I discovered Lin Manuel Miranda by way of my daughter’s love for the new hip-hop flavored ELECTRIC COMPANY on PBS. I resisted the reboot of my beloved classic at first; ELECTRIC COMPANY held a special place in my heart.

As a kid in the late 70s, you took your live-action Spider-Man appearances wherever you could get them.

So when they re-introduced the show for a brave new iPod-aware world of kids, my hackles got raised. “What is this new-fangled hippity-hop? Where’s Morgan Freeman as EZ Reader? Wyclef who? Where’s Fargo North, Decoder? GET OFF MY LAWN, YA DAMN KIDS!” I railed.

But she loved it and it dawned on me: This is not for you. Those echoed words of Kahlil Gibran knocked around my head from the dim reaches of memory:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

So I relaxed and actually watched the show with her. And there was this young rapper dropping these lyrically complex and clever-as-hell twists of language, all to the point of explaining arcane grammar rules in interesting ways.  I mean, the subject material was for kids, but this guy was crazy-talented.

A quick trip to Google and YouTube ascertained his identity as Lin Manuel Miranda and I found this amazing piece of awesomeness above. It manages to be smart and densely pack both rhyme and shifting, complex rhyme schemes that flow and double back with tricks over rhythm all to the point of telling a really compelling story and teaching more in the space of a few minutes than most 8th graders retain over a few weeks of study about Alexander Hamilton.

Just totally great. Check it, and him out.