In The Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda
In The Heights
2008
Hip Hop (incorrectly labeled as "Soundtrack")
Ghostlight

Act 1:
1. In The Heights
2. Breathe
3. Benny's Dispatch
4. It Won't Be Long Now
5. Inutil
6. No Me Diga
7. 96,000
8. Paciencia Y Fe
9. When You're Home
10. Piragua
11. The Club
12. Blackout

Act 2:
1. Sunrise
2. Hundreds Of Stories
3. Enough
4. Carnival Del Barrio
5. Antencion
6. Alabanza
7. Everything I Know
8. Piragua (Reprise)
9. Champagne
10. When The Sun Goes Down
11. Finale
(Also included is a 460x460 album cover .jpeg)

Yo, if I won the lotto tomorrow,
Well I know, I wouldn't bother going on no spendin' spree.
I'd pick a business school and pay the entrance fee,
Then maybe if you're lucky you'll stay friends with me.
I'll be a businessman richer than Nina's daddy,
Donald Trump and I on the links and he's my caddy!
My money's makin' money, I'm goin' from po' to mo' dough,
Keep the bling, I want the brass ring like Frodo!

"96,000"

I've had this album for about 2 or 3 months now, and I fell in love with the music and the story of this show. Last weekend on my vacation in New York I finally got the chance to see In The Heights, and I was blown away. Everything was perfect. However, I think the music speaks for itself, perhaps even more so than the visuals. It's based on latin hip hop, with some dub, rock, and reggae thrown in every now and then for good measure. I've never heard anything like In The Heights, to be honest.

The story is really easy to pick up from the music, because there aren't very many parts of the play that aren't put to music. The storyline is more of an interconnection of about 4 storylines that come together in the end to tie everything up nicely. It all takes place in a small slum neighborhood of New York city called Washington Heights. The main character, Usnavi, is played by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote all the music, the storyline, the script, and directs the play. He is an aspiring rapper who runs a convenience store with his cousin, Sonny, and dreams of one day moving back to his birthplace in the Dominical Republic, where his parents lived before they moved to Washington Heights and died shortly after.

The lady who raised him is named Claudia (referenced by the characters as Abuela), and she is slowly dying when she learns that she has won 96,000 dollars in the lottery, unknown to the rest of the characters. Usnavi's love interest is Vanessa, a woman who stops by the conveniece store every morning, but Usnavi thinks she is too beautiful to go out with a chump like himself. She also dreams of leaving Washington Heights to get away from her low-paying job at the neighborhood salon.

There are also another very important character, Nina. She is hailed as being the brightest person in Washington Heights, and is expected to go on to accomplish great things, unlike the rest of the neighborhood. Nina has been away at Stanford University in California, but dropped out because of finances and falling behind in her classes. She's now at home, afraid to tell her parents why she is no longer at college. Her father, Kevin, feels that his life was a waste of potential, and sees Nina as his former self when he strived to be successful. When he learns of Nina's problems, he sells his business to put her back in school, leaving many people out of work, including Nina's boyfriend, Benny, who doesn't appreciate losing his future to account for Nina's.

I'm sure it doesn't sound like much now, but trust me...the music is incredible. Very modern and very innovative.

Click here to download part 1 (41.69 MB)
Click here to download part 2 (72.21 MB)
Click here to download part 3 (73.95 MB)

I know that 3 parts is a little much, but the downloads are really quick this time around. It was just about 1 MB too big to fit in 2 files.

There's a bit of profanity and sexual references. Not much, though.

Buy it!
CD