The raps in the show were really tight. How long have you been writing rhymes?

Lin Manuel: I was always writing hip-hop when I was in high school but I was too embarrassed to show them to anyone. Whenever my friends would freestyle in high school, like on street corners and shit, I would just be beatboxing. I was terrified to do it. I don’t know what flip got switched in college but I started writing seriously. And then with In The Heights I really sort of gained confidence in it.

It shows. The rhymes are complicated yet comprehensible.

Lin Manuel: I studied all my favorite rappers to get it to that level. I studied a lot of Big Pun, who does not let a syllable go by. I studied a lot of Jay-Z, who is just as intricate but makes it conversational, which is much more useful to musical theater, which is meant to be conveyed live once. Being told a story, you’ve got to be able to understand everything the first time.

The character you play, Usnavi, runs the local bodega and is a fixture on the block. How close is In the Heights to your experience growing up?

Lin Manuel: As a little kid, I basically lived in the bodega with my grandmother because she was a compulsive gambler and she played the numbers every day. But I was not hanging out on the corner. I was definitely a shy nerd. It’s funny, I grew up in Washington Heights but I went to Hunter College High School on the Upper East Side, so I remember that drift when your neighborhood friends become just your acquaintances. I experienced some of the cultural displacement you see in the show. I’m first-generation Latino; my parents were both born in Puerto Rico. They met here and decided to stay. I think a lot of people of my generation don’t know quite where they fit in, what their obligation is, what they’re supposed to pass on to their kids. There are lots of weird little internal struggles about that sort of stuff, and I think a lot of the show came out of that.

Some critics have said your depiction of Washington Heights ignores the neighborhood’s negative elements. What is your response to that?

Lin Manuel: There’s a blackout, there’s a store that gets looted, there’s a fistfight, but people wonder, “Where are the drugs? Where are the crimes that we see on the news?” What’s funny is that Latino articles say the best thing about the show is that there’s no drugs, no crime. It’s a real cultural split that I think has to do with mainstream perception of Latino neighborhoods. I’ve been mugged twice in my life in New York—on 95^th and Madison Ave. and 92^nd and 3^rd Ave. outside of Fuddruckers. I never had any problems in my neighborhood, so it wouldn’t have been accurate to my experience for me to write some sort of angst-filled drug fest. I mean, of course drugs exist and crime exist in Washington Heights, but the crime rate is higher on the Upper East Side, and I don’t see that shit in Woody Allen movies.

The 2008 Tony Awards are this coming Sunday, June 15^th. With 13 nominations, how do you feel about your show’s chances to win?

Lin Manuel: I don’t know what our chances are. I try to stay away from anything besides the emails my mother sends me. But the fact that we got 13 nominations…in Latin America, it was like, “The Latino musical got the most nominations!” It was a huge deal for me and I was very proud to see us really get embraced by the Latino community. It’s always bad news in the paper. Especially in this election year, when people are demonizing immigrants for political points, it’s nice to have this little show out there that just reminds them we’re people just like every immigrant group that came before us and we’re trying to make a better life for our kids and for ourselves. Home // CELEBRITIES // WEB EXCLUSIVE // Lin-Manuel Miranda