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In the new concept album Warriors by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis, there's an oft-repeated line, "Warriors, come out to play." Last night, Miranda, Davis and their crew of family, friends and fans came out to play during an epic album release party hosted at Time Out Market with Atlantic Records. The newly unveiled Time Out magazine digital cover served as a backdrop for the festivities.
During the packed event, Miranda, Davis and producer Mike Elizondo spoke about their vision for the fierce, feminist, gritty album and offered thanks to the many people who made it possible. Party guests got a sneak peek at the record—played on vinyl—before it went public. As the album officially went live at midnight (listen here), guests clinked mini champagne bottles before departing to neighborhoods across the city, much like the cast of The Warriors themselves. The concept album, Warriors, is inspired by the 1979 cult classic film The Warriors.
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Music and entertainment royalty descended upon Brooklyn's Time Out Market, which brings the best of the city together under one roof, for the evening event. Guests included Nas, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Frank Marshall, Christopher Jackson, Flaco Navaja, Kenita Miller, Amber Gray, Mykal Kilgore, Sasha Hutchings, Kim Dracula, Timothy Hughes, Bernie Wagenblast, Andrew Chappelle, Daniel Yearwood, David Korns, Luis Miranda, Alex Boniello and more.
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Many of those in the crowd performed on the album, which also features Ms. Lauryn Hill, Sasha Hutchings, Phillipa Soo, Gizel Jiménez, Billy Porter, Michaela Jaé, Luis Figueroa, Busta Rhymes, Ghostface Killah, RZA, Chris Rivers, Cam’ron and more.
"The dream team of Warriors and all the artists you hear on this album is actually unreal," Miranda said at the event. "You are not going to believe the voices you hear when we play this album."
The dream team of Warriors and all the artists you hear on this album is actually unreal.
Miranda first saw the film four decades ago, and it has stayed with him ever since.
"I saw this movie when I was four years old on Jason Diaz's VHS cassette. I do not recommend showing this to four year olds. It fucked me up so bad that here we are listening to an album of it 40 years later," he said with a laugh.
In Miranda and Davis's re-creation of the story, the Warriors are all women. They turned the movie's seductive female gang the Lizzies into the all-male Bizzies.
"Women taking care of each other and our world, taking risks for peace, becoming more courageous in the struggle to survive, taking hard losses, discovering the possibility of love, keeping a dream of coming home alive, alive. That is the story of Warriors, and that is the sound being born tonight. And that's what we get to dance to. That's what we get to laugh to, to thrill to," Davis said in remarks at the event to applause.
Time Out's Theater Critic Adam Feldman dug into the concept album in a detailed cover story. As he welcomed the crowd at the event, he offered a peek behind the scenes at the creation of the digital cover, which brought Miranda and Davis to the New York Transit Museum for a photoshoot in a vintage 1970s subway car.
"It was a treat to watch Lin and Eisa get styled and shot in ways that capture the crowded grit and humor and a dash of retro glamor that is the city," Feldman said.
It takes a movie that is already a New York classic, and it pushes it into a new space.
"Warriors is exactly the kind of work that we are thrilled to champion, not just because it is truly excellent, as you're going to hear," he continued. "But because it is excellent in fresh and exciting ways. It takes a movie that is already a New York classic, and it pushes it into a new space to a bold combination of two of the things that New York has given to the world through New York's signal cultural innovations: hip-hop and the Broadway musical. ... Warriors is not just about fear. This is about overcoming fear through solidarity and community."