Russell Simmons to Bring Hip-Hop to Broadway

Last week, legendary hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons introduced his plan to bring hip-hop to Broadway with the production of The Scenario. The musical incorporates songs from the genre’s 30+ years of existence, and is set to debut late 2015. To conceptualize the storyline, which is penned by historian-author Dan Charnas, imagine “Love Story meets Public Enemy.” Check out excerpts of his interview with Rolling Stone and read the full article here.

How did the idea for a hip-hop musical start?
I met the guys at [The Scenario production company] Big Block and they took me to see [hard-rock jukebox musical] Rock of Ages. I saw it and said, “What the f*ck? This is exactly what I need to do.” It was the most obvious thing in the world to me. I was inspired when I saw it. I must be getting old because what I’m doing now is right squarely in the middle of Broadway, which is squarely in the middle of America. It’s overdue.

What do you envision The Scenario looking like?
It’ll be half-concert, half-storytelling. Something like this deserves a little bit of a love story and a little bit of [Public Enemy's] “Fight the Power.” It’s not easy to write, but it’s easy to conceive of. It’s all the old people going to the Broadway theatre and seeing rebellious youth culture [laughs]. Two generations later, rap still has that rebelliousness; it hasn’t changed. At the same time, though, it’s successful pop culture. We’ve never had an American cultural phenomenon like this that has spanned so many generations.

How do you balance that rebelliousness with Broadway’s more mainstream tendencies?
With black pop culture, we changed the landscape where it doesn’t have to be rebellious; we’re proud of it anyway. It doesn’t have to be hated by the mainstream. I don’t think we’re going to face any resistance. Anyone who resists this is just a foreigner to pop culture. I’m old. Rap’s old. It’s accessible. It’s mainstream. Putting a bunch of guys onstage to tell poems for six years [in Simmons' Def Poetry Jam] was unheard of. So I did fun, alternative sh*t. This. Is. Not. One of them. This is the least alternative sh*t, but it’s a celebration of hip-hop.

Do you already have particular songs in mind that you want to include in the show?
There’s no one song that will define this show. There’s no theme song. If somebody says, “No,” we move on. If we write the show and it requires a song, then we’ll get it. I can’t imagine we won’t. We’re not looking to rob anybody, but no one’s going to hold us up because there’s no one song that can hold us up. We have to shoot ourselves to kill us and do this wrong. I want to be very hands-on. I can drive it home. I think I have the sensibilities to make it. Look at me: I’m a 90-year-old hip-hop guy. I’m the perfect person to do this.