The Setup - "Alexander Hamilton" & The Question of Narrative Power
Hamilton opens with a question that haunts all national origin stories: "How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished get up and climb?"
This is Lin-Manuel Miranda asking: WHO GETS TO BE REMEMBERED? Who gets their story told? Whose narrative survives?
Nigeria's founding story has the same problem. We celebrate Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, and Kwame Nkrumah (the "Big Four"), but how many know about Herbert Macaulay? Samuel Ajayi Crowther? Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti fighting for women's rights while the "official" founding fathers got the credit?
In "Alexander Hamilton," we meet a young immigrant with ambition. In Nigeria's founding, we meet men shaped by colonialism, educated abroad, returning to fight for independence. But like Hamilton, the question persists: who decided these men were the heroes?
"It's Quiet Uptown" - The Aftermath & What We Lost
"It's Quiet Uptown" is about grief, about loss, about what's left after ambition consumes everything.
Eliza outlives Hamilton. She outlives the scandal, the duel, the political battles. And for 50 years, she works to restore his legacy, to tell his story "right," to make sure the world remembers him as more than his worst moment.
We don't have Eliza-figures for Nigeria's founding fathers' wives. Zainab Bello (Ahmadu Bello's wife) is barely known. The wives of the founders aren't celebrated as legacy-keepers. Instead, their stories are private, domestic, erased.
"It's Quiet Uptown" is also asking: what was it all FOR? Hamilton's shot, his ambition, his financial system, did it free people? Or did it just consolidate power in different hands?
Nigeria's independence: did it free people? Or did it just transfer colonial power to African elites? The answer is: both. And neither. It's complicated. It's quiet. It's painful.
ifiokambrose
1 Comments
"It's Quiet Uptown" - The Aftermath & What We Lost
"It's Quiet Uptown" is about grief, about loss, about what's left after ambition consumes everything.
Eliza outlives Hamilton. She outlives the scandal, the duel, the political battles. And for 50 years, she works to restore his legacy, to tell his story "right," to make sure the world remembers him as more than his worst moment.
We don't have Eliza-figures for Nigeria's founding fathers' wives. Zainab Bello (Ahmadu Bello's wife) is barely known. The wives of the founders aren't celebrated as legacy-keepers. Instead, their stories are private, domestic, erased.
"It's Quiet Uptown" is also asking: what was it all FOR? Hamilton's shot, his ambition, his financial system, did it free people? Or did it just consolidate power in different hands?
Nigeria's independence: did it free people? Or did it just transfer colonial power to African elites? The answer is: both. And neither. It's complicated. It's quiet. It's painful.