Warriors (Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis album)

The American composer, lyricist, and playwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda first saw the movie The Warriors (1979) at age four on a VHS videocassette and, according to him, the story has been "on two stone tablets in [his] head" since then. In 2009, shortly after Miranda's stage musical In the Heights opened on Broadway, his friend Phil Westgren suggested their future musical should be based on The Warriors. Miranda initially told Westgren the idea would never work, but after his first run of Hamilton performances, he realized he had been thinking about adapting The Warriors since then. In 2022, Miranda proposed a collaboration on the project to playwright and actress Eisa Davis, who had never seen the movie. In July 2024, it was reported Miranda was completing the recording of a concept album for a new musical adaptation of the eponymous movie. In August 2024, the album's release date was confirmed. The New York Times, however, said it was unclear whether the album would lead to a stage musical, while the Los Angeles Times described earlier reports about the stage production of Warriors as "speculation". The New York Times explained their position by comparing Warriors to Hamilton, which was "initially conceived as a concept album, and there is a history of concept albums evolving into stage productions, from Jesus Christ Superstar to Hadestown". Following the album's release, Miranda and Davis downplayed immediate plans for a stage production, noting they did not have a theatrical producer or director attached, and choosing instead to focus on the album as the project's main goal. In December 2024, in an interview with The New York Times following the release of Mufasa: The Lion King, Miranda said he and Davis were planning to start discussions about a stage adaptation in early 2025, saying: "People really like [the album], but because we're such a visual culture, everyone said to me and Eisa 'OK, when can we see it?' So I think at the top of the year, Eisa and I will just start having conversations about how to adapt that to the stage." == Concept and storyline ==

Warriors gender-flips the characters of the movie that inspired it. Miranda has said this approach was key to an interesting adaptation, explaining that a story with female characters complicated the narrative in a way that made it more compelling. Davis has characterized the flip as a revolutionary and a feminist act, given overtones in the movie that she described as misogynist and homophobic. The 2014–2015 misogynistic online harassment campaign Gamergate was part of Miranda's inspiration for the gender flip. He compared the campaign's doxing of women to Luther's false accusation in The Warriors, noting that Luther shoots Cyrus and then blames the Warriors, forcing them to deal with the consequences. Davis also found inspiration in the 1971 Hoe Avenue peace meeting, a historical inter-gang truce that took place in the Bronx. Women were marginalized and excluded from the meeting; she described the album as "a vindication" for them. Eisa Davis describes Warriors as a "love letter to the origins of hip-hop". She again connected the story of Warriors to the Hoe Avenue peace meeting, which she said enabled the cultural conditions for the creation of hip-hop in the early 1970s, marking a shift from gangs fighting with each other to competitions between crews of MCs and dancers. When she first watched the 1979 movie with Miranda, she only knew of it because it had been referenced in hip-hop. Vulture said the movie's "unforgettable lines echo across hip-hop history". It gave examples like the line "I be like, 'Warriors, come out and play'", rapped by Ol' Dirty Bastard on Wu-Tang Clan's debut album, and the video for California Love by 2Pac featuring Dr. Dre, starting with "Can you dig it?" as spoken by Cyrus. Plot DJ Lynne Pen broadcasts to New York City's gangs, announcing a gathering at Van Cortlandt Park organized by Cyrus of the Gramercy Riffs ("Survive the Night"). The Warriors, an all-women gang from Coney Island, follow Cyrus's instructions to leave their weapons behind and head uptown ("Roll Call"). At the park, they perform their signature rhyme ("Warriors' Cypher"). Cyrus arrives ("Make Way for Cyrus") and calls for a gang truce to ensure peace ("If You Can Count"). While her message gains support, Luther of the Rogues kills Cyrus and blames Cleon, the Warriors' leader and the only witness. As the Riffs attack Cleon, she orders the Warriors to flee ("Derailed"). With Cleon missing, Swan takes charge, frustrating Ajax. They plan to regroup at Union Square Station before heading home ("Woodlawn Cemetery"). The DJ announces that the truce has been broken and a hit placed on the Warriors. They escape an attack by the Turnbull AC's in the Bronx and board a train ("Leave the Bronx Alive"), but a track fire forces them to continue on foot. Luther informs the Rogues of his plan to pin the murder on the Warriors ("A Track Fire and a Phone Call") and shares his plan to "watch the world burn" with Cropsy ("Going Down"). The Warriors encounter the Orphans and feign weakness so that they be allowed to pass through. Mercy, the girlfriend of the Orphans' leader Sully, disrupts this by demanding Swan's vest. When the Warriors refuse, the Orphans prepare to attack. Swan and Ajax throw a Molotov cocktail, scaring off the Orphans ("Orphan Town"). Impressed, Mercy leaves the Orphans to join the Warriors ("Call Me Mercy"). Meanwhile, Cleon convinces the new Riffs leader Masai to investigate the real killer ("Still Breathin'"). The House of Hurricanes, a ballroom group from Spanish Harlem, stop the Warriors and accuse them of killing Cyrus. Convinced of their innocence, they let them go but warn them running makes them look guilty and that they must fight to survive ("Quiet Girls"). The Warriors stop at Gray's Papaya, but Swan urges them to stay focused. The Baseball Furies, a West Side gang, attack ("Outside Gray's Papaya"). Tired of running, Ajax rallies the Warriors to fight back in Riverside Park ("Sick of Runnin'"). There, Ajax assaults a man she believes to be catcalling her. The man then reveals himself to be an undercover cop, and arrests Ajax while the Warriors flee ("The Park at Night"). Luther and Cropsy mock the Warriors' predicament ("Luther Interlude"). At Union Square, the Warriors meet the Bizzies, a cardigan-wearing gang offering shelter in their East Village apartment. Cochise, Cowgirl, and Fox accept, but Rembrandt is wary ("We Got You"). Meanwhile, Mercy asks to become a Warrior, and she and Swan fall in love ("A Light or Somethin'"). At the Bizzies' apartment, Rembrandt realizes they plan an ambush and convinces the Warriors to escape ("We Got You (Reprise)"). Cleon convinces the Riffs that Cyrus's killer is likely in Coney Island ("Somewhere in the City"). Swan and Mercy reunite with the Warriors at Union Square, but police interrupt their attempt to board a train. Fox distracts the police captain by causing a fight on the platform, allowing the others to escape, but she is thrown onto the tracks and killed by an oncoming train ("Reunion Square"). Shaken, the Warriors return to Coney Island in silence. As the DJ narrates the lives of fellow passengers, Mercy and Swan share a kiss ("Same Train Home"). Upon arrival, they mourn their lost members and induct Mercy into the group. They spot Luther approaching in a hearse ("Finale Part I: The Wonder Wheel"). Swan leads them to confront Luther on the beach, challenging him to a duel. Luther draws his gun but is disarmed by Swan. The Rogues abandon their leader, and the Riffs arrive. Cleon identifies Luther as Cyrus's killer, and Masai commends the Warriors for their bravery before the Riffs attack Luther ("Finale Part II: The Coney Island Shore"). Cleon rejoins the Warriors, and they express hope that Cyrus's dream of peace will one day be realized ("Finale Part III: When We All Come Home Alive"). == Writing and composition ==

Miranda told the theater magazine Playbill: "The album says 'by both of us', and it really is by both of us"; both Miranda and Davis are credited as its authors without delineation of their roles. According to Miranda: "pretty much every Warriors bassline" started as a voice memo from Davis to him. One such voice memo appears six seconds into the album's first track as its first sung material. Miranda has said that one of his proudest moments as a lyricist was getting Nas' approval for a verse based on a recording of Miranda himself performing the lines. While writing the verse, Miranda wondered whether he could find a Queens metaphor Nas had not already used, and ultimately settled on a chess reference, "Queen's Gambit". Some tracks were written as a broader collaboration with the album's band as part of jam sessions at the Tennessee home of the album's producer Mike Elizondo, whom Miranda described as his and Eisa Davis's "third collaborator". South Korean-born composer Helen Park contributed a line in Korean to the K-pop-inspired track "We Got You", which was written by her under Miranda's guidance. He wanted the song to be "the come on to end all come-ons" and to sneak in the phrase "you killed our hope". He told Billboard that Korean speakers would get an early clue to the "nefarious" side of the Bizzies gang. == Recording, production and musical style ==

Davis, Elizondo, and Miranda spent two weeks at a studio in Nashville, Tennessee, recording the album after having earlier recorded demos in upstate New York. Miranda said that a musical theater writer would normally only be in the studio when it was time to make the cast album of the stage show, so it was "an indulgence [...] to just really focus on the songs and how they sound and not worry about staging". The voices of Miranda and Davis themselves both also appear on the album, though Miranda has not confirmed exactly where his can be heard. In addition to Davis' early voice memo recording, used as a horn line in the opening song, she has a spoken line elsewhere on the album. Elizondo commented on the importance of Nas's role as executive producer, explaining that the credibility he brought helped encourage the participation of artists who might otherwise have felt out of their comfort zone. Billboard also describes the album as "genre-hopping". Michael Paulson, a theater reporter at The New York Times, lists the album's genres as "rap and hip-hop, salsa and merengue, ska and sounds from ballroom culture, R&B and funk". Moreover, he finds nods to K-pop ("We Got You"), and dancehall (Shenseea's vocals on "Survive the Night"). Warriors also includes elements of metal music for the character Luther, who is voiced by Kim Dracula. Miranda initially tried writing rap verses for Luther, attempting to match rhythms to the character's thinking patterns as he had done in Hamilton, but found rap to be too methodical and organized. Eisa played Miranda some music by the metal band Alekhine's Gun and they chose this sound for its "chaotic energy". == Release and reception==

Warriors was released on October 18, 2024, with a launch party at Brooklyn's Time Out Market before its midnight release to streaming services. At the party, Time Out unveiled a digital magazine cover that included a photograph of Miranda and Davis in the subway car that was used in the 1979 film and is now housed in New York Transit Museum. In his review for The Guardian, Chris Wiegand highlights "unexpected pairings", especially the pairings that match musical theater stars with acts from other genres, in particular citing Alex Boniello's and Kim Dracula's duet on "Going Down". Wiegand also favorably singles out the "poignant yearning" of Julia Harriman's performance on "Call Me Mercy" that gives the character a larger role, compared to her appearance in the film where she is "reduced to a love interest". The use of lines from the screenplay in the lyrics of "If You Can Count" is praised for building them "into something much more resonant". Financial Timess reviewer Ludovic Hunter-Tilney deems the role of the radio DJ to be a lesser version of the "ancient Greek chorus" performance from the film, but praises "droll embellishments" like "the cringy ska-pop sung by dweebish loser gang the Orphans". Carl Wilson's review at Slate states the album "pulls too many punches", criticizing the action scenes for lacking menace and saying the album seems "sealed inside a nicey-nice musical-theater bubble". He gives examples of the Warriors' easy acceptance of Swan and Mercy's "queer love", and the fact the story features only a single gun, which "doesn't feel like it has anything to do with gang life now". According to Wilson, Miranda's and Davis's storytelling feels restricted by 2024 politics, "as if there's so much they cannot say, so much that many people really feel we can't discuss right now lest it be seized on and misused in bad faith". Similarly, Hunter-Tilney thinks the album puts the 1979 "macho flick" film into a "wokehold", but to good effect, further explaining that the film's gang violence is largely a "cartoon fantasy", and so the story's "transformation into a girl-power parable is hardly a leap". Moreover, Wilson writes that Miranda benefits from the second-hand credibility these artists bring because his version of hip-hop "smacks of corniness to those who aren't already musical-theater fans". Jenkins writes that Warriors showcases many of Miranda's positive traits as a songwriter, but also less positive "quirks" that are "sources of the deserved gripes against him". According to Jenkins, Miranda is "plagued by" "occasional G-rated schmaltz", and tends toward an "overbearing maximalism and good-intentioned liberalism", which can sometimes "wring an uplifting takeaway from an objectively bleak situation". == Track listing ==

Featured on the album are: The Warriors • Aneesa Folds as Cleon • Amber Gray as Ajax • Sasha Hutchings as Cowgirl • Gizel Jiménez as Rembrandt • Jasmine Cephas Jones as Swan • Kenita Miller as Cochise • Phillipa Soo as Fox • Julia Harriman as Mercy The Rogues • Alex Boniello as Cropsy • Kim Dracula as Luther The Gramercy Riffs • Lauryn Hill as Cyrus • Colman Domingo as Masai '''The Turnbull AC's''' • Marc Anthony as Tato • Luis Figueroa as Miguel • Flaco Navaja as Jesús The Orphans • Utkarsh Ambudkar as Sully • Casey Likes as Jesse The Hurricanes • Billy Porter as Granger • Michaela Jaé as Yaya • Mykal Kilgore as Élan The Bizzies • Joshua Henry as Wanya • Timothy Hughes as Lance • Daniel Jikal as Joon • Stephen Sanchez as Cal '''New York's Finest''' • David Patrick Kelly as Victor • James Remar as Barnes New York boroughs • Busta Rhymes as Brooklyn • Cam'ron as Manhattan • Nas as Queens • Chris Rivers as The Bronx • Ghostface Killah and RZA as Staten Island Other • Shenseea as DJ Lynne Pen • Bernie Wagenblast as train conductor • Florencia Cuenca as subway performer == Charts ==