By: Zac Frederick
When I listened to “Wait for It” from the Hamilton Mixtape, a remix by famous music artist Usher of the original “Wait For It” from the Hamilton Soundtrack, I was at first struck by how similar the two songs appear to be. To me, they both seemed to have similar sounding styles, and both are sung with the same rhythms and notes. Even the words are almost identical at nearly every part of the song, save a verse or two. However, another listen helped to point out some of the key differences of the original and the remix.
First and most notably, it is Usher who sings the song, and not Aaron Burr, the character who recites the song in the play. Usher has a different style for the song, a more pop-sounding style, which is also reflected in the music number as well. Usher gives the song a remix that listeners would be more familiar with having no context of the surrounding play of Hamilton. This difference is similar in this sense with one that is found later in the song. While the play version takes the third verse to direct the song at Hamilton’s personality and character saying that he “doesn’t hesitate [and] exhibits no restraint,” Usher’s remix leaves this bit out, opting to simply repeat the previous chorus. While this is a smaller detail in reality, it does point to the notion that Usher is generalizing the song to a broader audience. He doesn’t want to limit the song specifically to those who are familiar with Hamilton, and by leaving this out Usher allows the song to become more relatable to the general listener. The song distances itself from the plot of the show, and becomes more of a general lesson as a whole. In this sense, the song looses a significant asset when evaluating its importance.