What are “Warriors”? Let Lin-Manuel Miranda and Asa Davis Explain

“It’s the sound of something being born.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Asa Davis wrote these lyrics to embody the Bronx in “Survive the Night,” the opening track of their new concept album Warriors.

And for Miranda and Davis, a 26-track journey through musical genres, the five boroughs of New York City and classic history is born.

Miranda, the writer-composer of the global Broadway phenomenon “Hamilton,” and Davis, the playwright of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated “Bullrusher,” released “Warriors” on October 18.

“Warriors” combines R&B, ska, hip-hop and, of course, musical theater while reworking the 1979 cult classic film of the same name.

“We really wanted to be able to express the many New Yorks within New York. We wanted to be able to talk about the different cultural influences that exist. And we just wanted to have fun and make our palette as broad as possible,” Davis tells TODAY.com.

For Miranda, The Warriors marks a turning point, as he was first exposed to the notoriously violent film at age 4 and re-watched it throughout his childhood.

“I think I kept coming back to it because it’s such a picture of the place. This is where I lived and it’s beyond my wildest dreams,” he says. Plus, he adds, there are “great action scenes.”

Here’s what you need to know.

How are the new Warriors different from the original? This is a “love letter”, not a remake

From the origins of Xenophon’s Anabasis, an ancient Greek text, to Sol Urick’s 1965 novel and finally the 1979 film The Warriors, the story transformed by Miranda and Davis proves timeless.

Each version tells the story of “the struggle to get home,” Miranda says.

In the original film A Coney Island gang, the Warriors, attends a meeting in Van Cortlandt Park organized by Cyrus, the respected leader of another gang that wants to promote peace. When they are framed for Cyrus’ murder, they try to return to safety overnight.

Miranda and Davis’ album “is a love letter to the film” but “forges its own path,” he says.

The most noticeable change? In this version, all Warriors are women.

Miranda says the idea came from a mental exercise that “complicated each plot point in a very interesting way.” He asked himself, “What if the Warriors are a girl gang trying to fight their way home through New York at night?”

“Once I did that thought exercise in my head, I couldn’t help but do it. The goal then was not just to change their names, but to really empower them to experience it as women experiencing it,” he continues.

The change allowed the filmmakers to look at the 1979 film from a 2024 perspective and “eradicate the misogyny and homophobia” that was initially present, Davis says.

“The story is still mythical and primitive. It’s about how we respond to violence, adversity and loss. Are we taking revenge or are we trying to work for peace? What really interested me was that it was happening through women,” she continues.

Their goal was to create a piece that was “distinctive” enough to stand on its own rather than be compared to the film.

“Anyone who listens to it can say it’s my favorite movie, but you’re not in that uncanny valley of adaptations where you’re like, ‘I’m waiting for them to say my favorite line,'” Miranda says.

Why a concept album?

Miranda says the concept album format rather than a stage release allowed them to assemble the album’s star-studded lineup.

“We can’t have all these artists in one room at the same time, much less eight times a week,” Miranda says. “This allowed us to put our dream artists’ fingerprints on these roles for the first time and truly write these incredible voices.”

The album features 22 artists, including hip-hop, R&B and Latin legends such as Lauryn Hill, Marc Anthony, Ghostface Killah, Busta Rhymes and Nas, who serves as producer. Then there are Broadway veterans like Amber Gray (Hadestown), Sasha Hutchings (Hamilton), and Philippa Soo (Hamilton). Other names include Colman Domingo, Billy Porter, Michaela Jae and David Patrick Kelly, who starred in the original film.

In the opening number, five artists from each New York City borough represented their home.

“It’s a mental shift. Guys, you are not playing yourself. You play in the Brooklyn area, the Queens area,” Miranda said on TODAY, describing his approach to working with artists who often write music for themselves.

Miranda and Davis credit the actors playing the Warriors for creating the chemistry and cinematography that listeners are likely to experience on the album.

“They are purebreds. They can simply do whatever is put in front of them. They instantly create the kind of family, the kind of team and the kind of loyalty that we wanted to see in the Warriors,” Davis said.

Will The Warriors ever come to Broadway?

The plot of “Warriors” unfolds throughout the album, without any additional dialogue.

Despite the obvious potential for a musical in The Warriors, Miranda and Davis are in no rush to bring it to the stage.

The standalone project, they say, allows listeners the luxury of experiencing the music in a way that isn’t always possible with the visuals of a Broadway show.

“People can just be in the sound and experience it the same way we record it,” Davis says.

But they understand why everyone is asking about the musical.

“We understand that people are visual creatures and they really like to see things. We’re very open to the possibility, but really we’re just trying to marinate in this moment of this album that we’re so proud of and let it be what it is,” says Davis.

“If there is a show, it will be a completely different matter.”