The Pop Corporation

Look, the rap musical Hamilton was awful. You don’t need to point out how successful it has been, how Lin Manuel Miranda is probably a nice guy, or even how much you liked it – it stunk.

One dimensional rapping over old-head beats performed by a cast portraying a bunch of racist white dudes who birthed the United States, invariably born of Lin Manuel thinking “imagine starting the greatest country on earth out of nothing? How gangsta is that? HOW GANGSTA IS THAT… wait a minute…”. Blecch.

At least for most of us, it didn’t matter what the USA’s legacy looked like because, most of us aren’t from there and can see it for what it is, warts and all. As galling as it is to see someone paint the American Dream TM through rapping actors in powdered wigs, at least we didn’t really have a dog in that particular fight. Although, imagine watching that and being Native American. Yikes!

The same can’t be said of The Warriors which, we regret to inform you, is being given the musical treatment by Lin Manuel alongside Eisa Davis and Nas. Don your backpacks! We’re all set for some ’90s sounding breaks and some overly fussy wordplay and a whole host of self satisfaction!

The seminal cult hit from ’79 took a gritty and sensational look at gang violence and mixed the whole thing up with some wonderful outfits – there’s not a human alive who hasn’t seen it and wanted to dress up as a Baseball Fury for Halloween or something. It was dark, moody, had a killer soundtrack and an endless supply of super quotable dialogue. When Ol’ Dirty said “warriors come out to play-ay“, he was quoting one of the most iconic sequences in the movie.

Maybe mercifully, this musical won’t retell the story of the classic film, but rather, the plot will be inspired by it. Singing and dancing and embarrassing bars while some undercover cop gets shanked in a subway, maybe? Some inspiring soliloquy about the state of inner city New York while members of The Punks rollerskate around the stage? Brrrr.

Anyway, let’s now brace ourselves for a new word, ‘musicalising’.

In a press release statement, the gang behind this whole mess said: “We’ve spent the past three years musicalising the Warriors’ journey home, from the South Bronx to Coney Island. Along the way we’ve gotten to work with a lot of our favourite artists, and we’ll be announcing their roles on the album in the weeks ahead.”

We pray it isn’t shit.