Lin-Manuel Miranda wanted to pull out his IV to perform for Beyoncé and Jay Z.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
The 40-year-old playwright and actor was sick with a high fever the night superstar couple Beyoncé and Jay Z decided to attend a performance of his 'Hamilton' musical and he was so determined not to miss them that Lin was willing to put his health at risk by removing his intravenous drip.
Speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music, he said: "I'll tell you my sad Beyoncé story, which is that the night Beyoncé and Jay Z came to Hamilton I had a 104 degree fever and I could not get to the theatre to perform in the show. It was my first time being sick. It was my first time calling out. And at noon they said, 'Beyonce's coming tonight'. And I was like, 'Pull the IV out, I can do it'. My wife was like, 'You have to stay home'."
Lin also revealed that 'Hamilton', which he wrote, is a love letter to hip-hop.
He said: "I mean, hip-hop's the language of revolution and it's our greatest American art form. To me, that was the initial impulse. It was the fact that Hamilton got everywhere on the strength of his writing. That was the whole idea, was, 'Well, that's what my favourite MCs do'. They write so brilliantly that they transcend their circumstances and they change the world literally through their power of their pen and their delivery and their oratory. That's the fundamental idea in it. That's why it's such a love letter to hip-hop. That's why there's so many hip-hop references in the show, whether it's Biggie or Mobb Deep or DMX. They're just peppered throughout and creating the precedent of clearances for a musical because we did.
"I went and did the work. It was like, 'No, no, no. This contains...' I want the kids who just only know musical theatre when they pick up their liner notes, they see 'Contains a sample from 'Ten Crack Commandments' by Notorious B.I.G.' If you like this musical, you owe it to yourself to listen to the hip -hop that you maybe weren't listening to because that's the reason this exists, is my love for hip-hop."