Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton remix series, Hamildrop, has come to an end, but it’s going out with a bang. For a gospel reworking of “One Last Time,†the extremely booked and busy Miranda casually flipped through his Rolodex and rung up none other than Barack Obama to feature on the song, along with BeBe Winans and Christopher Jackson. Obama pops in midway to recite a passage from George Washington’s farewell address: “Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.â€
The significance here, beyond it being another reminder of Obama’s absence [tear] is that Miranda was partly motivated to write Hamilton after performing “Alexander Hamilton†at the White House for Obama in 2009. Miranda and Christopher Jackson returned to perform “One Last Time†— which was also inspired by Obama’s “Yes We Can†slogan — as part of Obama’s farewell celebrations. Ah history, always coming full circle.