The Hamilton cast visited the White House on Monday and was hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama. Prior to their performance, the musical's creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, did an impressive freestyle rap and was assisted by President Barack Obama.
The cast's performance was set in the Rose Garden with a Marine band drummer. That is why the 103-second video, which was uploaded on the White House Twitter's account, is called “Rose Garden Freestyle.”
The short video features Miranda freestyling based on an assortment of words that were printed on flash cards held by President Obama. “I hope I don’t drop these cards,” said the president, before adding, “drop the beat.”
Miranda used words from NASA to Obamacare to Oval Office as he spits the piece, rapping: “POTUS is holding up the signs I’m not done. It’s the Oval Office, oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m there. It’s so much more intimidating than if it was square. Opportunity knocks, I can’t stop, I’m here with the president and my pops, and yo, the mic drops,” Entertainment Weekly reported.
When the performance ended, Obama was apparently impressed and said, “How good is that? You think that’s going viral? That’s going viral.”
To recall, Hamilton cast members performed a musical number near the beginning of Obama's presidency during the first poetry slam of the White House. First Lady Michelle Obama said that they were impressed with the initial performance by Hamilton's cast members saying, "We were blown away. There were probably shots of us with our mouths open."
Miranda explained to the first lady during that time that the musical project had not been financed.
"We knew that this had the potential to be really, really good based on his performance, but what we didn't know and never could have imagined that it would be a work of genius — true genius," the first lady said according to Los Angeles Times.
