Review Roundup: Lin-Manuel Miranda & Elsa Davis' WARRIORS Concept Album

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Elsa Davis have just released their highly-anticipated Warriors concept album and reviews have begun to trickle in!

Inspired by the 1979 Paramount Pictures cult film, the album is an immersive listening experience that follows a fictitious New York City gang from Coney Island to the Bronx and back when they are framed for the murder of a respected gang leader, Cyrus.

THE WARRIORS features Kenita Miller as Cochise, Sasha Hutchings as Cowgirl, Phillipa Soo as Fox, Aneesa Folds as Cleon, Amber Gray as Ajaz, Gizel Jiménez as Rembrandt, Jasmine Cephas Jones as Swan, and Julia Harriman as Mercy. The album also includes THE COPS featuring James Remar as Barnes and David Patrick Kelly as Victor; THE HURRICANES featuring Billy Porter as Granger, Michaela Jaé as Yaya, and Mykal Kilgore as Élan; THE ORPHANS featuring Utkarsh Ambudkar as Sully and Casey Likes as Jesse; THE TURNBULL AC’S featuring Marc Anthony as Tato, Luis Figueroa as Miguel, and Flaco Navaja as Jesús; THE ROGUES featuring Kim Dracula as Luther and Alex Bonniello as Cropsy; and Shenseea as DJ Lynne Pen. 

Colman Domingo is the voice of the Masai of the Gramercy Riffs while the voices of the boroughs include: Ghostface Killah and RZA as Staten Island; Chris Rivers as The Bronx; Cam’ron as Manhattan; Nas as Queens; and Busta Rhymes as Brooklyn.  Busta Rhymes performs the voice of Brooklyn as well as THE BIZZIES: featuring Stephen Sanchez as Cal, Joshua Henry as Wanya, Timothy Hughes as Lance, and Daniel Jikal as Joon. 

Find out what critics think of the new album below! BroadwayWorld will continue to update the list as more reviews come in.

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Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press: "It shares with Miranda’s previous stage works — “In the Heights” and “Hamilton” — an unabashed love of New York (There’s even mentions of hot dog joint Gray’s Papaya ). The creators have said they have no plans for a stage version and you can hear why: It’s all on the album already."

Chris Wiegand, The Guardian: "Miranda and Davis’s own vibrant tagging adds colour to the consistent mood of desolation in both novel and film. Listeners are given just enough meaningful time hanging out with the gang through snippets of sparky dialogue, while the songs carry sound effects of sirens, thunder and spray paint. Like Hamilton, a flurry of refrains combine in the final stretch, which is a tad too earnest yet distinguished by shifting narrative methods. You arrive at the final destination in something like the Warriors’ dazed state. “Bring your swagger and your spark,” enticed the DJ at the start. Both are very much present and correct."

Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, Financial Times: "There are neat nods to the original soundtrack, although the radio DJ who takes the role of an ancient Greek chorus in the film is used less well. Droll embellishments include the cringy ska-pop sung by dweebish loser gang the Orphans, who are like emissaries from the mean streets of Frozen."

Mike DeWald, RIFF Magazine: "The songs feel authentic and not like they’re adapted for the stage. It’s entirely possible to not be a fan of theater and take away something from Warriors. With its infectious energy and innovative artistry, the duo’s vision not only pays tribute to the original but invites audiences to explore the complexities of identity and community within the urban concrete jungle."

Carl Wilson, Slate: "Depending how jaded an ear a listener brings to it, the result does offer plenty of chances to cringe. It’s loaded with Miranda’s sonic signatures—fast-talking recitatives, nasally drawls, quick tonal jumps within lines to signify nerves and high emotion, and light lyrical motifs that grow more weighted with every callback (often a couple too many). But this one doesn’t feature a gallery of high-flown rhetoricians like Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson making a revolution; it’s about a bunch of mumbly street kids trying to hustle home on the subway without getting knifed. Their struggles certainly deserve the same essential human dignity, but the scenario offers Miranda and Davis far less leeway to wax eloquent in the way that delighted Hamilton-goers, and so mostly they don’t."

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