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Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop heroes are helping him make a Hamilton mixtape

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop heroes are helping him make a Hamilton mixtape

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'I've never had a group of friends before'

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Lin-Manuel Miranda has a lot of friends — and if you follow literally any celebrity on Instagram, you already know that. His hop-hop musical about the unlikely rise and untimely fall of the first US Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, is sold out for the next 100 years, produced one of the buzziest performances of the Grammys (and nabbed an award), earned Miranda a MacArthur Genius Grant, and will most assuredly take home every Tony you can think of and then some.

Now Entertainment Weekly reports that the album of covers, remixes, and "inspired bys" that he announced in October has a partial roster — and it's kind of a dream team. Chance the Rapper, Usher, Queen Latifah, and Busta Rhymes all saw Hamilton in New York this summer, and they will make contributions to the new album alongside Sia, Regina Spektor, and Ben Folds.

Hamilton is an American story told through a tribute to hip-hop, inspired by everyone from Biggie Smalls to Alicia Keys to Nas to Beyoncé. Miranda's most excited backstage tweets always come when a hip-hop legend visits the show. It's little wonder, then, that some of his new celebrity friends would want to pitch in on the tape, which is actually a full-on album being released through Atlantic Records. (The original cast recording debuted at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 200 and eventually topped the rap chart.)

The musical also references some of Miranda's favorite Broadway shows, including Gilbert and Sullivan's classic Pirates of Penzance, Jason Robert Browne's The Last Five Years, and Richard Rodgers' South Pacific. So I wouldn't be surprised to see some theater nerds show up on the mixtape as well.

The Roots' Questlove and Black Thought produced the cast recording, but no word yet on whether they'll be involved with this project.