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'Hamilton' Freestyles At The White House. Mic Drop.

Yesterday, Lin-Manuel Miranda and some of the cast of the smash Broadway musical Hamilton visited the White House for a day of performances, student workshops, a Q&A session, and a lightning round freestyling in the Rose Garden — with the prompts supplied by President Obama.

"We wanted to share this incredible musical with folks who might otherwise not get the experience," said the president in his introductory comments. Obama also noted that the hip-hop story of the nation's first secretary of the treasury has a nonpartisan fanbase: "In fact, Hamilton — I'm pretty sure — is the only thing that Dick Cheney and I agree on."

What some fans may not know is that the show partly germinated out of an event at the White House. Back in 2009, Michelle Obama hosted a poetry event at which Miranda was invited to perform. He brought along the first song from what he was then calling his "Hamilton Mixtape" concept album — which would evolve into the opening number of the show.

That history wasn't lost on Miranda.

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Anastasia Tsioulcas is a reporter on NPR's Arts desk. She is intensely interested in the arts at the intersection of culture, politics, economics and identity, and primarily reports on music. Recently, she has extensively covered gender issues and #MeToo in the music industry, including backstage tumult and alleged secret deals in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against megastar singer Plácido Domingo; gender inequity issues at the Grammy Awards and the myriad accusations of sexual misconduct against singer R. Kelly.
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