It’s hard to overstate what a cultural phenomenon The Lion King soundtrack was in 1994. Of the five songs written by Elton John and lyricist Tim Rice, three were nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars (with ballad “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” triumphing over the epic “Circle of Life” and the exuberant “Hakuna Matata”). Two were nominated for Song of the Year at the Grammys. The soundtrack album was the biggest-selling record of the year in the US, holding off competition from the likes of Nirvana, Green Day and TLC. The songs form the basis of the highest-grossing musical in the history of Broadway. Thirty years on they remain embedded in our collective consciousness, so Lin-Manuel Miranda could be forgiven for feeling wary about being called on to provide the tunes for follow-up Mufasa: The Lion King. “Well, when you list it like that, it’s terrifying!” he says, a sly grin breaking through his black goatee. “I didn’t think about any of those stats!”
Miranda, of course, knows a thing or two about creating cultural phenomenons himself. The 44-year-old New Yorker made his Broadway debut in 2008 with his Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights. A few years later came Hamilton, the hip-hop-inspired historical musical about one of the founding fathers of the US that became a bona fide pop culture juggernaut. It’s been a fixture on Broadway since it debuted in 2015, and in London’s West End since 2017.
