“Warriors,” a newly released concept album by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis  adapted from the 1965 novel by Sol Yurick and the 1979 film directed by Walter Hill, features twenty-six songs over eighty minutes. Listen below.

 The story in the album follows the street gang the Warriors (now all-female) as they make their way from The Bronx to their home turf of Coney Island in Brooklyn while being hunted by rival gangs and the cops, after being framed for the murder of Cyrus, leader of the city’s biggest gang.

It is sung by a starry cast including such musical theater stalwarts as Amber Gray, Jasmine Cephas Jones and Phillipa Soo as members of the Warriors; Colman Domingo, Joshua Henry, Casey LIkes, and Billy Porter as rival gang members; as well as recording artists  such as Ms. Lauryn Hill, Marc Anthony, Nas (as the borough of Queens), and Busta Rhymes (as Brooklyn.) Two cast members from the 1979 movie, James Remar and David Patrick Kelly, now play the cops.

Writes Chris Wiegand in a review in The Guardian, “this large cast is marshalled with the same brio Miranda showed in Hamilton. While its action is confined to one night, this mini-epic about the young, scrappy and hungry of Coney Island echoes that historical masterpiece’s bloody battles for territory and underlying dream of unity. Hamilton’s blend of combative rap, beatboxing, melodic sweep and plangent balladry is here spiked with ska, metal and salsa in a sprawling set….”

The AP’s Mark Kennedy elaborates: “Miranda and Davis offer a musical journey along with their narrative one — the sounds of salsa, ska, agro-rock, boy band, pop, old-school rap and even K-pop. Spanish and Korean mixes with the English. It’s a diverse buffet, reflecting New York. Some of the 26 tracks are fragments, some hushed, others fully formed and some hysterical, as with “We Got You,” a seductive love song delivered by a male gang wearing cardigans. “Quiet Girls” — featuring a fierce Porter — is a feminist anthem and “A Light or Somethin’” is a gorgeous love song for our times. The three part finale is a gloriously messy, eight-minute ride through a eulogy, a struggle and then grace. ‘Warriors’ is a portrait of a mean, tough city with determined residents bound together by frustration with their transit system.”

As you listen, you can read the lyrics in The Warriors Lyric Book