White House Poetry Jam Awesomesauce

—By Nick Baumann

| Tue Nov. 3, 2009 10:58 AM PST

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama hosted a "White House Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word" back in May. Videos from the event are now online, and it's pretty clear that the highlight was Lin-Manuel Miranda. You may know Miranda from his musical In The Heights, which he starred in and wrote. (In The Heights won the Tony for Best Musical in 2008. I can assure you that it is great.) Anyway, Miranda has ridiculous, sick-nasty flow and can write a great song about pretty much anything. In this particular case, it was onetime Treasury Secretary, dead white man, and all-around badass Alexander Hamilton (the guy on the $10 bill) that got Miranda's creative juices flowing:

If this doesn't get the kids jazzed up for some musical theater, I don't know what will.

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Nick Baumann

News Editor

Nick Baumann covers national politics and civil liberties issues for Mother Jones' DC Bureau. For more of his stories, click here. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Email tips and insights to nbaumann [at] motherjones [dot] com. RSS |

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