NEW YORK (AP) — Most New Yorkers, Lin Manuel Miranda argues, answer the next query: When was the primary time you watched “Warriors”?

“I saw it when I was 4, an unsupervised teenager. My friend’s older brother had a VHS tape. There were no adults around,” he told the Associated Press. “Everything you’re afraid of as a New Yorker, growing up in the city, is in that movie.”

The 1979 cult classic follows a street gang that moves from the Bronx to their Coney Island turf on an all-out assault. The group is wrongly accused of murdering one other gang leader, Cyrus of the Gramercy Riffs, who’s in search of peace.

October 18 Miranda — in her first full musical after “Hamilton” — and award-winning actor and playwright Eisa Davis will release “Warriors”, a musical concept album inspired by the film, with some significant changes.

Lauryn Hill is their Cyrus, and their Warriors gang is made up entirely of ladies, played by Kenita Miller, Sasha Hutchings, Phillipa Soo, Aneesa Folds, Amber Gray, Gizel Jiménez, Jasmine Cephas Jones, and Julia Harriman.

It’s not a one-to-one story, and it’s definitely not an easy gender swap. “My sense of New York, which I think really comes out in this album and was sparked in the movie Warriors, is a real dream of unity and peace,” Davis says. “And that was something I really felt we could relate to.”

The interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

AP: How did this project come about?

MIRANDA: It was a movie that lived in my brain before I even began forming memories. And then a friend from college sent me an email in 2009 after “On the Heights” got here out. He was working as an assistant to one in every of the producers of the movie, Larry Gordon, and he said, “‘Warriors’ the musical, what do you think about that?” And I wrote him an in depth email about how that may never work. But he got me in, just by asking the query. And so, , years had passed and I had just finished my first show on “Hamilton,” and I believed, “What do I want to do next?” And “Warriors” was already there, like he raised his hand and said, “You’ve been thinking lowly of me since 2009.”

I noticed in a short time that I wanted to write this with someone, and someone smarter and cooler than me. I believed of Eisa. Eisa and I actually have been friends for “Passing Strangely” and “In the Heights” were on Broadway the identical season in 2009, but we had never really worked on anything together before. And so in early 2022, I took her to the basement Drama Book Store and he said, “Warriors? A musical?”

She had never seen the movie, and I had seen it too over and over. So we form of met one another halfway and began writing seriously.

AP: Why an album?

MIRANDA: The proven fact that it is so intensely visual for you, once you listen to it, it’s like, “Why an album?” Most of us cannot afford to watch that much theater growing up. … And even the forged albums that I loved growing up, I never saw those shows. … But I listened to those forged albums and connected the dots and created the show in my head. … There’s an important tradition of musicals that started off as concept albums. I believe of “Jesus Christ Superstar” what I consider to be the gold standard. “Evita” even recently “Hadestown” which is one in every of my favorite recent shows, began its life as a song series.

And I used to be really curious should you could even tell that story. Because I believe the toughest thing for me about adapting an motion movie right into a musical is that the motion sequences and the songs are fighting for a similar space. So what do you do? Doing it as an album, you’ll be able to musicalize those things in loads of ways. There are times once we’re stretching out time and isolating a moment, and there are occasions once you hear the music and, like, you are hitting the sound effects.

The second thing that was really exciting was the chance to delve into the secrets of writing music by being within the studio with talented musicians and working with a producer. Musical theatre writers work in a extremely specific way, where we sit in a room by ourselves and then we try it on actors and we get it back and we try it again. And I wanted to improvise with musicians.

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DAVIS: I also think it has to do with our aesthetic being more pop—a hybrid of pop and musical theater. … For something as iconic as that movie, it is a shorter path to making an album.

It’s also a extremely exciting narrative challenge to see how we are able to actually tell a complete story on this sung way, with these small scenes.

AP: What did the gender swap of a number of the principal characters make possible?

MIRANDA: It was a coin flip that made me think, “I think I understand why this might be interesting to write about.”

I just got out of “Hamilton”, Gamergate took place online. … The anonymous web trolls were just saying, “I don’t think women should be in video games. Here’s her f—— home address.” And that form of act, the chaos of deciding to destabilize someone’s life and then going back to the pc, the very first thing that went through my mind was Luther shooting Cyrus and pointing on the Warriors and saying, “They did this.” And now the Warriors have the remainder of the night where every gang thinks they broke the truce and are fighting for their lives due to actions of 1 person with a gun. I made that connection and I believed, “Well, if the Warriors are women, how does that change the narrative?” It complicates it in a extremely compelling way at every point.

DAVIS: I believe it is so necessary to think about this – this can be a group of ladies that nobody believes. Everyone is accusing you falsely, as Lin says, and what are you doing? What are you trying to do?

And after all, the best way we divide it’s that there’s each this drive home, but there’s also still the likelihood (of peace). And so getting back to that dream of peace is so crucial.

But I also think it was really necessary to proceed down that path and make certain that ladies didn’t just step in and do the male stuff.

AP: How did you get there? Lauryn Hill on board? She’s a really fitting Cyrus.

DAVIS: She symbolizes that, right? If she wanted to, she could exit and tell everybody to stop fighting, and people would listen, because that is what Ms. Lauryn Hill has done along with her artistry and authority for all these years. And it was her way. We had to have her, what I mean? There was no plan B, no plan B in any respect.

MIRANDA: I contacted her manager a little bit over a 12 months ago and said, “I’m working on it.” She said, “Lauren is a huge fan of Hamilton, so send us what you have in mind.” Eisa and I rigorously wrote our letter and just stayed in contact along with her manager for a complete 12 months, never having a plan B, texting one another, until in the future we had a Dropbox file with all these harmonies.

AP: Are there any ambitions for theatrical adaptation? Or a movie?

MIRANDA: We haven’t any cinematic ambitions on this regard. … We created our musical love letter to a movie that already exists. We hope that once you listen to this album, you imagine the story and the way it happens.

If there’s a world for stage life, like a stage adaptation of this album, that may be very exciting to explore. And should you imagine something really unbelievable, we now have created a really difficult problem for ourselves.

___

The Cast of “Warriors”

CYRUS: Lauryn Hill

COCHISE: Kenita Miller

COWGIRL: Sasha Hutchings

FOX: Phillipa Soo

CLEON: Aneesa is folding

AJAZ: Amber Grey

REMBRANDT: Gizel Jiménez

SWAN: Jasmine Cephas Jones

MERCY: Julia Harriman

Shaunie and her current husband, Pastor Keion Henderson, are each divorced, and their previous marriages ended with their children.

The “Basketball Wives” star has five children with her ex-husband, Shaquille O’Neal, while Keion has a daughter with his ex-wife, Felicia Henderson.

On the September 20 episode of Cam Newton’s “Funky Friday” podcast, Pastor Henderson explains his role with Shaunie’s children and divulges his relationship with her, the previous NBA star.

Towards the top of the nearly two-hour-46-minute video, Henderson explains how he and Shaquille work together to be present and supportive of Shaq and Shaunie’s children.

“We went to Me’arah’s graduation party and we went out on the field with her,” he said, referring to Shaq and Shaunie’s youngest child. He continued, “When she announced what school she was going to, we talked about when he was going to speak and when I was going to speak. I mean, bro, me and him. We both know there’s nothing to fight about because everything that happened happened before we met.”

Shaunie and Shaq were married from 2002 to 2011 and had six children of their very own.

Shaunie’s son, Myles, was young when she began dating Shaq, who had a daughter, Taahirah, each from previous relationships. Together they raised 4 children, Shareef, Shaqir, Amirah and Me’arah, within the O’Neal home.

During their marriage, Shaq filed for divorce from Shaunie in 2007, but before it was finalized, the 2 managed to reconcile and ultimately called off the divorce.

This only lasted about two years before Shaunie filed for divorce in 2009, and the couple tied the knot in 2011. Both Shaq and Shaunie later revealed that his infidelities contributed to the breakdown of their marriage.

But with all that behind her, the “Basketball Wives” executive producer remarried in 2022 to Henderson, senior pastor of The Lighthouse Church and Ministries.

Further explaining his relationship with Shaq, he told Newton, “He’s a grown man, I’m a grown man. He’s always respected me. I’ve always respected him. I think he would say the same thing. Nothing but love. No problems. Grown men don’t do that.”

“So we talked. We had events together. We’re good. We’re cool,” he added.

Henderson was married to his ex-wife Felicia Henderson for nine years, and the 2 had one daughter and two children, to whom he was a stepfather. So when it comes to determining his role in Shaunie’s kids’ lives, he already has some experience within the patchwork family department.

He said, “You have to know what a child needs. Because my wife’s kids, some of them were old enough — they didn’t need a father, they needed a friend. So I’m not walking in the door trying to be their father. They understand that.” When Henderson and Shaunie married, 4 of her five children were already adults — Me’arah turned 18 earlier this 12 months.

Knowing that almost all of Shaunie’s children were already adults, Henderson developed a technique for constructing relationships with them. “I learned what each child needed individually and I transformed myself into that void,” he said. “The problem with most people is they try to fill the corners where the furniture is. You just have to be what they need.”

“So I became what they needed,” he said, and it seems his strategy worked. He continued: “Our relationship is amazing. When I say amazing, I mean amazing. I’ve never had a problem, a side note, a line, ‘that’s not my daddy.’ We’ve never had one of those moments in our relationship history.”

Serena Williams’ near-death experience following the birth of her first daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, in 2017 has resurfaced amid outrage over a Twitter post blaming black moms for their very own deaths during childbirth.

Studies have shown that the maternal mortality rate for black women is twice that of white women. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that for each 100,000 live births, there have been 70 maternal deaths for black women.

On September 18, Joel Berry, editor-in-chief of the satirical website The Babylon Bee, sparked outrage amongst users when he posted a post that has since been deleted: “My wife is a maternity nurse and I can tell you with absolute certainty that these women have a higher mortality rate because they refuse to use prenatal care, they take more medications, they refuse to eat a proper diet, and they generally don’t take as much care of themselves.”

Outraged advocates for black women were quick to indicate that the tennis player’s self-advocacy saved her life. After an emergency C-section, Williams developed life-threatening complications, including blood clots in her lungs and legs. She also experienced a severe cough that caused the C-section wound to rupture.

The sports icon opened up in regards to the terrifying experience in a 2018 interview with “Today.” She said her persistent requests for a CT scan led doctors to find the blockages. “I can’t believe how much went wrong on the way to meet her. … I almost died,” Williams said.

She also opened up about her harrowing birthing story within the HBO documentary Being Serena, which was released the identical 12 months. The 23-time Grand Slam winner also told her medical team that she was at increased risk for potentially fatal blood clots after suffering a embolism in 2011.

There has been a backlash against the MAGA supporter online, with many pointing to Williams’ history to refute his claims. “The greatest athlete of all time IS BEING IGNORED ON THE SURGEON’S TABLE. Serena Williams almost fucking died in childbirth. I can’t believe it. Unlimited GALA,” one wrote tweet.

Second user common“Serena Williams almost died because she didn’t take her prenatal meds and took drugs??? Maybe… his wife could base her care on that assumption. Studies do show that drug use is highest among the most privileged, but carry on.”

Berry is “pro-life” and swears he’s not a racist. And I wouldn’t want his wife to take care of any black woman’s pregnancy, given those thoughts. https://t.co/VQ3QySxI7K

— @ijbailey (@ijbailey) September 20, 2024

Third tweet To read“It all makes sense. I mean, Serena Williams had serious complications during childbirth, and who eats worse than the world’s number 1 tennis player??” Another user called Berry’s wife’s claims “complete racist bullshit,” as one other person hoped she could be sued for violating her Hippocratic oath.

Two years later, in 2019, Williams helped Mahmee, a tech company hoping to rework prenatal and postnatal take care of moms and kids, raise $3 million.

A month before the couple’s second daughter, Adira, is due in 2023, Williams’ husband Alexis Ohanian said People “They were obviously taking every precaution and doing everything they could to make sure everything went smoothly for Serena,” though he didn’t provide details on the measures being taken to make sure history didn’t repeat itself.

Another viral lie. Amber Nicole Thurman got sepsis after taking an abortion pill that did not remove all of the contents of her uterus. She didn’t get timely care from her abortion provider and died. Georgia law didn’t prevent her from getting the care she needed. Georgia law doesn’t… photo:twitter.com/nhJvgw1nNh

— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) September 18, 2024

Additionally, on September 18, Berry shared the tragic story of Amber Nicole Thurman, a Georgia mother who died in August 2022 from complications caused by a delay in receiving medical care attributable to that state’s anti-abortion laws.

Thurman, who was six weeks pregnant, went to a North Carolina clinic where she was given abortion pills. A number of days after the abortion was induced, she developed an infection attributable to fetal tissue remaining within the uterus.

The mother of one experienced significant blood loss and loss of consciousness, prompting her to hunt medical attention at Piedmont Henry Hospital. She required dilation and curettage, a procedure to empty the uterus of its contents, but was denied the care she needed for 20 hours.

This Young Georgia Mom Was Killed By An Abortionist After She Got Stuck In Traffic On Her Way To An Abortion Clinic, And The Clinic Refused To Book Her A Surgery Slot. Instead, They Sent Her Home With The Abortion Pills Mifepristone And Misoprostol, Which Caused Her Septicemia… https://t.co/H8fvm2wmq7

— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) September 18, 2024

While within the hospital, her organs failed before staff intervened. Her death was ruled “preventable,” in line with ProPublica. Georgia law prohibits doctors from terminating a pregnancy after six weeks, the time when the fetus has a detectable heartbeat.

Berry insists the black mother was “killed by the abortionist” who provided her with the pills, not because she was denied the life-saving procedure after she became unwell.