♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: alexander hamilton is the unlikely father who wrote his way into the pages of early american history. roosevelt called him the most brilliant statesman that ever lived. the subject of the musical hamilton, which opened to rave reviews. ser takes hamilton's legacy to new heights using rmb and rap music. he calls the play a history of america then, told by america now. here is a look. ♪

♪ first time on thinking past tomorrow ♪ we're going to rise up ♪ ♪ time to take a shot not throwing away my shot ♪ charlie: leslie odom junior is here, who played aaron burr on this program. what brought you to hamilton? leslie: i was invited into hamilton. sometimes you find that the best jobs that you get in this career

and business, you did not audition for. you have no idea how you got there i just asked tommy last because i have a superstition, sometimes if i get a straight offer, i do not want to ask how it came about. i'm afraid they might realize -- why did we ask this guy? i got invited about two years ago to do a reading for this show. and then i saw it at vassar. i saw them do about half an hour of it. i saw them do maybe 45 minutes at music stand. i was blown away. when i was invited to do the reading, i prepared like i have never prepared before. i knew all of my music. i knew what they were working on. charlie: you knew it had powerful potential. leslie: i knew how it affected me. lin is only a year older than i am, so this is our music.

i recognized the rhythms and the syncopation and the pulse of the piece. i recognized that. it has been in my ears since i was born. charlie: people wondered when hip-hop would come to broadway, because rock had come to broadway. leslie: lin was so influential with that. the height was such a watershed moment for hip-hop music and latin american actors. i remember listening to it before i saw it. there was something about it -- i have chills thinking about it, i told him at one of my first -- one of my first rehearsals, there was something about, from the first moments of that album, the need to communicate has always moved me greatly. i saw a show called def poetry jam.

the way that those people came out, they needed you to get it. there is blood in the pen. there was an urgency and a fire in their bellies for you to get it. it came full circle when i was listening to a rehearsal of us in hamilton, learning my part, and i said that we sound like that. i can hear that need. charlie: i read -- almost all the energy, the preparation, to do justice to the text that you were given. how much of it was important to know aaron burr? because you not only play a character, you play the narrator.

you were there at every moment. hampton has a larger role, but burr is also a continuity. leslie: what might favor gifts that people give, fans will bring us books. they come by with these articles and books that they order. those have helped me a lot. i would not call me a historian by any means. lin has read enough about all the different people and events surrounding it that he has been able to come up with his own opinion on the events. that is the only opinion you have. i've read enough on burr to come up with my own theories. charlie: there are different opinions of aaron burr, some good, some bad. leslie: at the end of the day, the text and the show is my bible.

to play what lin wrote. charlie: you have to pour in what he has written what you know, what you have experienced, and what you feel. leslie: and what i believe as far as what my job is as a performer. that's another one of those things. this is intersected, coming at the right point. there's a certain amount of vulnerability that this show requires that i was not ready to embrace at any other moment in my life. there is a certain amount of honesty. that comes with time. charlie: tell me who aaron burr was. leslie: he was a soldier, he was a father, a husband, a lover, a friend, a murderer.

a politician. i think he was all of those things. like all of us -- when people say, who is the person you want to have dinner with living or dead? that's charlie rose. [laughter] charlie: i'd like to be there. leslie: aaron burr, just to ask him. our show is him looking back. our show is after all that stuff has happened. charlie: he had an interesting life after killing hamilton. leslie: it ruined his life. charlie: ruined his political life, first of all. he had been vice president. then he fled the east coast. he was indicted for treason. leslie: he had a daughter, his only child, who died.

after the death of his only grandchild, his grandson died. his daughter died on the ship he invited her on. he died completely alone. he did have friends, though. he didn't have much money. there were people that supported him because what he had shown of himself the men he had shown , himself to be. he had friends in of the war. people who saw acts of heroics that endeared them to him all the days of his life. charlie: moments of heroism. leslie: yeah. charlie: he's intertwined with hamilton. we see that in the play. they are connected. what was the relationship? leslie: they came up together. they ran in the same circles together.

they tried cases as lawyers together. they fought in the war together. so i think of them as friends. i think of them, as if you were to tell them when they were 19 years old, if you show them a picture, this is going to be you in your early 40's. you're going to do this to this guy, they never would have believed it. charlie: this musical, people are talking about it as changing the american musical theater. as a significant evolution in the american musical theater. this is seen more than simply a successful musical. it is been given the heavy weight of cultural moment. leslie: i am a spiritual guy, too. this work is emotional, physical, and there is a spiritual component.

i see it from the inside. there is a great deal of it that those guys, andy, lin have planned within an inch of his life. those guys are meticulous. we were so happy we opened as it forced them to put their pencils down. they will keep perfecting it until somebody forces them. there is the part that they had nothing to do with. there is something else -- charlie: what is that? leslie: it is the space between you and i. it is whatever happens between me saying it on stage and how it affects you and what it does to you. that is the part that none of us have any control over. none. you could not pay jimmy fallon to go see our show and talk about our show the way he did the next night. you cannot pay for that.

i hope that the audience comes and feels like their presence is vital. charlie: we spoke to the composer of hamilton, lin and thomas. they joined me and april, and here is a look at that conversation. >> you sit in a room for six years making something, and you have the dream of version of how the show will be received. we are experiencing that. we are hanging on while we can. i stood up writing this in 2008. i was on my vacation, my first vacation from the show. i picked up the book at random at borders. it had great reviews on the back, and i know that he died in a duel, so it was going to have a banging ending. the dickensian nature of hamilton's life-- charlie: explain that.

at some point you say dickens, dickens, and dickens. what was the dickensian nature of his life? charlie: hamilton was born possibly out of wedlock. his father split by the time he was 10 years old. his mother died in bed with him a few short years later. his brother was apprenticed to a blacksmith so he was by himself. ,he got sent to a cousin after his mother's death. the cousin killed himself, that he got part in charge of a trading charter. a clerk for a trading company. they treated sugarcane and rum, the key point of the triangle trade. he rode his way off the island. there was a hurricane that had ravaged saint floyd, and he had wrote a poem about it describing the carnage. fights that would straight astonishment into angels. this poem was used for relief efforts for the island.

people set up a fund to get an education in a new york. charlie: here we have a great character, who dies at the end of the duel. lots of speculation about that. here we have that story. you have translated it into so much more. tell me about the ideas that you want to pour into this to make it a new look at the founding fathers, the american experience, and a different way of presenting it that would appeal to young people, because your people are young actors. >> you speak to what we were conscious of, eliminating any distance between their story and now. we knew it was going to be set then, but it would sound like now. fundamentally this was a country that was founded and created by immigrants. somebody in all of our lines stepped off a boat in some form

of transportation, put their foot down on this soil and went to work. once we started thinking about taking the inspiration from ron's book, we thought of events, but we had to tell a story. we had all the events laid out. we read the book and made our own timelines. we would compare, hey, this moment feels like it spoke to me, this one is essential. it became so apparent early on as we were designing how the show could function that this idea of doubling characters felt really right on. the character who played lafayette, one of his great friends-- charlie: jefferson. >> also jefferson. this connection to france. this relationship one , antagonistic, one supportive. how can we make the audience feel like who they are is actually not so different than what people are struggling with? charlie: hip-hop seems like a genius stroke, but that is what you knew.

lin: that was the first thing i checked, by the way. i read two chapters of this book, and i thought, someone has done a hip-hop version of this. it felt the quintessential hip-hop narrative. this is someone who grew up in hard times and wrote his way out of the circumstances to a better life. that is the hip-hop narrative from the south bronx in the 1970's to today. i googled hamilton hip-hop and it was not there. as soon as you google it, you will now see my show. but that was the first thing that jumped out at me. this is a fundamental hip-hop story. charlie: i'm just like my country, i'm young, scrappy, and hungry, and i'm not throwing away my shot. >> charlie rose is rapping. charlie: you performed that at the white house. lin: we performed the opening number.

charlie: before we see that. is that with the president responded to, when he said geithner should see this? >> this is my first time performing the song in public. they allowed me to perform the show, and i said i had a 16 bars about the treasury secretary. the money -- they let me close out the show, in his response was i have to get geithner in here. the economic crisis -- everything had blown up. he said geithner has the hardest job as treasury secretary since alexander hamilton. that was his quote on the record about what the geithner heaad ahead of him. this was very early in obama's administration, may 2009. they were just figuring out how to do this thing, how to get us out of the hole we were in.

i think he was tickled by the fact that i used a secretary of treasury. he also performed it from burr's point of view. it got a laugh halfway through. charlie: where does that come, from aaron burr's perspective? lin: thanks to andrew lloyd webber, we have that narrator. judas the rates jesus christ, superstar. -- narrates. that set up was a very difficult task to figure out who ehrenberg -- who aaron burr is. a villain in our history. charlie: do you think more of him? lin: i do, after reading about his life. there are several biographies of him. john: gore vidal wrote one. lin: his burr is a lot craftier

than mine. one thing i learned about him burr was a early feminist. , his daughter received an education greater than any man of that era. he was close with his wife and his daughter. he was on a few main mission with alexander hamilton for the abolition of slaves in new york state. there are redeeming characteristics to this guy. i had to find my way into that. every biography is either insanely defensive of him, or vilified him. charlie: but you know better man anybody. on the one hand, aaron burr was amazingly cautious, careful, laid-back, and alexander hamilton wanted to charge forward at every move. lin: hamilton left behind seven -- volumes of written work. 27 burr left behind less than 2. that tells you how much everything you need to know. burr reserved his right to change his mind on any

particular point. the tragedy of the show is, at the moment when burr is finally reckless and lets go and hamilton is cautious, one kills the other. and that is how they are remembered forever. charlie: have you thought about playing burr? lin: every time i wrote a burr song, i thought, man, i should do this guy. charlie: because he was the narrator? lin: because he got the best songs in the show. [laughter] but now with leslie, you can 't emagin anyone else. it fits him like a glove. he gets these wonderful moments. one being the room where it happened. he is talking about not being in power and seeing hamilton trade away the capital for a financial plan. how am i not in the room? charlie: take a look at this. this is you at the white house in 2009 performing the first rap song you wrote for hamilton.

>> ♪ i was a bastard, son of a whore, scotsman ♪ ♪ dropped in the caribbean ♪ grew up to be a hero and a scholar ♪ got farther by working a lot harder, by being a self-starter ♪ at 14, in charge of a trading charter ♪ ♪ across the waves, are hamilton kept his guard up ♪ ♪ hurricane came, and devastation rained ♪ ♪ he saw his future dripping down the drain ♪ around, they said this kid is insane ♪ education, don't

forget from whence you came ♪ ♪ of the gold is going to know your name ♪ ♪ what's your name, man? ♪ >> alexander hamilton. [laughter] there's a million things he hasn't done, but just you wait ♪ ♪ debt-ridden, alexander mother's bedridden ♪ ♪ alexander got better but his mother went quick ♪ ♪ cousin committed suicide, left in but nothing with ruined pride ♪ he would've been destitute without a sense of restitution ♪

♪ in new york you can be a new man ♪ ♪ ship is in the harbor now, see if you can spot him ♪ ♪ coming up on the bottom charlie: there you go. it's unbelievable. could this ever have been done? it's almost like if they didn't have hip-hop, it had to be invented for this. lin: wow, thank you. that means a lot. i think the score is both a love letter to hip-hop and musical theater. but it is this heightened language. we learned early on that when we turned a speech into prose, the energy went out. we had this ball that we throw in the air so high at a top of

this opening number that we had to keep it at that level. there are a lot of times when we take musical breaks and slow it down and speed it back up again, but this heightened language to be the only way to convey hamilton's worldview. ♪

charlie: i'm pleased to have diplo and skrillex at the table.

the new york times have called them purveyors of an important music.of electronic here's a look at their single "take you there" from their new album. ♪

charlie: i'm pleased to have diplo and skrillex at the table. for the very first time, welcome. here is why i'm really happy about this, i didn't know that much about either of you. the more i read and learned i was excited to have you here. let me begin with this, do you think of yourself as musicians or something else? skrillex: i think it is a combination of being musicians. i came from singing in bands and playing guitar. piano and other instruments. it is the combination of being a musician and artist. diplo: in 2015, you have to have one foot in music and the creation of the media and the way the shows put together. i am not a musician per se, but i create music now and i have learned how to play music on my own. i think it is bigger than just

getting a guitar. you have to create an atmosphere , in with electronic music, is more complex than laying down some chords. charlie: what has made it so popular? $6.9 billion per year. skrillex: i think it was the timing. the fact of the internet, being able to share media. computers and music programs were so accessible. younger people were coming into music. coming from a band, i found it easier to express myself through a computer. it is your one-stop shop. music videos are all made by us. diplo: the distribution chain is broken. it used to be when you had a from, youe sonny came get your band together, find some friends that like to make music, you find a garage and

rehearse, find someone to borrow some money or use a studio to record, maybe find a label, create a record that they want to promote. that is a two-year process. now it is diy. i can go on my laptop, make a song, put it on youtube or sound cloud, and reach people in a couple hours. that record could be catapulted to something on the radio. the distribution chain is lost. we are very grassroots and we distributing ourselves. skrillex: the renaissance of all art has become to digitize with computer and cell phones. people can edit on instagram. ant gives normal people outlet to be creative, and that can go deeper into music and editing and making art in general. charlie: it also has huge energy. skrillex: i think it comes from

being such a youthful movement. being such a youthful movement being such a youthful movement. . the producers are becoming popular and making a living are getting younger and younger. diplo: our job is inside the computer, inside the speakers to make the loudest, the craziest, the next, the biggest. something you have never heard before. it is our goal to make something progressive and make something brand-new. skrillex: it is all about taking things that shouldn't make sense. and making them make sense. in traditional dance music you wouldn't have something like that. charlie: let's talk about forming jack u. who's idea?

diplo: we became really good friends and i think we have always been outsiders in this dance world and the producer world that we decided to create stuff together. it was really special because we have a quality control. that takes a lot of work. charlie: is it a long time? diplo: that record you played a video of, we recorded that in three hours in a hotel room and it took another month after the two hours of recording the vocals to make the song sound the way it did. for me it may take a year to mix a record and produce it properly, even if it takes a night to write it. charlie: it is extraordinary for two people at the top coming together. you guys came together as competitors almost.

skrillex: we have that quality control. we respect each other so much. charlie: do you guys complement each other? skrillex: we are both so forward thinking. we tried to push the envelope with sound. jack u takes it to the next level. we make good music. diplo: i'm always mixing my music with things you wouldn't expect, like a rapper, a rock singer. a country artist. we work with different singers. we are always looking to collaborate and make things you haven't heard before, things that are unexpected.

we met justin bieber at a club. we told him if he would give us a vocal, that we would make it crazy. i'm on headphones on a table like this, playing around with it until we have some ideas. we had a spark into the to the finish line. charlie: take a look at this. here it is. ♪

skrillex: we just shot justin bieber dancing and performing in a very simple background, but then took all of the stills from the video and opened up an art gallery in l.a. and invited fans, haters, and artists to draw whatever they wanted to on justin bieber.

you can see a lot of stuff, everything from complements to false god, illuminati, anything you wanted to say. diplo: our album is so collaborative. we wanted a video in a way that uses justin bieber's voice in a way that personified what it is to be like justin bieber. he is as a piece of art himself. we created something out of that idea, and of that idea of creating a pedestal for artists. we wanted to make it collaborative by our fans and people who know justin bieber. charlie: what makes justin bieber tick? skrillex: i think when you are that young and you grow up that famous -- i don't even know if money -- i had money at a young age and i lost it. because i was in a band. it didn't really feel different. maybe it is a certain point when you are surrounding yourself with people who aren't conducive to what you should be doing, it

can throw you into an area where you are very reactive. he is in such a good place. he's around really good people and creative people. people that believe in him. no matter what anybody says he is one of the most talented people i have been in the studio with. charlie: you tour 300 shows per year? diplo: i did three in new york, three in phillie. he did las vegas, new york, philadelphia, vancouver -- charlie: sometimes you get 100,000 people.

diplo: we played for 100,000 people. we played for about 60,000 people at heart fest. charlie: how are you changing? how is what you are doing growing, other than the size of it? what is the driving force behind the change? skrillex: i think back when we first started, i came in as a dj. we were outsiders from this thing, doing it our own way. we were not trying to go with the way things were going. in the beginning no one considered us musicians. not that we cared or anything. now we have gained a lot more respect from a lot of different artists. it is easier to collaborate. a lot of people even four or

five years ago, a lot of these credible people consider us musicians. but media and the outside world didn't. now people trust us a little bit more. we never set out to make radio records. nationally our sound is starting to cross over. ♪

diplo: we have a lot of producers, their main goal is to get on the radio and sell

records. for us our fan base is going to , be there regardless if we are making music for fans. we performed live and we think about how the kids at our shows going to like this. we never think about if radio is going to plug this. charlie: how do you measure success? is it in your head or some other way? diplo: i just want to make great music. i do not care. i want music to give me goosebumps. it happened with this record. when we finished this, we said -- this was really special. skrillex: when you make a record and play for the first time in front of an audience you feel a connect. where we really shine, teaching

what we do is to sit up there, we are curating the soundtrack in a live experience for people. even these festivals are mixed at it we play a lot of festivals with rock bands and rap artists. what we do is so maximal. that is that peak moment where it is all about the life energy of everyone together. that is more important than on -- a song on the radio. if it doesn't connect live, i would rather have it connect live. diplo: i think the taste of america has changed, where you used to have a machine where put records on the radio, to where now, i have a record on the radio that was released independently. no help from any major labels. it is possible to put a great song on the radio with the right team. charlie: take me through the process of creating something.

diplo: we had a day off with arcade fire. a friend of mine was there and said, let's go meet up with you guys. we went up to his garage and played for 20 minutes, with everybody on an instrument. i got the files from them and edited down these loops and little pieces. i'm probably going to go back with the lead singer and record some vocals on it. skrillex: we just jammed for 45 minutes and made an album worth of material. and then we cut it down to parts that we will layer finish. sometimes we will start with three chords and a vocal. that first record, we recorded the song. when i say song i mean the vocal and the melody. it took us about a month to figure out the other parts of the process. that was a whole other side of the process. diplo: for me sonny was a game

changer in the dj world. while his production and mixing was at another level above what i'm hearing on the radio, he has a high standard for the way he makes music sound. he is the first guy i met in the dj world that has a rock star presence. he can handle himself on stage. a lot of djs are pretty boring. you kind of need to have the rock star. charlie: does that come from understanding movement, understanding presence, understanding relating to an audience? skrillex: it is about being true to yourself in a moment. the more people i'm djing in front of, the better. the easier.

charlie: the more people, the better you are? skrillex: the energy you get from the stage is indescribable. it is constant feedback like a cycle. when people are having fun with the music, it inspires you to go down the right path. charlie: what was it like taking up with the garden? madison square garden. skrillex: it was a great bucket list. charlie: what else is on the bucket list? diplo: charlie rose show. charlie: what about musically? diplo: it's strange we have people paying attention to this project. people are expecting another single with us. everything that has happened with these records has happened organically.

we have a strange leverage for artists to give us the best records they have done. they respect us. for five years, we struggle to have people understand us. charlie: when you say leverage -- diplo: when you're working with the artist it is always a sense of negotiating. you find out where the comfort level is. and how far you can take them in one direction or another. sometimes it will take up most of the space and you only have a little say in the work. we did 90% of the direction it went. charlie: that has to do with bieber trusting you? diplo: exactly. once we take it to another level i think it gives people confidence to allow us to do it again. skrillex: they have family, and kids, and all the stuff. we are so inspired and hungry to

make great songs and great tracks that sound like nothing else and push the boundaries. even the justin bieber single, a top record, it is not a traditional pop song. instead of changing first chorus, first chorus, bridge, outtro, we are changing the format. aarlie: you also have reputation of being able to spot trends. skillrex: we are both kids inside. i'm in my late 20s. diplo: mid thirties. skrillex: we are like kids. we listen to music the way kids do.

i talked to people a couple of years younger than me and they talk to me saying, i'm old. when you set saying that you are becoming old. diplo: we have been on the road for a decade, both of us. i have been moving all over the place. when we spot trends -- we are at the party two nights ago. we're hanging out with kids who make music we make. we come from underground. they are between the 20's and 30's. skrillex: they are getting younger too. diplo: we went to a party yesterday where they were in their 30's. it is not limited to dance music. it got to a lot of rap music, a lot of underground rock music. it is all part of our scene. skrillex: young kids in hip-hop, it is music you can't really put

a genre on. nothing is fancy. we don't need all these people around. we make it in our own environment and have a good time. charlie: what about drugs? this is what the guardian wrote. "molly has roughly coincided with the ascent of skrillex and the clumsily named electronic dance music to the top of the u.s. dance music charts." skrillex: i think with every generation of music -- charlie: are you responsible for the ascent of molly? skrillex: if you look at any era where music exploded in youth

culture, just because of the bigger ratio creates a bigger ratio of drugs. drugs were used in the disco era, cocaine. obviously lsd and marijuana. there are always drugs. this year it happened to be molly. before there was skrillex, and dma and ecstasy have been going on since the beginning. it inevitably got bigger with the culture that came along with

it. the events we play and the audience we reached out to are so much more vast than what this article talked about. charlie: where it you think you in the music will be in five years? diplo: we are both humble. we feel lucky to be doing this. i'm just happy people are paying attention. charlie: of all the good things people are saying about you, what do you appreciate the most? about the music, the fame, the attention. skrillex: there are so many people who come to these shows. it is still the minority. i believe we are truly artists. it is a renaissance of how you can create art and music through technology. that is awesome. that can lead to anything. diplo: there used to be barriers

in genres about what you should listen to. people change the ideas of what the limits of music and change the limits of music, that would be important. skrillex: we are enabling a lot of people. when we started out we weren't considered musicians. charlie: you think that has changed. skrillex: there has been electronic music. the 70's and 80's. diplo: electronic music got its notoriety with donna summer records. those were like a big breakthrough. it evolves into hip-hop, into dance music, into new wave, into industrial music, all the way up to us.

we are a culmination of everything that happened before us. we are another filter that comes out. charlie: here it is. >> hope we can take this technological shift. the internet is not just audio. it is audio, visual, and interactive. what is the future of music going to be in that format that is not just about the actual sound itself anymore? it is about the sound and perhaps maybe the interactive part. charlie: would you agree with them? diplo: what helps me be successful, a lot of artists that battle distribution systems, we embrace it 100%. we would rather people listen to our music. then to make every sent off of it we camp. that is important for us, to get

our music heard than to grab every penny we can get. skrillex: you have different girls -- if you're going to take your music away from one area, there is a whole demographic of people that only go to that aisle. those people -- this is my philosophy. people go to spotify and subscribe. that is how they get their music. that is a whole group of people. if you take it away you are alienating people. it doesn't mean they are going to change. a lot of times they are not going to go buy a cd because you took your stuff off spotify. charlie: they also may not have a chance of getting a record made.

diplo: i was immediately recording stuff off the radio. it has always been in favor of the audience to make it easier for them. it is not going to get any easier than the artist. the audience is going to find easier and easier ways. you can't stop that. charlie: accessibility is a keyword. diplo: we have always rode that wave. skrillex: the one thing i am bummed that is all the major labels. those kids on sound cloud -- we are some of the biggest people on sound cloud with the most followers. that is a huge asset to our overall business. of there are kids that only go

how people listen to our music. there are kids that only go to sound cloud. that will not go on spotify or itunes. that eliminates a big asset and is cutting off your music to an audience. that would potentially come to your shows and the fans. there is definitely a lot of controversy. wish it was up to the person that owned the art at the end of the day. the way they wanted to be heard. charlie: are you happiest in front of a large crowd? skrillex: you make a song and it gives you the chills and you get to experience it being heard in a different way in front of people. it creates an energy in the room. that is a special feeling. diplo: i'm just lucky i make a living creating. i'm happy i can do that and share it with people. i feel it my family can ever believe i would make a living

off of creating something. charlie: thus not a bad living. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

announcer: "brilliant ideas," powered by hyundai motors. narrator: the contemporary art world is vibrant and booming as never before. it's a 21st century phenomenon, a global industry in its own right. "brilliant ideas" looks at the artists at the heart of this, artists with a unique power to astonish, challege, and shock. to push boundaries, ask new questions, and see the world afresh. in this program, bharti kher. ♪