Lin-Manuel Miranda on his new concept album, ‘Warriors’

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s next musical is an album – not a stage production – based on one of his favorite movies.

Warriors, which he made with playwright Eisa Davis, is a concept album based on the 1979 cult classic film The Warriors. The album was released on Oct. 18, with a launch party at Brooklyn’s Time Out Market the night before. There, Miranda told ABC Audio how much the project means to him.

“This has been our whole heart for three years. I’m really proud of it. I’m really proud of these ladies who play the Warriors. I’m thrilled,” Miranda said.

For their version of the story, Miranda and Davis updated the material by gender-swapping all the members of the Warriors gang from men to women. They looked to previous collaborators and friends when casting the album.

“These amazing women playing our Warriors are really all our friends,” Miranda said. “We called them to do our demos. And at some point there was such an amazing chemistry happening that Eisa turned to me and was like, ‘What pop singer are we going to get that is better than what’s happening right now?’ And so, they kind of fell into the recipe as we were making it.”

Miranda also expressed gratitude to Nas for his work on the concept album.

“I have to shout out Nas, who’s a producer on the album, who is a superfan of this movie,” Miranda said. “And as soon as he heard I was doing this jumped in with both feet, opened doors to a lot of the artists who are on the album for us, because he’s so respected in the hip-hop community. And so, it’s been a joy.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.