Watch Obama Freestyle With ‘Hamilton’ Star Lin-Manuel Miranda at the White House

By Margo Gothelf 2 min read

It’s not every day you hear Obama tell someone to “drop the beat.”

The cast of the smash hit Broadway musical, Hamilton, stopped by the White House on Monday for a special performance for the Obamas and one lucky group of schoolchildren. Star and writer of the show, Lin-Manuel Miranda, stole the show when he brought Obama out to the Rose Garden for a little freestyle rap session.

“This is some serious business right here,” President Obama told Manuel. “This is the Rose Garden right here, this must be a little nerve-wracking. I hope I don’t drop these cards.”

The multitalented star busted out the craziest freestyle rap based around political cue cards Obama held up such as “Obamacare,” “Sunny and Bo,” “Supreme Court,” and “immigration.”

“We really need a new justice for the Supreme Court, in short, oh my gosh this is my book report,” Manuel rapped. “And immigrants, we get the job done, this is so fun, POTUS is holding up the signs, I’m not done.”

At the end of the freestyle, Manuel made sure to specify that he had not seen “those words prior.”

“You think that’s going viral? That’s going viral,” Obama joked at the end of the video.

With a little help from the White House’s social media pages, the video has already gone viral. The video has been retweeted 22,000 times on Twitter and has 7.8 million views on Facebook.

The Hamilton cast joined Michelle Obama earlier in the day where they held a student workshop and Q&A session. The cast documented the whole trip on social media using the hashtag, #Bam4Ham.