Hamilton: How Fast Daveed Diggs Actually Raps As Lafayette

Daveed Diggs’ performance as Marquis de Lafayette is one of the highlights of Hamilton, not least because of his incredibly fast rapping, which helps set the musical apart from other productions. Not only does the character rhyme at an unusually-high rate for musicals, but also at a pace that’s unusually high for hip-hop in general. Created by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda as the focal character, Hamilton fuses historical facts with modern day street culture.

In 2009, Miranda foreshadowed Hamilton’s success while performing the opening track for Barack Obama at a White House event. The audience initially laughed when Miranda – then known as the creator of In the Heights – announced that he’d been working on a “mixtape” about the life story of Alexander Hamilton, a man who emigrated to America in the 18th century and become one of the nation’s founding fathers. To be sure, the play that ultimately took over Broadway isn’t about thrilling the audience with rapid-fire rhymes and on-stage bravado. Instead, it’s about the main cast’s ability to at once communicate a clear historical narrative while entertaining with accessible concepts. Act I of Hamilton introduces the titular character and explains his relationship to Lafayette, a native of France who fought alongside Hamilton during the American Revolutionary War and later played a major role in the French Revolution.

According to a 2015 report from FiveThirtyEight, Diggs raps at 6.3 words per second during the quickest verse of Hamilton Act 1 performance of “Guns and Ships.” For context, Eminem holds a Guinness World Record for rhyming the most words (1,560) in a hit single (“Rap God”). In that particular 2013 song, the man known as Slim Shady averages 4.28 words per second over six-plus minutes. For a better comparison, Eminem rhymes at 6.46 words per second during a 15-second span, which aligns with Diggs’ performance in Hamilton as Lafayette.

Overall, Hamilton averages approximately 144 words-per-minute. Scenes involving Diggs’ Lafayette pick up the pace, while others featuring Jonathan Groff as King George III slow down the narrative. Most of the performers display their ability to entertain through specific annunciations and scripted wordplay, but it’s Diggs who rhymes at the fastest rate. For hip-hop fans, that’s a treat. And for theatre fans, it’s something unique. After all, Hamilton is indeed an outlier in the world of Broadway productions.

Hamilton nearly doubles the word-per-minute rate of its closest competitor, Spring Awakening, a rock musical that premiered shortly after Lin-Manuel Miranda’s play and also features the aforementioned Groff. If Hamilton were sung at the rate of a typical Broadway show, the 160-minute runtime would reportedly extend to approximately four to six hours. So, Disney+ streamers without any theater knowledge should know that Hamilton isn’t a typical Broadway production, and that Diggs’ performance as Lafayette is indeed one-of-a-kind.

Hamilton: Why The Musical Features Hip-Hop and Rap

About The Author

Q.V. Hough
(1892 Articles Published)

Q.V. Hough is a senior writer at Screen Rant. He’s also the founding editor at Vague Visages, and has contributed to RogerEbert.com and Fandor.

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