Lin-Manuel Miranda Sings “A Whole New World” With Lea Salonga & It’s Awesome

Lin-Manuel Miranda is making headlines for a lot of reasons. His Hamilton is blowing the doors off of Broadway and realistically needs no introduction. Tuesday afternoon, Miranda provided a special treat for fans waiting in line for the Hamilton ticket lottery. The act was part of the Ham 4 Ham mini-shows, in which Hamilton cast and other Broadway luminaries do small performances to entertain those waiting in line. But today he offered a special guest: Lea Salonga, performing “A Whole New World,” which she recorded as an uncredited vocalist for the animated Disney classic Aladdin. First, the pair sang a song Miranda had written for his ex-girlfriend, whom Salonga also knows. Their performance of “A Whole New World” feels loose and fun. It’s weird hearing Salonga sing it — in that she sounds just like Jasmine had been dropped in Times Square and told to put on a show. But it’s awesome seeing them knock it out together as cold tourists and the funemployed hang out and try to get tickets. Salonga won a Tony at 18 and currently stars on Broadway in Allegiance, a show about Japanese-Americans forced into an internment camp during during World War II. Miranda, after the success of his hip-hop biographical musical about Alexander Hamilton, is writing music for 2016’s animated feature Moana, an adventure movie set in the South Pacific.