A diverse cast of performers roaming a Boyle Heights housing project is featured in a recent YouTube video where various songs written by composer Lin-Manuel Miranda are performed.
YouTuber Michael Korte, who has nearly 15,000 subscribers, created “Evolution of Lin-Manuel Miranda” to celebrate the Pulitzer- Tony- and Grammy-award winning composer. Baxter Stapleton, a Los Angeles content creator in Los Angeles, directed the video.
The Estrada Courts housing development is the main location featured in the clip, which uses its murals as backdrop, including the famous “We Are Not A Minority” from 1978.
Performers in the video sing songs written by Miranda for the musicals “Hamilton” and “In the Heights” along with the soundtrack for Disney’s “Moana.” The video ends with “Almost Like Prayer,” which Miranda wrote as a fundraiser for Puerto Rico after the devastation left by Hurricane Maria.
According to the Huffington Post, Korte decided to donate 100% of the proceeds from the video to the Hispanic Federation to support Hurricane relief in Puerto Rico, honoring Miranda’s Puerto Rican heritage.
“I was only able to grasp the devastation brought to Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria from my broken screen,” Korte told the Huffington Post. “The video was born from the notion of ‘Take your broken heart, make it into art.’ Lin’s family is Puerto Rican. Artists in my video are Puerto Rican. This is my way of helping those in need.”
See the video here:
