A recurring line in Hamilton is, “I’m not throwing away my shot.” I’m sure there were points when you doubted yourself, so how do you know when it’s really time to take your shot?

Lin-Manuel Miranda: That’s what made me see Hamilton as a hip-hop artist. With every opportunity, he just took it. He didn’t hesitate and it didn’t matter if other people disagreed with him. He’s in such a rush and I relate to that. We only get so much time on this earth, so let’s go. A lot of my favorite songs have that urgency. You’ve got to treat everything like it’s your first project. That ethos is really in Hamilton’s character. He represents that strain of hip-hop, of urgency. For every rapper who gets a little success, there are a million rappers who don’t, and we know that some of them are really talented. So it’s about that mix of hard work and opportunity. When the opportunity lines up, you’ve got three joints to throw at it—I’m not missing it. It’s here, it’s now; here we go.

Chance the Rapper: I definitely feel like I’m racing to write everything I possibly can, like Alexander. It’s very much like Eminem in 8 Mile; you’ve only got one shot. We’ve been conditioned to understand music as a field where you get discovered, and you’re always trying to find that end. So “my shot” is speaking of a variety of shots. When you’re a rapper, you look at every shot as the one you’re supposed to take.

You’re going to miss some shots, but that doesn’t mean you should stop taking them, right?

LM: Yeah, I’ll give you an example. For a performance at the White House in 2009, they asked me to do something from In the Heights, but I had 16 bars on Alexander Hamilton. And I was like, “How can I not do this very American-themed thing at the first poetry event at the White House?” The opportunity was there, and I was going to try this new thing instead of doing something that I knew worked.

Legacy is also a huge theme in the play. Do you think about how people will remember you 50 years from now?

C: I’d say it’s very forward. Everything you write as an artist is about your legacy and your catalog, and how you would look in a museum.

LM: So many of my lyrical heroes died way too young, so legacy is prevalent on my mind, particularly in terms of hip-hop. Big Pun only had two albums—one real album and one posthumous—but he recorded guest verses every day. There’s 60-some-odd guest verses because he was just like, “That’s the thing I’ve got to do.” So in terms of my own writing, I only think of trying to get the work done. If I don’t write it down, it’s stuck in my brain. That’s how I think of legacy—I’ve got to get it out of my head or out of my heart, because no one else will do it for me.

What are you willing to sacrifice for your legacy?

C: My father always told me that my legacy would be my children. And I think the most important thing about creating is the way that your music interacts with people, and the period that it’s released in, and the periods that will have it after your death, and how it’ll work in the world. My favorite piece from Hamilton is “Dear Theodosia,” which is…. [Turns to Miranda] Can I talk about the play?

LM: [Laughs.] Yeah, do whatever you want.

C: The first verse is Aaron Burr talking to his daughter, and the song is so dope to me because it’s obviously a song about fatherhood, but they’re speaking about building this brand-new nation and building a new world for their children and their children’s children. Literally though—a brand-new America. There’s still not a lot of hospitals or banks; they’re figuring out forms of currency; they’re still fighting the Brits.

I like to think of my music the same way because a lot of my stuff is about my ideal world, and how I want things to function. I have a daughter who’s going to be raised in this world, and my music and my art are powerful tools in getting that to be formed the way I want it to. So I guess when we talk about legacy, I would do anything to make sure that my legacy lives on and is a healthy one, but I still look at it a little differently. I don’t think the legacy of the music is necessarily what I think about when I think of mine.