film of the same name, the song features lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman (both GRAMMY winners who have yet to pick up Tony Awards) and sublime vocals courtesy of Barbra Streisand. In 1976 Hamlisch won his lone Tony Award for Score (Musical) for "A Chorus Line," which garnered a nomination for Best Cast Show Album in 1975. The musical also earned the composer a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Hamlisch died Aug. 6, 2012. 

Audrey Hepburn*
A film and fashion icon, Hepburn's résumé included such notable films as Roman Holiday (1953), Funny Face (1957) and Breakfast At Tiffany's (1961), the latter featuring music by 20-time GRAMMY winner Henry Mancini. She won her first Tony in 1954 for Actress (Dramatic) for her role in "Ondine" and later was honored with a Special Tony Award in 1968. Hepburn earned her lone career GRAMMY for Best Spoken Word Album For Children for Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales in 1993, the same year she died. 

John Kander And Fred Ebb
The dynamic songwriting team of composer Kander and lyricist Ebb was arguably best known for writing music for stage musicals. But the duo also composed music for film, including writing "Theme From New York, New York," the theme song from Martin Scorcese's 1977 drama New York, New York that would later become one of Frank Sinatra's signatures. The duo's hit musicals include "The Happy Time" (1968), "Zorba" (1968), "Chicago" (1975), and "Woman Of The Year" (1981), all of which spawned GRAMMY nominations. Kander and Ebb earned their lone career GRAMMY for Best Score From An Original Cast Show Album for Cabaret in 1967. That same year, the musical "Cabaret" earned the duo a Tony for Composer And Lyricist. The 1972 film adaptation starred Liza Minnelli, a Tony winner and GRAMMY Legend Award recipient. The film's soundtrack was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame in 2008. 

Rita Moreno*
A singer, dancer and actress, Moreno's career has spanned nearly 70 years. In 1972 she earned her lone career GRAMMY to date for Best Recording For Children for The Electric Company, a soundtrack album for the popular children's television program. In 1975 she earned her sole Tony Award for Actress, Supporting or Featured (Dramatic) for her portrayal of Googie Gomez in "The Ritz." More recently, Moreno was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Latin Recording Academy in 2012.

Tim Rice
A master lyricist, Rice earned his first of six career GRAMMYs in 1980 for Best Cast Show Album for Evita — Premier American Recording. He also notched a Song Of The Year win in 1993 for "A Whole New World (Aladdin's Theme)" with fellow GRAMMY/Tony winner Alan Menken. In 2000 Rice won a GRAMMY for Best Musical Show Album for the album accompanying his hit musical collaboration with Sir Elton John, "Aida." The musical also earned Rice a Tony for Original Musical Score.

Richard Rodgers* And Oscar Hammerstein II
The late legendary duo of composer Rodgers and lyricist Hammerstein won their lone collective GRAMMY in 1960 for Best Show Album (Original Cast) for The Sound Of Music. The original Broadway production of "The Sound Of Music" opened in 1959 and has resurfaced with many revivals in the years since. The musical won a Tony for Musical in 1960, tying with "Fiorello!" Collectively, the duo's musicals earned 34 Tony Awards. The original Broadway cast recordings from the duo's musicals that have been inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame include "Oklahoma!" (1943), "Carousel" (1945), "South Pacific" (1949), and "The King And I" (1951).

Stephen Sondheim
Sondheim's storied GRAMMY history includes a win for Song Of The Year in 1975 for "Send In The Clowns." With vocals by Glynis Johns, the song was featured in "A Little Night Music," an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's 1955 film Smiles Of A Summer Night. The musical earned Sondheim a Tony in 1973 for Score (Musical). Sondheim went on to earn GRAMMYs in three consecutive decades, with his latest award coming in 1994 for Best Musical Show Album for Passion. Sondheim also has a Pulitzer Prize for drama to his credit. 

Barbra Streisand*
Streisand's GRAMMY star was born in 1963 when she won the first two of her eight career awards, including Album Of The Year (Other Than Classical) for her debut, The Barbra Streisand Album. In addition to two Tony nominations, including Actress (Musical) in 1964 for her portrayal of entertainer Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl," Streisand was honored with a Special Tony Award in 1970. The original Broadway cast recording of "Funny Girl" was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame in 2004. Streisand was honored as MusiCares Person of the Year in 2011 for her career accomplishments and philanthropic endeavors. 

Charles Strouse
In 1977 Strouse earned GRAMMYs as a producer and composer for Best Cast Show Album for Annie, the album from the Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip Little Orphan Annie. Strouse's score also won him a Tony for Score that same year. A decade prior, Strouse won his first Tony in 1961 for the music to "Bye, Bye Birdie," which also earned him a nomination for Best Show Album (Original Cast) at the 3rd Annual GRAMMY Awards in 1960.

Jonathan Tunick
A masterful orchestrator, Tunick is arguably best known for his collaborations with Sondheim, beginning with 1970's musical comedy "Company." He won his lone GRAMMY to date in 1988 for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s) for "No One Is Alone," a song featured on the 1987 album Cleo Laine Sings Sondheim. In 1997 Tunick picked up his first Tony for Orchestrations for musical adaptations featured in the show "Titanic."

* Denotes one of a select group of individuals to win a GRAMMY, Emmy, Oscar, and Tony

Songbook: A Guide To Stephen Sondheim's Essential Works & Classic Tributes
Stephen Sondheim at the Fairchild Theater in East Lansing, Michigan, in February 1997.

Photo: Douglas Elbinger/Getty Images

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Songbook: A Guide To Stephen Sondheim's Essential Works & Classic Tributes

With his name appearing in three categories at the 2024 GRAMMYs, musical theater icon Stephen Sondheim's legacy continues to thrive. Take a deep dive into the masterful works of the late composer/lyricist, from "Company" to "Sweeney Todd."

GRAMMYs/Jan 11, 2024 - 05:41 pm

Stephen Sondheim had three rules when speaking about his own writing: Less is more,  God is in the details, and content dictates form. While the first two are rather self-explanatory, when it comes to a career as storied as Sondheim's, the third begs the question, how can you possibly describe this content?

Over his lifetime, Sondheim — who lived to be 91 years old, dying of cardiovascular disease in 2021 — was first and foremost a composer and lyricist of the musical theater. He wrote music and lyrics for 16 shows, counting the posthumously produced "Here We Are," and lyrics solely for three (or four, depending on how you count) more, two of which — "West Side Story" and "Gypsy" — are among the most famous and highly-regarded productions of all time. 

Even two years since his passing, his influence is still being honored. At the 2024 GRAMMYs, Sondheim's likeness appears twice in the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album category: for Vol. 3 of the popular Broadway concert series, Sondheim Unplugged (The NYC Sessions), and for Liz Callaway's tribute project, To Steve With Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Sondheim. What's more, the 2023 Josh Groban-starring Broadway revival of Sondheim's famed musical "Sweeney Todd" earned a nod for Best Musical Theater Album. ("Sweeney Todd" won Sondheim a GRAMMY in 1980 for Best Cast Show Album, one of seven GRAMMYs he won in his lifetime.)

All of that barely begins to describe his accomplishments. Sondheim, a protégé of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, revolutionized the art form that his mentor helped to invent. Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers created "Oklahoma!," considered one of the first examples of the "integrated musical," a show where the music, the lyrics, the book, and the dances all work together to tell a story. Sondheim would take those lessons to heart, simultaneously expanding and blowing apart the structure. 

Take his 1970 show "Company," for example, which has no real plot at all, and is often referred to as a "concept musical." It's a series of vignettes, and it's unclear whether they happen consecutively or are months or years apart. 

That was only the beginning of his experimentation. He did a show featuring ghosts ("Follies"), a show about cannibalism ("Sweeney Todd"), a show about geopolitics ("Pacific Overtures"), a show about historical pariahs ("Assassins"), even a show where time goes backwards ("Merrily We Roll Along"). But no matter how far out he got, there was always coherence and heart at play. Everything about the songs his characters sang — the harmonic language, the musical style, the delivery, the melody, the vocabulary, the rhyme choices — was determined by the character and the story. 

And what wonderful characters and stories they were. While his shows appeal to all ages, Sondheim's best work is mostly for adults. His characters have known disappointment, love unattainable people, are not where they saw themselves in life, and have hard choices to make in complicated situations. Sometimes they make the challenging but necessary decision to "Move On"...and sometimes they kill a President. To take those complexities and make them sing, well, that's the root of his genius.

Because Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics (and lived to his nineties), there are a nearly infinite amount of ways to experience his work. The best, of course, is to go out and see a show in person. Three of his shows are playing in New York right now ("Sweeney Todd," "Merrily We Roll Along," and "Here We Are"), and "Company" is currently on tour.

Aside from live theater, there are countless other ways to delve into the work of musical theater's Shakespeare. Below, Sondheim's career is broken down by seven categories, each of which include a mix of canonical classics and personal favorites. This is in no way comprehensive or definitive, so apologies for missing your favorite Gypsy revival cast album or Sondheim birthday concert. And away we go!

Cabaret Albums

Hearing Sondheim songs without the context of a show can be surprising at first. After all, everything about the material is meant for a particular moment in a specific story. And yet, hearing one singer interpret a range of numbers can be a revelatory experience. You can find different meanings (and in at least one case we'll examine shortly, different lyrics!), and hear new interpretations. 

The most famous interpreter of Sondheim is arguably Barbra Streisand, who recorded eight of his songs on her massively successful LP The Broadway Album (and three more on Back To Broadway). Her singing is (unsurprisingly) stunning, but what's most notable is that she actually got Sondheim to write new material — to rework "Putting It Together" to make it about a singer instead of a painter, and to write a new bridge for "Send In The Clowns." 

English singer and actress Cleo Laine released Cleo Sings Sondheim in 1988, and she smartly got Sondheim's longtime orchestrator Jonathan Tunick to conduct. So you can not only hear songs Tunick orchestrated in their original stage productions, you can also hear his arrangements of songs from before he and Sondheim started working together in 1970. Curious what a Tunick-orchestrated "Anyone Can Whistle" or "Evening Primrose" might have sounded like? You can get a taste here.

Several actors who have been in Sondheim shows have further honored his greatness by interpreting his material. Three quick examples: Bernadette Peters' superb Sondheim, Etc.: Live At Carnegie Hall; Mandy Patinkin's Mandy Patinkin Sings Sondheim; and Liz Callaway's GRAMMY-nominated To Steve With Love (which includes a great version of a nearly-forgotten comic song from "Do I Hear A Waltz?"). Patinkin's deserves special note because his only accompanist is the living musical theater jukebox pianist Paul Ford.

Books

The gold standard for books on Sondheim are the ones he wrote himself: the two-volume memoir/book of lyrics Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat. But if you're not ready for that investment yet, there are other alternatives. 

Meryle Seacrest's Stephen Sondheim: A Life is a comprehensive and extremely readable single-volume biography. It manages to reveal some aspects of Sondheim's life without feeling exploitative, and gives tremendous insight into both his work and the personal and professional relationships that informed it.

There are also a number of excellent books about the process of making individual shows; the two best come from opposite ends of the production spectrum. James Lapine, the book writer and original director of "Sunday In the Park With George," created an oral history of the making of that show called Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim And I Created Sunday In The Park With George. All the way on the other side of the power structure, Ted Chapin, a gofer during the rehearsal process for Follies, turned his detailed journal entries into Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies. 

On the more scholarly end, check out Joanne Gordon's Art Isn't Easy: The Achievement of Stephen Sondheim. If you really want to go all the way down the rabbit hole (and have a piano handy to play the musical examples), there's Stephen Banfield's extremely thorough Sondheim's Broadway Musicals.

Movies

Turning a stage musical into a movie can be a tricky business; some of the greatest shows have been turned into middling films. The less said about the movie versions of "Sweeney Todd" or "Into the Woods," the better (though it should be noted, in its defense, that Sondheim himself actually liked the former). The movie version of "A Little Night Music" is so forgotten that it's basically impossible to find.

But there are some marvelous Sondheim-related films. Most famous, of course, is West Side Story, the 1961 movie of which was so popular — and acclaimed, winning a whopping 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, in 1962 — that it turned a successful but risky Broadway show into an immortal classic. It also inspired several remakes: not just the Oscar-nominated, Spielberg-directed one from 2021, but even a late-'70s Egyptian adaptation. The 1990 movie Dick Tracy contained five Sondheim songs, three of which were sung by Madonna, successfully introducing countless '80s babies to his work.

The Last of Sheila contains no music, so it's a bit of an oddity here. But Sondheim turned his lifelong obsession with games and puzzles into a fun murder mystery movie, co-written with Anthony Perkins. When you watch this 1973 gem, you might recognize some themes and ideas that would later show up in the Knives Out series, in particular Glass Onion (director/writer Rian Johnson has been very open about this).

Speaking of Perkins, he is the star of one of Sondheim's great filmed musicals, the disturbing "Evening Primrose." He plays a young poet who sneaks into a department store after hours so that he can have some privacy to write. What he discovers there is funny, heartbreaking, and ultimately horrifying. Think The Twilight Zone with songs written by a genius. 

Finally, no mention of Sondheim and movies would be complete without D.A. Pennebaker's 1970 documentary Original Cast Album: "Company." It is, at root, Pennebaker and crew filming the recording of "Company"'s cast album. But it's so much more than that. It's about how, as Sondheim once said, "Art isn't easy," and how the actors and musicians are trying — under several very watchful sets of eyes, including the composer/lyricist's — to do the near-impossible in a very limited time. The film has become so iconic that the satirical series Documentary Now! did a hysterical 25-minute-long parody, complete with original songs that are loving send-ups of "Company" numbers.

Tributes/Anthologies

This category combines two similar types of projects. First is the tribute concert, where a bunch of notable singers come together on a single night and each do one or a few songs. Then there are anthologies, where a small group of performers put together a show using songs originally meant for other purposes. Sometimes they have plots, and sometimes they're revues. 

Among the best of the latter category is "Side by Side by Sondheim," the 1976 revue in which three English singers strung together an extremely well-chosen and well-sequenced collection of songs. This was the show that really cemented Sondheim's reputation in England, and justly so. 

In the big one-night-only category, 1992's Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall is right up there at the top of the list. The array of talent at that one show is simply unbelievable, and will never be duplicated. Sondheim regulars like Betty Buckley and Bernadette Peters were there, but so were Liza Minelli and Billy Stritch; Patti LuPone; ballet legend Robert LaFosse; Glenn Close; Karen Ziemba; and even the Boys Choir of Harlem, all roped in to perform some of the finest songs in the musical theater canon.

Sondheim's 90th birthday celebration is also noteworthy. Because it was in the early days of the pandemic, it was all done remotely. The actual live broadcast was a bit of a mess, with false starts and tech snafus (hey, who knew how to work Zoom in April 2020?). Luckily, Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration has been edited down and archived on Broadway.com's YouTube page, and is well worth your time.

Revivals/Concert Productions

Another convenient bridging of categories here. Revivals are versions of shows done after the original production has stopped running. Concert productions are exactly that: people perform all the songs, with minimal (or sometimes no) staging or costumes. The amount of dialogue performed can vary wildly as well. 

Among concert productions, the 1985 New York Philharmonic concert cast recording of "Follies" is justly the most well-known. This is in part because, due to budget restrictions, the original cast recording of "Follies" doesn't contain most of the show's music. So to finally have a full recording of all the material — performed by a who's who of actors including Mandy Patinkin, Barbara Cook, Lee Remick, George Hearn, Elaine Stritch, Jim Walton, and even the legendary writing team of Comden and Green — well, it's as magnificent as it sounds. There's even a documentary to go along with it. 

Another of the top concert recordings arrived a decade later: the 1995 concert version of "Anyone Can Whistle." Angela Lansbury, who starred in the original Broadway production for all of the nine performances it lasted, comes back as the narrator. Bernadette Peters and Madeline Kahn are absolutely incredible, and have an all-time-great duet in the usually cut song "There's Always a Woman," gloriously restored for this production. If you really want to get deep into "…Whistle" (a flop at the time, but a fascinating show), there's also a complete recording released in 2020 that is the closest thing to what you might have experienced in the theater in 1964 — it even restores all the dance music.

Revivals…well, where to start? A good place would be one you can see right now, "Merrily We Roll Along." There is a superb cast recording of the production currently playing on Broadway with Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez, and Daniel Radcliffe. 

There have been a handful of major reimaginings of "Company" over the years. The best were a stripped-down version where the cast plays its own instruments, and a gender-swapped one where inveterate bachelor Bobby is portrayed as perpetually single woman Bobbie. 

Points also go to the 2004 Broadway cast recording of "Assassins," and not just because Neil Patrick Harris does such a great job. The whole album captures the project's challenging beauty.

Original Cast Recordings

An original cast album of a Sondheim show will reveal countless treasures if you dig into it. It is often the best way to hear a show, since the actors are the ones who originated the roles, whether it's Ethel Merman as the obsessed stage mother Mama Rose in "Gypsy" or Donna Murphy as the tortured Fosca in "Passion." 

The 1970s have a surfeit of treasures. To take a few not yet mentioned, there's "Sweeney Todd," with timeless performances by Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou; and "A Little Night Music," perhaps Sondheim's ultimate example of writing music for character. It's nearly impossible to hear the show's two main female characters as anyone else but the late Glynis Johns as the actress Desiree Armfeldt and Hermione Gingold as her mother.

If you haven't already heard the original cast recordings of "Gypsy" and "West Side Story," do so immediately. Both are iconic pieces of 20th century art. (Music for the former is by Jule Styne, and for the latter by Leonard Bernstein).

Proshots

Luckily, productions — many featuring the original casts — of many of Sondheim's shows have been captured on tape, so you can see and hear them in their entirety. They are often referred to as "proshots," a portmanteau of "professionally shot." 

"Pacific Overtures" works well as an album, but it really comes alive when you can see the gorgeous staging. "Sweeney Todd" gains extra comedy and menace in its proshot. There's a New York City Opera version of "A Little Night Music" that is masterful. You can't really understand "Passion" without seeing Donna Murphy. "Merrily We Roll Along"'s complicated story becomes comprehensible when viewing the filmed revival.

But the most unmissable are two of the 1980s productions. There's "Sunday In the Park With George," a classic meditation on the life of the artist Georges Seurat starring Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters; it was filmed for TV in 1986. Because this is a show largely about a painter and the creation of his most famous painting, actually seeing the show — literally seeing the painting come to life — is essential.

Arguably the most important of all, though, is the filmed play that introduced generations of children to Sondheim's work. His fairy tale show "Into the Woods" was taped in 1989 (though not aired until 1991), and its frequent TV showings have made it a gateway drug for theatergoers ever since. 

The show is not just a collection of children's tales and songs. It uses the background of those stories to really delve into uncomfortable truths about parents and children, growing up, consequences, and what it really means to be good. Its themes, music, and sophistication, all while still being absolutely appropriate for, and speaking to, children, make it, as scholar Stephen Banfield wrote in 1993, "Sondheim's finest achievement yet."

That "yet" is a lot sadder now than it was when Banfield wrote it. But the show still stands as the epitome of a legendary writer and genius composer — one whose legacy and songs are already proving to live on past his lifetime. 

How Lin-Manuel Miranda Bridged The Worlds Of Broadway & Hip-Hop

How Lin-Manuel Miranda Bridged The Worlds Of Broadway & Hip-Hop
Lin-Manuel Miranda

Photo: Jason Mendez/Getty Images

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How Lin-Manuel Miranda Bridged The Worlds Of Broadway & Hip-Hop

"A GRAMMY Salute to 50 Years of Hip-Hop" airs Sunday, Dec. 10. During the two-hour live concert special, Miranda will offer an inside look at how and when he fell in love with hip-hop.

GRAMMYs/Dec 6, 2023 - 07:58 pm

Lin-Manuel Miranda has consistently been between worlds. 

Whether it was growing up spending the school year in Manhattan and summers in Puerto Rico; spending the early 2000s teaching seventh grade English by day while refining "In the Heights" at night; or translating parts of one of the most beloved musicals of all time into the language half of its characters would have actually spoken, Miranda has constantly been navigating a cultural and sonic divide.

But his most consistent bridging of worlds has been between Broadway and hip-hop, most notably via the groundbreaking "Hamilton." As someone equally well-versed in Sondheim and Biggie, Miranda is uniquely positioned to bring rapping to the stage, and vice-versa. 

Miranda will expound on this best-of-both-worlds mindset during a special segment on the once-in-a-lifetime "A GRAMMY Salute To 50 Years Of Hip-Hop" live concert special in which he'll give both musical theater and rap fans an inside look at how and when he fell in love with hip-hop. Airing Sunday, Dec. 10, at 8:30 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT on the CBS Television Network and streaming live and on demand on Paramount+, "A GRAMMY Salute To 50 Years Of Hip-Hop" features exclusive performances from Public Enemy, Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, T.I., Gunna, Tyga, Too $hort, Latto, E-40, Big Daddy Kane, GloRilla, Three 6 Mafia, a highly anticipated reunion from hip-hop pioneers DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and many more. The two-hour special celebrates the impactful history of hip-hop and showcases the genre's monumental cultural influence around the world.

Below are five of the ways Lin-Manuel Miranda has bridged Broadway and hip-hop culture.

Explore More Of "A GRAMMY Salute to 50 Years of Hip-Hop"

Convincing Stephen Sondheim That Rap Is The Future Of Musical Theater

Yes, musical theater's Shakespeare was aware of rap before he met Miranda. His character of the Witch in "Into the Woods" — originally brought to life by Bernadette Peters — spits some rhymes (he respectfully called his efforts an "imitation" of the genre). 

But in his 2011 memoir/book of lyrics Look, I Made a Hat, Sondheim revealed that Miranda was the one musical theater composer who might show others how to incorporate rap into the art form.

"I was never able to find another appropriate use for the technique [after 'Into the Woods'], or perhaps I didn't have the imagination to," he wrote. "Miranda does. Rap is a natural language for him and he is a master of the form, but enough of a traditionalist to know the way he can utilize its theatrical potential: he is already experimenting with it in a piece about Alexander Hamilton. This strikes me as a classic example of the way art moves forward: the blending of two conventional styles into something wholly original… It's one pathway to the future."

Starting Freestyle Love Supreme

Back in the early 2000s, during "In the Heights" rehearsals, then-recent college grads Miranda, Thomas Kail, and Anthony Veneziale used to loosen up by freestyling.

"Anthony would come in and distract us, 'Let's rap about our day!' . . . And we would just freestyle," Miranda recalled years later on "The Tonight Show." Soon, Veneziale had a second idea: they should do that in front of people. Thus, Freestyle Love Supreme was born.

The idea was simple: it was a mash-up (again with the bridge-building) between an improv troupe and a rap cipher. The extended crew of regulars and special guests eventually grew to include talents like "Hamilton" standouts Daveed Diggs and Christopher Jackson, and even Wayne Brady. The idea became so successful that FLS had its own Broadway show and Vegas residency, with Miranda still popping up frequently as a special guest. 

Making The Hamilton Mixtape

Miranda teamed up with Questlove to make "Hamilton" even more hip-hop with The Hamilton Mixtape. The project features not just covers of "Hamilton" songs by well-known pop artists, which would have been noteworthy enough. 

But more importantly for our concerns, it has a number of hip-hop reinterpretations of numbers from the show. Check out, for example, "Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)," by K'naan, Snow Tha Product, Riz MC, and Residente, which turns one line from the musical into an absolute banger. 

The project also features Nas, the Roots, Joell Ortiz, Busta Rhymes, Dave East, and many more. To make the whole thing even more hip-hop, it's mixed together by an actual mixtape DJ, J.Period. You can listen to him discuss his role here. 

Appearing On The Cover Of Complex With Chance The Rapper

By mid-2016, there were few rappers on the planet more perfectly positioned between success and innovation than Chance the Rapper. The Chicago emcee captured tastemakers with his exquisite 2013 mixtape Acid Rap, before jumping into the mainstream with the May 2016 release of Coloring Book. But before all that, he was just a kid who loved going to poetry open mics. 

So it made a certain kind of sense when Complex decided to pair him with Miranda for their June/July 2016 cover story. The two had a ton in common (and Chance, it turned out, was a huge "Hamilton fan" who would soon cover "Dear Theodosia" for The Hamilton Mixtape). But even more than their conversation, it was the mere fact of its public existence that ended up drawing Broadway and hip-hop a little bit closer together than they had been before that issue hit the stands.

Writing "Hamilton"

We saved the best — and most obvious — for last. Hamilton more than lived up to the potential to theatricalize rap that Sondheim saw in it. It showed that rapping could be a key, perhaps the key, part of a major musical, and that show could not only be great, but also be a giant, world-beating, Disney+-streaming hit. 

Its quotations and interpolations of classic rap songs served multiple purposes. They were in-jokes for the rap fans in the audience, an acknowledgement that this theater guy was one of us. They also provided Easter eggs for the Broadway set, a hope that maybe one day they would figure out that it wasn't originally Alexander Hamilton who described himself by saying, "I'm only 19, but my mind is old" or Thomas Jefferson who boasted, "If you don't know, now you know." 

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GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016
Kendrick Lamar

Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

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GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016

Upon winning the GRAMMY for Best Rap Album for 'To Pimp a Butterfly,' Kendrick Lamar thanked those that helped him get to the stage, and the artists that blazed the trail for him.

GRAMMYs/Oct 13, 2023 - 06:01 pm

Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly. Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

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He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly.

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube. This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic, this is for Nas. We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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GRAMMY Rewind: Whoopi Goldberg Delivers A Fittingly Joke-Filled Speech At The 1986 GRAMMYs
Whoopi Goldberg at the 1986 GRAMMYs.

Photo: CBS via Getty Images

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GRAMMY Rewind: Whoopi Goldberg Delivers A Fittingly Joke-Filled Speech At The 1986 GRAMMYs

Whoopi Goldberg brought her comedy skills to the GRAMMY stage when she won Best Comedy Recording, which marked a historic GRAMMY moment.

GRAMMYs/Mar 10, 2023 - 06:00 pm

Almost 40 years ago, Whoopi Goldberg made history as the first Black woman to win Best Comedy Recording at the 1986 GRAMMYs — and marked her first step into achieving EGOT status, which she later accomplished in 2002.

In this episode of GRAMMY Rewind, we travel back to the night Goldberg received this trailblazing award for her one-woman Broadway show. The stand-up comedian fittingly warmed up her acceptance speech with a few jokes: "I'm going to have to get a job after this," she laughed before taking a quick-witted stab at the orchestra's untimely playing. "Make me move!"

She went on to thank Geffen Records, her colleagues, her longtime supporter Mike Nichols, and her family for inspiring and assisting her throughout the production of the record. Goldberg also took a moment to acknowledge her "date," 12-time GRAMMY Award winner Paul Simon, who wasn't able to escort her to the ceremony after falling ill.

"I want to say it's a very nice, wonderful honor to get something as nice as this," Goldberg concluded. "Thank you all, and good night!"

Press play on the video above to watch Whoopi Goldberg's full acceptance speech for Best Comedy Recording at the 28th GRAMMY Awards, and keep checking back to GRAMMY.com for more episodes of GRAMMY Rewind.

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