Mike Shinoda

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Mike Shinoda has toured Japan with Linkin Park about four times, and the first visit began with a smell. Stepping off the plane, he later recalled, "it smelled like my aunt's house, in the airport, it smelled like Japan." He had not yet seen a single street. That moment hints at a man who spent his life sorting out which parts of himself came from where. He is a rapper, singer, songwriter, producer and graphic designer, born in Los Angeles. He is also a painter whose work has hung in a museum. How does a kid with piano lessons and a drawing pad end up as the second voice of one of the biggest rock bands of his generation? Why did he build a separate hip-hop project under a different name? And what happens to a songwriter when the voice beside his own goes quiet?

  91127

• 2. Agoura Hills Beginnings

  ›

  Shinoda's mother steered him toward classical piano when he was six years old. He was born on the 11th of February 1977 in the Panorama City neighborhood of Los Angeles, to Muto and Donna Shinoda. He grew up in Agoura Hills with a younger brother named Jason, in a liberal Protestant household. His father is Japanese-American.

  By the age of 13, the piano was no longer enough. He told people he wanted to play jazz, blues and hip hop instead. During middle school and high school he added guitar and rap-style vocals to what he could do.

  At Agoura High School he met Brad Delson and Rob Bourdon, who would become his bandmates for decades. The three formed a group called Xero and began to treat music as a possible career. After graduation, Shinoda enrolled at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena to study graphic design and illustration. One classmate there was Joe Hahn, a DJ and turntablist. Shinoda finished in 1998 with a Bachelor of Arts in Illustration and took a job as a graphic designer.

  The band he founded with Bourdon and Delson in 1996 was still a bedroom operation. It recorded in Shinoda's own room, and in 1997 it produced a four-track demo tape titled Xero. Hahn, bassist Dave Farrell and vocalist Mark Wakefield joined the lineup. No label wanted the music, so Wakefield and Farrell drifted away, though Farrell's exit proved temporary. The group then recruited Chester Bennington and signed with Warner Bros Records. Their first studio album, Hybrid Theory, arrived in 2000 and carried them to international success.

  912141618

• 3. Console and Microphone

  ›

  Long before the fame, Shinoda had decided that the studio was as much his instrument as any guitar. With Brad Delson he engineered and produced the Hybrid Theory EP, then took a similar role on the full album. He contributed to the music and lyrics of most Linkin Park songs. His role behind the glass kept growing with every record that followed.

  In 2002 he organized and oversaw Reanimation, the band's first remix album. He made his own versions of "Crawling" and "Pushing Me Away" in his home studio. For Meteora he shared production duties with his bandmates and Don Gilmore. In 2004 came Collision Course, a mashup EP with Jay-Z. Shinoda produced and mixed it, and it won the Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in 2006.

  The two lead voices in the band could hardly have been more different. Bennington sang in a higher, emotional style, while Shinoda delivered baritone, hip-hop verses. That balance shifted on Minutes to Midnight, released on the 14th of May 2007. Shinoda shared the production credit with Rick Rubin. For the first time he sang a featured vocal, on "In Between", "Hands Held High" and the B-side "No Roads Left". He still rapped on "Bleed It Out". Even with so little singing, the magazine Hit Parader placed him at number 72 on its list of the Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time.

  A Thousand Suns, released on the 14th of September 2010, leaned further toward melody. Shinoda rapped on only three tracks, including "Waiting for the End", and sang verses on songs such as "Burning in the Skies" and "The Catalyst". On "Robot Boy" he and Bennington sang at the same moment. Asked by Rolling Stone about the band's drift from heavy metal toward electronics, he said they wanted "to make something that's really cutting edge and really different."

  Living Things, out on the 26th of June 2012, was described by Shinoda as more rap-centric. Yet tracks like "Castle of Glass" gave him sung vocals with folk touches inspired by Bob Dylan. Allmusic called his work there "a fitting soundtrack for aging rap-rockers who are comfortable in their skin but restless at heart". The remix companion Recharged followed on the 29th of October 2013. Shinoda drew on dance-music skills picked up with Steve Aoki on "A Light That Never Comes", and he reworked "Castle of Glass" and "Victimized".

  The Hunting Party, released on the 17th of June 2014, was produced by Shinoda and Delson. It brought in Page Hamilton of Helmet, Rakim, Daron Malakian of System of a Down and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. Its first single, "Guilty All the Same", was the band's first non-remix song with a guest rapper instead of Shinoda. Shinoda began pre-production on the next record in mid-2015, on his phone, while the band was touring that album. That record became One More Light in 2017, the first to use outside songwriters. It was mostly sung, though "Good Goodbye" brought rapping from Shinoda, Stormzy and Pusha T.

  2223242832

• 4. Fort Minor

  ›

  "'Fort' represents the more aggressive side of the music," Shinoda explained when asked about the name he chose in 2004. "'Minor' can mean a few things: if you're talking about music theory, the minor key is darker." He added that he wanted to name the album rather than put his own name on it, so people would focus on the music and not on him.

  The hip hop he wanted to showcase went back to childhood, when he listened to Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, N.W.A and Juice Crew. Later came Nine Inch Nails, Deftones, the Roots and Aphex Twin. He began recording after Collision Course appeared in November 2004. A mixtape with DJ Green Lantern, called Fort Minor: We Major, helped promote the project.

  The Rising Tied came out on the 22nd of November 2005. Jay-Z, who had worked with Linkin Park on Collision Course, was its executive producer. Guests included Styles of Beyond, Lupe Fiasco, Common, Black Thought of the Roots, John Legend, Holly Brook, Jonah Matranga and Celph Titled. Shinoda told Corey Moss of MTV News that he set himself a rule. He would play every instrument and write every lyric, apart from strings, percussion and choir parts. Robert Hales directed the first video, for "Petrified", released a month earlier.

  Critics received the album warmly, and comparisons to Eminem followed. A reviewer for Entertainment Weekly wrote that Shinoda's vocals were "flowing like Eminem on Ambien". An editor at Uncut said the album was "bound to please fans of Linkin Park and Eminem alike." Another reviewer, from the Scripps Howard News Service, placed him "a smidge closer to Eminem than he is to Vanilla Ice."

  The biggest single was "Where'd You Go", which peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. During the week of the 26th of April 2006 it lifted album sales by 45 percent and pushed the record up 89 places to number 104 on the Billboard 200. "Petrified" and "Remember the Name" found a second life as soundtrack music for NBA Overtime on TNT. At the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, "Where'd You Go" won Ringtone of the Year. Billboard later ranked Fort Minor at number 19 among the one-hit wonders of the 2000s, since it was the project's only single to reach the top 25.

  In November 2006 a video for "Where'd You Go" arrived, and Shinoda felt it wrapped up the project nicely. He announced an indefinite hiatus because of his commitment to Linkin Park. On the 21st of June 2015, he confirmed Fort Minor's return with a new single, "Welcome". The next night the project played as the musical guest on the TBS talk show Conan.

  5561636465

• 5. Third Generation

  ›

  Shinoda is a sansei, a third-generation Japanese American. His grandfather and aunt were both held in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II. That family history sits behind one track on The Rising Tied. "Kenji" tells of a Japanese-American family living through the internment.

  At the Art Center College of Design, Shinoda went through what he describes as a kind of identity crisis. He later said he realized in college that being Japanese and being Japanese-American were not the same thing. Years afterward, touring Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya, he kept noticing small habits. People accepted a business card with both hands. He thought, "Oh yeah, my uncle always does that." The gestures existed in Japanese American culture too, and he had not realized how much of that connection was there.

  In 2003 he married the author Anna Hillinger. They have three children.

  Recognition from the community he writes about followed. The Japanese American National Museum gave him its Award of Excellence in 2006. In 2010 East West Players honored him with a Visionary Award and a dinner.

  112712

• 6. After Chester

  ›

  Chester Bennington died on the 20th of July 2017, only months after One More Light was released. Linkin Park cancelled its tour for the album and went on an indefinite hiatus. Shinoda turned to writing about his own feelings.

  On the 25th of January 2018, he released the Post Traumatic EP, with three songs about the aftermath. He issued it under his own name rather than as Fort Minor. In March 2018 he announced a full solo album and said he was filming a video in Los Angeles. He invited fans to appear and shared a map of the old Tower Records in Hollywood.

  The live return came on the 12th of May at Identity LA, one of his first performances since Bennington's death. Later that summer he was on the bill at the 2018 Reading & Leeds Festivals, alongside Post Malone, Panic! at the Disco, Dua Lipa, Brockhampton and Travis Scott. Fall Out Boy, Kendrick Lamar and Kings of Leon headlined.

  Singles arrived in sequence. "Crossing a Line" debuted on the radio station KROQ, and "Nothing Makes Sense Anymore" followed. "About You" featured Blackbear on the 26th of April, "Running From My Shadow" featured Grandson, and "Ghosts" came on the 7th of June. The album Post Traumatic, with 18 songs, was released in June 2018.

  The work kept coming. "Fine" appeared on the 1st of November 2019. In March 2020, he began streaming new music from his home studio and called the tracks CoronaJams, after the COVID-19 pandemic. From July he released them across three albums, Dropped Frames, Vol. 1, Vol. 2 and Vol. 3. "Happy Endings", with Iann Dior and Upsahl, followed on the 19th of February 2021. His remix of the Deftones song "Passenger" won the Grammy for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical at the 2022 ceremony.

  In March 2023, as Meteora was re-released for its 20th anniversary, Shinoda put out "In My Head" for the film Scream VI, with Kailee Morgue. He also produced and co-wrote "Still Alive" for Demi Lovato, which appears in the same film. "Already Over" came on the 6th of October 2023, and The Crimson Chapter EP on the 1st of December collected remixes of it, "In My Head" and "Fine".

  In September 2024, Linkin Park announced a new chapter. Emily Armstrong would join as co-vocalist and Colin Brittain as drummer, for an album called From Zero.

  7782858998

• 7. Canvas and Sneakers

  ›

  Three debut albums from 1999 carried Shinoda's artwork on their covers. They were Styles of Beyond's 2000 Fold, Saukrates' The Underground Tapes and DJ Frane's Frane's Fantastic Boatride. His hand reached most of Linkin Park's visual world, from album art and merchandise to web design and stage production art. For Reanimation he worked with the graffiti artist DELTA, designer Frank Maddocks and Joe Hahn. On Meteora the circle widened to the Flem, Delta, James R. Minchin III, Nick Spanos and Hahn.

  In 2003 he remixed the DC Shoes model "Clientele", reworking its colors and materials and designing the packaging and print ads. The next year he customized a Kid Robot "Munny" doll for a charity auction. In 2008 he returned to DC Shoes for a second project in two versions, Xander and Pride. Roughly 2000 pairs went on sale on the 1st of August 2008.

  His 2004 painting series was where the Fort Minor story and the gallery story met. Ten paintings became the basis of The Rising Tied and the backbone of its packaging. They also anchored his first public show, "Diamonds Spades Hearts & Clubs", which opened at Gallery 1988 on Sunday, the 19th of November 2006. Alongside the ten Fort Minor pieces hung thirteen more original works and five collaborative ones.

  That year he also set up the Michael K. Shinoda Endowed Scholarship at the Art Center College of Design. It supports illustration and graphic design students according to financial need and merit, and was first awarded in 2006. Sales of his original art, art shows and DC Shoes projects fund it. The school gave him an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 2009.

  His second show, "Glorious Excess (BORN)", premiered on the 11th of July 2008 at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. It had nine new pieces and was the first half of a two-part series. "Glorious Excess (DIES)" was due at the museum on the 22nd of August 2009. Shinoda said celebrity news worried him, and he wondered why a celebrity breakup got coverage when the world held bigger stories. The show centered on a famous, filthy rich, slightly violent character with no particular skill or talent.

  On the 6th of November 2014, Shinoda and Hahn painted an artwork on the Berlin Wall.

  111227

• 8. Producer for Hire

  ›

  In 2002, Shinoda and Joe Hahn teamed up with the X-Ecutioners to produce and perform on their single "It's Goin' Down". The following years kept him busy for other artists. He helped produce Lupe Fiasco's 2006 release, Food & Liquor. Between 2009 and 2012 he worked extensively with Styles of Beyond on Reseda Beach, adding instrumental and vocal parts.

  His own label began in 1999, when Warner Music Group granted him an imprint after Linkin Park's multi-platinum sales. It was first called The Shinoda Imprint. In 2004 he and Brad Delson renamed it Machine Shop Records. The label signed several artists through late 2007.

  He also wrote music for screens. He scored the MTV Video Music Awards in 2005. He worked with Ramin Djawadi on the score for the video game Medal of Honor: Warfighter. In 2011, he and Joseph Trapanese composed the score for the American release of The Raid: Redemption. Television gave him more themes. He contributed to the CNN documentary series This Is Life with Lisa Ling, wrote the title theme for Into the Badlands, and made the theme for Noor Tagouri's A Woman's Job.

  Some projects were pure play. In 2004 he released a remix and animated video of Depeche Mode's 1990 single "Enjoy the Silence". The next year he hosted Rock Phenomenon with DJ Vlad and Roc Raida, a mixtape pairing Linkin Park's "Papercut" with David Banner's "Like a Pimp (Remix)". For the 2006 Grammy Awards, he and Delson assembled a mashup of "Numb/Encore" with the Beatles' "Yesterday". Jay-Z, Linkin Park and Paul McCartney performed it live. In October 2008 he recorded a single, "Barack Your World", with his former bandmate Mark Wakefield.

  Giving back ran alongside the music. Linkin Park founded Music for Relief in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Since 2005 the charity has raised over $8 million for survivors of disasters including hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, hurricane Sandy and typhoon Haiyan.

  In September 2012, Shinoda added another job to the list. He began writing for The Big Issue in the UK and served as its U.S. election correspondent.

  2456606612