Lin-Manuel Miranda has thrilled and delighted audiences around the world for years, most notably with his groundbreaking musical Hamilton, as well as with his contributions to films like Encanto and The Little Mermaid. There are still kids all around the world singing his songs, like "My Shot" from his historical show or "We Don't Talk About Bruno" from Disney's recent hugely successful animated movie.

Now, he's back with Warriors, a highly anticipated concept album he co-wrote with Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Eisa Davis. The collaborative project, which features performances from well over a dozen well-known singers, rappers, and actors, is out today.

Inspired by the 1979 cult classic film The Warriors, the album reimagines the film's narrative of gang tensions in New York City, following one crew's dangerous journey home after a violent crime they are wrongly accused of perpetrating. The updated take switches male members for women, which changes the dynamic of what may otherwise be considered a typical gang story -- though one that still made for a surprising choice for the superstar composer and songwriter.

"I think one of the reasons I've continued to go back to it over and over again... it's a beautiful movie," Miranda explained in a recent interview. "It's both a snapshot of New York in the late '70s and a New York that never existed." His deep connection to the film, which he first saw as a child, inspired him to bring the tale to a new audience via a different medium.

For both creators, the story at the heart of Warriors speaks to something primal and deeply human. Davis emphasized the universal appeal of the narrative, which some might think isn't a fit for them: "There's no moral judgment on these gangs... we can really think about these crews as community organizations. They're taking care of each other, taking care of their hoods." It's this sense of community and survival that grounds the fantastic story, which has already been adapted into various mediums over the years, including an Ancient Greek story, a more modern novel, a movie, and a PlayStation 2 game (as Miranda humorously noted).

The album spans genres as diverse as hip-hop, salsa, and even heavy metal, and that diversity allows the characters to come alive in ways that traditional stage or screen adaptations might not. Miranda explained, "There are so many New Yorks, and even in '79, there were so many New Yorks... treating these gangs and these story moments as opportunities to play with different genres was really exciting."

The album began stirring up excitement the moment it was even hinted at, and since it was officially revealed, one big question has been on everyone's mind: what's next? Will Warriors make its way to Broadway? Could it become a film or TV series? For now, Miranda and Davis are staying quiet about future plans. "We just want to let this album be the thing," Davis says.

"We're enabling your imagination as a collaborator on this," Miranda opined, making it clear that the album is possibly just the beginning of what could become a much larger cultural phenomenon. Whether it's destined for the stage or screen, Warriors is interesting, compelling, and catchy enough to stand on its own, without any further adaptation granting it credibility.

I spoke with Miranda and Davis ahead of the release of Warriors about why they loved the film enough to remake it into something new, what it was like working with luminaries like Busta Rhymes and Nas, and, of course, what they imagine may come next for this world they've helped recreate.

Hugh McIntyre: As I was listening to Warriors, I was piecing the story together, and then I watched the film. Lin, what made this story stick with you for so long? You've said you saw this as a child.

Lin-Manuel Miranda: Yeah, which I don't recommend. I haven't let my kids watch it yet, even though they love the songs and they're begging to see it. I was a latchkey '80's child and my friend's older brother had a VHS copy, like you do.

I think one of the reasons I've continued to go back to it over and over again, one, it's a beautiful movie. The cinematography is gorgeous. It's both a snapshot of New York in the late '70s and a New York that never existed. It's an incredible looking movie.

I also think that it's a primer for everything you're supposed to be afraid of in New York: falling in the train tracks, the wrong cop on the wrong night, walking into the wrong neighborhood. To see that at a really young age is to be told the city is also like this.

As a New Yorker, when you're a born and raised New Yorker, you're always getting your New York street smarts, and it's a shortcut to that. More than anything, I think what I love about the movie is it doesn't judge any of its characters. It really just puts you in that situation. We all came to the Bronx with the promise of peace and collective power and unity. That peace is shattered, and now we have to survive. You're thrust into the situation immediately, and you just want to get back home.

It sort of has its finger on the third rail of a lot of my obsessions already, and it's a gorgeous period film. And that bathroom action sequence? Amazing. It still holds up.

Eisa Davis: It's amazing that this is the fourth adaptation of this story. There's this album, there's the movie, there's the novel, and then there's the fourth century BCE Greek narrative.

Miranda: I would also add that the PlayStation 2 game is a thrilling edition to the canon.

Davis: I think the reason it holds up over time and has been appealing through all of these different adaptations is that it is such a mythic story. It's a simple story. It gets at all of these primal fears and also all of these hopes and longings that we have.

Like Lin was saying, there's no moral judgment on these gangs. The thing that I really love is that we can really think about these crews as community organizations. They're taking care of each other, taking care of their hoods. The Warriors, you hear in the first number and "Roll Call," the second number that's on the record, have been taking care of all of the folks. The women who come to the boardwalk and make sure that it is a safe place for women. Then they go uptown with this promise of peace, and then they fight their way all the way back. But it's defensive, they're not armed. You know what I mean?

There's a way in which the movie, the novel, the narrative gives way to this deep human longing that we all have for family and for home and for peace, and the ability to be able to stand up to the worst of circumstances. Survive and thrive.

McIntyre: Much has been said about this album. Is it a musical? I know you're leading with the album to get the music out there, but surely you two have had many conversations between yourselves-and outside-about ambitions for this work.

Miranda: I think our ambition extends to just getting to keep working on it. Ever since we turned in the album, I've been mourning not getting to write with Eisa anymore.

Davis: I know. I felt the same way. It's like, oh, we don't get to write together anymore?

Miranda: It was very freeing to think of it this way. One, because there's a wonderful tradition, from Anaïs Mitchell in Hadestown all the way back to Pete Townsend with Tommy, of writing the songs in this order and the listener connecting the dots and making the experience in their heads. We're enabling your imagination as a collaborator on this because we're giving you the sounds and you have to fill in the rest.

It was freeing also in terms of getting our dream list of musical collaborators on the album. I could never get all of these people into the same room, much less doing eight shows a week. With Hamilton, it was like, all right, for George Washington I'm thinking of Common meets John Legend, and I'm looking for someone who fits that. In this we were like, can we call Busta Rhymes and see if he'll play the borough of Brooklyn?

For them, it's irresistible because they get to put their thumbprint on a character without having to do eight shows a week. In many ways, this was the best way to write this. We don't have a producer, we don't have a director. What we have is a hope that people like this and are interested in seeing it in some other form.

I don't really see a movie adaptation of this. To me, this is a love letter to a movie. But I think we're both eager to see if there's an appetite to explore it theatrically.

Davis: And we really wanted to make sure that we were writing for an aural experience. We weren't thinking, okay, we're going to make sure that we have this section here so that so-and-so can go off and have their costume change and then come back. We weren't thinking about all those things that you do for stagecraft purposes. Just...what's the best way to tell this story, so that you can understand everything about where these people are and what they're going through in your ear.

Your question is a very logical one, and yet it's something that we're putting off for now. We just want to let this album be the thing and just let that experience reverberate.

McIntyre: Musically, there's a great New York hip-hop throwback sound at times-like getting the Busta Rhymes and Nas in there. Then there are moments when I feel the Lin-Manuel energy. I was shocked to hear there's metal on this. There's growling, there's screaming. It feels like an expansion of your skillset. Can you talk about learning to write for genres that we don't know you for?

Miranda: Sure. They're genres we're fans of anyway, it's just not every project allows you to play this widely. I will confess, I wrote an early rap verse for Luther when I was just starting to noodle with the idea of this, and it never felt right. The thinking's too ordered. This is a much more chaotic mind at work.

Then Eisa played me a band she knew, a metal band, and instantly I was like, oh, I can feel my grandmothers crossing themselves in heaven on my behalf. It just felt like this chaotic, but virtuosic, perfect vessel for what Luther does, because there is a plan there, but it's a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants, Heath Ledger Joker plan. It's a plan, but also let's see what happens. It felt like metal was the perfect thing to express that.

Again, the fun about writing about New York is that there are so many New Yorks, and even in '79, there were so many New Yorks. In the movie, the Turnbull ACs, the first gang they face in the Bronx, are these skinheads who've flipped a school bus and are all riding around. When I think about the South Bronx in the 1970s, I think about the Fania All-Stars, which is where salsa music was getting revolutionized, and it was such a Puerto Rican neighborhood. My aunt lived there. I had a lot of family in the South Bronx in the '70s. So I was like, okay, so I can make this the Fania. We can make this school bus the greatest Fania song that doesn't exist yet.

Again, treating these gangs and these story moments as opportunities to play with different genres was really exciting.

Davis: That was the whole point of this record: let's play in sandboxes we've never played in. The thing is, like Lin's saying, we write for characters. So if the character is going to be a metal sound, then that is --

Miranda: Then that's what we write.

Davis: Right. There might be some sort of judgment on what it is that he makes or something that I make because of what we made in the past, but if we're writing for a character, we go where the characters need to go. We go into their worlds and we flesh those out.

The "Quiet Girl" song is just this ballroom culture, you know what I'm saying? You get to have that sound again. Neither of us have actually ever done [that] before, but it's something that we feel we can step into because we're writers of character.

McIntyre: The list of artists that you have on this album is amazing. It toggles between theater actors and rappers. Can you talk a bit about being in the studio with, let's say, Busta Rhymes? He knows the studio, but having to direct him and explain, "But now you're rapping as a character"? What was that process?

Miranda: Well, I think something that's specific to hip-hop is... there's such pride in every MC being a writer. We feel enormous gratitude that these MCs trusted us to write lyrics for them. And really, the mind shift of, I'm not asking Busta Rhymes to play himself on this album. "You are playing the character of Brooklyn, the borough, and representing every crew that is coming up north from that borough and reporting on it."

I remember Busta saying to us, "You are the only person I've ever let write lyrics for me." Cam'ron was like, "But everyone else has their lyrics written for them too, right?" He didn't want to be duped. "We're all not writing our rhymes, right?"

RZA, thankfully, was a big fan of Hamilton, and he was like, "Oh, I don't have to write anything? Bong, bong, I'm in." There was enormous fun in that. It was really like they were putting on a role, and yet they bring with them their incredible legacies as emissaries and ambassadors for the boroughs they're representing. So that's a really specific case.

When it comes to our warriors, who are mostly more known for theater than music in most cases, those are our friends. When we started really taking this from the writing phase to the recording phase, we asked our friends to play the roles for demo recordings, and I think we'd already subconsciously cast the show. But what we couldn't have counted on, and just happened organically, was that they had incredible chemistry with each other.

At one point -- we were at Power Station [recording studios] -- Eisa turned to me and said, "What pop stars are we going to find that are better than these women right now? They're killing it." So we have these great stars that Broadway knows about, but the world doesn't necessarily yet, which is exciting.

Davis: There were just a few other little stories in the studio. Being able to see someone like Stephen Sanchez, who's a massive star, seeing him next to Timothy Hughes and --

Miranda: And Joshua Henry.

Davis: ...and Joshua Henry, and seeing that interplay. Stephen, who's got this incredible crooning voice, to see him look over to Joshua and be like, "Wow, you can really sing, damn." To see that happen. The experience we had with Marc Anthony in Miami...

Miranda: We went to where he lives, and we used his band. And he was very generous about that. He was like, "I can sing over your track, but also there are things I know about putting salsa together that I want to teach you. I want you to see." And we benefited from all of that knowledge.

Davis: And Mike Elizondo, our producer, is just so important to mention here as the third in our triumvirate because another huge character was the band. The sound of what Mike did on bass, what Abe does on drums, Phil on keys, Johnny on guitar -- they're all virtuosos.

Miranda: We spent two weeks with them. That's not something you get on a cast album.