Mike Shinoda

Michael Kenji Shinoda is an American musician, rapper, singer, producer, songwriter, and graphic designer, born on February 11, 1977. Shinoda co-founded the band Xero in 1996, which later evolved into the band Linkin Park and brought him widespread success and fame. He is the band's producer and co-vocalist, specializing in bringing a hip-hop texture to the band's heavy rock sound, later on delving more into singing lead and harmony parts in the band's later works.

Mike Shinoda has a number of projects outside of Linkin Park, as well. His side-project Fort Minor was formed in 2004, releasing its debut album The Rising Tied in 2005. Shinoda has worked on scores for a number of films, including his own score for 2012's "The Raid: Redemption" and Joe Hahn's 2016 film "MALL." Beginning in 2018, Mike Shinoda began releasing music under his own name with the Post Traumatic EP and subsequent Post Traumatic. Shinoda has also produced music for a wide variety of musicians and bands other than his own, including Styles Of Beyond, grandson, and PVRIS. Shinoda has also designed a number of album covers for his own projects, collaborated with a number of clothing and shoe brands, and hosted art exhibitions featuring his own artwork.

Early Life

When Mike Shinoda was 15, a friend’s dad chaperoned them to a Anthrax and Public Enemy show during Anthrax' Attack Of The Killer B's tour in 1991. Guitarist Scott Ian said, "I had one of the dudes from LINKIN PARK, a long time ago, one of them told me he was at the ANTHRAX/PUBLIC ENEMY show in Los Angeles on the tour, and he loved it, and it was a very important night for him. So that was nice to hear." Shinoda was so inspired by the musical melding that when he decided to form his own group, he wrote with both rhymes and rhythms in mind.

"When we started, we wanted to play something that we weren’t hearing. The first show I went to was Anthrax and Public Enemy. They did ‘Bring the Noise’ together, and I was like, ‘That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.’ Everybody in our band —– and our fans, too —– has just been raised on different styles of music. Everybody’s mixing everything. When you hear Redman do a song with Roni Size, or Busta Rhymes with Ozzy, you know something’s happening."

Mike's first instrument was an upright piano his family had in the house. His mother made him start taking piano lessons when he was about 6 years old. He made his first performances at piano recitals when he was 6 or 7 and later started singing at a youth theater group with his friends. He was into Dungeons & Dragons, so his first song was inspired by videogames and medieval themed movies. He wrote it on piano when he was 11 or 12 for a contest his piano teacher ran and won first place (15 dollars prize). He was obsessed with Dr. Dre and at some point he asked a keyboard so he could try to make sounds like he was making. At about 13, he ended up wanting to go in a direction (hip hop / production, jazz, blues) that his teacher, Eileen, wasn't familiar with, so he left.

In 1993, at 16, Mike started building a library of sounds and making rap demos on a cassette four-track. He bought some production equipment (a keyboard and then a sampler with the help of Styles Of Beyond's producer Vin Skully) and started making beats and playing with MIDI and digital-based music. "I literally learned how to produce by making mashups. I had been making mashups since '96 or '97 when I got my first sampler. That's what I did. That's how I learned to use a sampler because I didn't have enough recording gear to actually make a full song. I would just throw a vinyl a cappella down over a beat that I made. I ended up mashing up my favorite hip-hop records and my favorite rock records. It might be Depeche Mode and Wu-Tang, and Nine Inch Nails, The Jackson 5 and Public Enemy. It would be fucking bonkers the whole time. I wasn't making music for anybody else, I was making it for myself." He was nicknamed "Spooky" by his friends because his beats were always creepy. The beats were inspired by old-school rock & roll or blues songs and he eventually started rapping over them. For the most part, he made a lot of Gangsta rap joke songs, resulting in a demo tape called Pooch Pound.In high school, Mike was involved in the Student Government and used to freestyle on the PA during lunch on Fridays.

Mike Shinoda attended the ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles in 1994, studying art and graphic design. Mike's love of drawing manifested itself through his love of video games as a kid: "Every day after school, I rushed through my homework so I could dive back into Mega Man, Super Mario Bros. and Metroid. In between playing, I sat with a pencil and paper, imagining new heroes and villains, and placing them in new worlds that fit into each game’s ecosystem." Once he fell in love with sampling, he combined his passions and began drawing album covers himself and taking more art classes in school. It was by a teacher's recommendation to apply for ArtCenter, which was a competitive program at the time, only admitting twelve high school seniors a year. By the time he completed his last semester there, Linkin Park was gearing up to record their debut album.

Career

Linkin Park

Mike Shinoda met Brad Delson, Rob Bourdon, and Mark Wakefield during their school days, Mike attending their band practices for their high school band Relative Degree despite not being in the band itself, he would occasionally put samples into their songs and watch them practice. He developed a strong friendship with Brad when they were both in 8th grade. "I loved the drums so much growing up, just listening to them. The reason that I got to know the Linkin Park guys because in high school I was really good friends... I started it with my friend Mark and we were both in art class together every day, we hung out outside of school all the time. I always gave him rap recommendations. He was in a band with these other guys from school (Relative Degree) that I didn't really know, and the drummer was from another school. And I would literally go watch them practice just to watch the drummer play. And then that ended up being Rob and our guitarist Brad."

Still in his development stage of rapping, Mike used to record demos with Ryu of Styles Of Beyond in his bedroom. He went on to design Styles Of Beyond's original logo and produce an unreleased version of "Marco Polo" for the album 2000 Fold. He would also create album art for DJ Frane's Fantastic Boatride and Saukrates' The Underground Tapes as well as for the Styles Of Beyond album.

Mike and Mark have been friends since they were 12 and they loved a lot of the same groups. Mark would introduce Mike to more guitar-based music like Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana and Pearl Jam while Mike introduced Mark to hip-hop artists such as Biggie Smalls, Tupac, Mobb Deep and Wu-Tang Clan. They went to high school together and had a reputation as the guys who made funny songs. After both graduated, they started a new band called "Xero" (pronounced "zero") in the winter of 1995/1996. "We named it Xero with an X because we thought it looked cool," explained Mike.

At that point, Mike was mainly doing beats for various hip hop acts (and for himself as well), but decided he wanted to experiment with mixing different styles of music together. After one or two writing sessions, they enlisted the help of Brad and recorded a demo containing 4 songs with a few of them having guitars done by him. The artwork was a Xerox photo of what appeared to be a mountain and the inside featured a faded photo of four band members and a close-up photo of Mike Shinoda. The tracklist featured "Fuse", an untitled track, "Stick And Move" and "Reading My Eyes". They sent it to an A&R representative from an indie label/publishing company whose mailing address was included in one of the CDs they owned and got a phone call from Paul Pontius, the representative from Immortal Records, a day later asking them to come over. He was shocked to learn the duo recorded a professional sounding demo on a 4-track recorder in Mike's bedroom and encouraged them to put a band together and start playing shows. Rob said, "we haven't really figured out the exact date, but it was somewhere in ‘97 that we came together, most of us came together."

Following the release of their self-titled demo tape and many showcases, vocalist Mark Wakefield left Xero in 1998. Mike talked about being the sole frontman during this period, “I only sang on my own for around two months. When we did shows, I’d get friends to the other vocals. It was really fun. It’s strange, though, whenever I’ve written vocals, I’ve always written them with two people in mind. I think it adds a cool depth and vibe to the songs.” During a LPU chat, Mark Fiore from The Snax recalled being asked by Brad to learn every song on the Xero cassette tape for a show. The band soon met Chester through an audition, and began work on the Hybrid Theory EP and Hybrid Theory album. Speaking about the EP, Mike said, "That was a little project we put together when Chester first came to California. It was the first time we were in the studio. Actually it was with Mudrock who did Godsmack’s tracks. He was someone we had met who was really nice and we could do something for a small amount of money." When asked why older songs that later appeared on Hybrid Theory weren't on the EP, he answered, "We had, at that point we were like jelling with Chester so like we were trying to make new music, you know what I'm saying? We had already like put out like demos with those songs on it so people kind of knew they, like existing fans, knew they existed so we didn't, you know? I think that was part of the idea. But more of the idea was to like move forward and like do, you know, new material."

Mike would first work with Brad on the music before he and Chester would write lyrics. "When we did Hybrid Theory and Meteora, Brad and I did the bulk of the writing. We would write the music and I would write the vocals and we'd give them to the rest of the band to make notes or change it, but essentially we were doing it like a hip-hop production team. This is the track, these are the vocals," said Shinoda. As for the lyrics, Mike said, "Chester and I started writing our best stuff when we talked about the parts and their meanings without defensiveness or pride. The importance is placed on the best part, not who is writing it." Chester added, "I can't talk about this crappy thing that happened to me and expect him to be able to sing it. It has to be vague enough for both of us to go, 'We can relate to it.' And we found that by writing in that way, our lyrics were hitting home with a lot of different people and a lot of different age groups." Mike further elaborated, "Personally, I have always been more interested in composition and songwriting, and honesty in my lyrics. I’m not so sure the latter is at the top of everyone’s priority list, in our genre at least. Our lyrics are more introverted than most. We probably focus more on an emotion, not the response. We’re not really an “I’m gonna kick your ass” type of band." Jeff Blue commented, "Mike's lyrics had a dark vibe, his early demos all had rain, concrete, references etc. I loved 'Points of Authority,' but the first demos are what kept me motivated. Mike is very prolific and cinematic, that grabbed me instantly as opposed to other artists at the time simply writing aggressive lyrics." As for Don's influence on the lyrics, Chester said, "Our producer, Don Gilmore, made it a point to keep telling us, 'I want to be entertained, I don't wanna hear about your problems!' So, as much as it killed us, we tried to balance out the 'poor-me' parts with the entertainment."

Speaking about the sound of the album, Mike explained, "We love so many different types of music that it’s hard to differentiate where we’re getting our ideas from. We may write something and it doesn’t necessarily come from one genre. Sometimes it does and sometimes it comes from a bunch of different things. We have always wanted to do that within our band. When I first talked to the guys about starting the band it was always something like this. We wanted to do something that was a melting pot of these styles. I had said in an interview once that there was a theory of people in America being like a salad bowl or a melting pot. A melting pot is where they all come together and a salad bowl is where they hold their individuality and they exist together. At one point I thought our band was more of a salad bowl where each sound maintains its integrity and just exists in the song together but I totally have changed my mind. I think that it’s a melting pot where we’ve got a lot of things that come together but in the end they all just gel and just become one song and that’s what is most important to us. It’s just a song. It’s not the rap part and the rock part and the electronic part and the singing part and the rapping and the screaming and the whispering." The band tried their best to make all those elements come together without feeling forced. "As part of the writing process, I record everyone directly into a computer to best integrate our digital and live elements. We spend countless hours mixing and matching parts until we get the right combinations and composition."

Fort Minor

See the Fort Minor page for further information.

Linkin Park was having internal issues with their record label with Warner Bros Records in late 2004 to 2005, once their world tour for Meteora had concluded in September 2004. When news of the dispute finally hit the press in May 2005, it was stated that “the band is not going forward with plans to record its next Warner album, due in 2006.”

Also in December 2004, Mike told Blabbermouth, “We are trying to change up the pace a little bit. We'll probably be working on a lot of other projects before we get started on the next Linkin park album. We want to give our fans some different stuff, so as not to be redundant. Everyone is looking for great creative avenues to explore. It's no secret that we like to keep working, so it's safe to say that you can expect a number of things from us in the coming months.” He also stated that he was working on a lot of "hip hop production."

Mike confirmed the project in March 2005 with MTV, which said, “And what did he do in his off time? Not much. He only recorded a solo album.” Mike appeared on Fuse's Daily Download in April 2005 to discuss the project and to reveal that Jay-Z would be serving as executive producer of the project. Around the same time, pictures of Mike and Lupe Fiasco in the studio surfaced online. Mike announced to MTV that 'Remember The Name' would be the first single from the project, due out later in the summer of 2005. Mike told Market Wire, “My band-mates (in Linkin Park) have encouraged me to share this music with the world, and now that the record is almost finished, I can't wait.”

Mike said, "Before Linkin Park, I pretty much only made hip hop. At that time my equipment was very cheap, and I didn't really know much about production or engineering. I've learned so much about production, songwriting, and people in the last few years. I think Fort Minor started about two years ago when I began to wonder what it would sound like to bring it full-circle, to get back to my roots, but use all the tools I have learned since then."

Styles Of Beyond's management company Spytech Records in April 2005 announced, “xt type deal. Machine Shop Records has the same vision as Styles of Beyond and are here to make changes to the hip-hop game. S.O.B. has also been working on their first major label appearance, “ FORT MINOR ” which features Mike Shinoda ( Linkin Park ), Common, Black Thought (The Roots), Kanye West, Kenna, and more. And catch this…the album is executive produced by none other than (drum roll please) JAY-Z!” They confirmed the appearance of Styles Of Beyond, who would go on to feature on a majority of the album; unfortunately, Kanye West did not guest on the project.

On June 1, 2005, Mike launched the new Fort Minor website. “Greetings - Welcome to the Fort Minor Official Site. The fact that you are actually translating this portion of the site means that you are either a dedicated fan or a complete lunatic. In either case, we are happy to have you. Enjoy. Also - Keep exploring the site for secrets about the album. It will change without warning.” There was a looping one minute clip of music which later turned out to be part of a sample of what was used on 'Introduction' on The Rising Tied. On June 15, a coded message read, “the debut fort minor album is entitled the rising tied in an effort to get back to his hip hop roots, mike wrote and played virtually every note on the album. the album features a group of his friends in the hip hop community.”

When questioned about the name "Fort Minor", Mike explained, "i am drawn to the dynamics of contrasting parts. for example: the hybrid theory soldier (with dragonfly wings). even the whole style of LP is rooted in these dynamics. the style i'm painting in right now (you can see it on my DC remix shoe art) is like this too--lots of different contrasting parts and styles forced together. the name FORT MINOR relates to this interest. FORT represents the stronger side of things. MINOR has two meanings: small, and if we're talking about music, minor is a darker or sadder key. but although these are my reasons for choosing that name, they don't define the music entirely. the listener has to fill in that part. that's why i kept the name intentionally ambiguous, so that the listener's imagination can help define the connection between the sound and the name."

Solo Ventures

see Post Traumatic EP and Post Traumatic for further information.

Mike first began work on his album Post Traumatic about eight days after the July 20th passing of Chester Bennington. He said to Vulture, "So about eight days after Chester’s passing, I went into the studio and started making some stuff. I was starting to feel like I was a little bit out of touch with reality; I wouldn’t sleep well at all and then I’d wake up and go into my studio. Half the time I would just go in there and make stuff in the dark. The connection with reality was strained or blurred: It just felt so surreal with everything that had happened. Because I was in that headspace, one day I flipped on my phone and started recording 'Place to Start' — I sang it into the phone while it was playing. I liked what that looked like: It felt like I was Skyping or FaceTiming you. I started to shoot things when I was really feeling them so that the sincerity would be there. I wasn’t 100 percent sure I would release the videos that way, but the more I thought about it, the more it became obvious that it was the right thing to do." Tweeting in January 2018, he said, "The hardest thing was just getting started in general. The only person I spent more time with than CB was my wife (honorable mention to Brad and Dave). Getting back into the studio was terrifying."

Mike created and wrote most all of the music on the album himself. When he released the Post Traumatic EP in January, he tweeted, "I have a bunch of songs; some are more finished than others. I wanted to release these three today and see what the fans want me to do next. If you like these, I’ll keep going." The music was recorded at Mike's home studio The Stockroom and at The Village Studios in Los Angeles.

Following the official launch of his solo career, Mike began releasing further singles and projects. The first was in 2018, where he featured on Martin Garrix's 'Waiting For Tomorrow.' Original a Linkin Park collaboration featuring vocals from Chester in 2016, the song was finally released in October 2018. Regarding how the song came together, Mike said, "A few years ago, I started a song with Martin Garrix, who came to the studio in LA while we were recording One More Light. In the following weeks, he was in preparations to headline Ultra Festival for the first time, and we agreed he should play the unfinished version of the song as a surprise. But afterwards, as the year unfolded, life took us in other directions, and the track remained unfinished...until now. In response to fan requests, we’re proud to announce that 'Waiting For Tomorrow' is now available online everywhere. Shout out to Pierce Fulton and Brad Delson for their participation on this special track."

Once the Post Traumatic cycle concluded, Mike continued to slowly push out more singles over the years. The first was 'Fine,' released in November 2019 included as part of the soundtrack for the Russian movie The Blackout. The song sees Mike dive into his darker electronic influences like Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails. Mike Shinoda said "fine" is a song "which was written and composed for the movie The Blackout which you guys will know as Avanpost. They sent me a clip of the film early on and I just kinda fell in love with the set up and the story inspired some cool ideas for the song and that's where Fine came out of." His single 'Open Door' followed in 2020 as the "lead" single from his Dropped Frames, Vol. 1 release, being the only song on the record with vocals. An instrumental called 'License To Waltz' was also released as a single for Dropped Frames, Vol. 3. The music from his Dropped Frames releases came from his Twitch livestreams that he hosted during the COVID-19 pandemic, where he would take prompts and requests from fans in the chat and make a song to that affect. Mike also remixed Deftones' 'Passenger' for their 20th anniversary addition of White Pony in November 2020, winning him a Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording in 2022.

While he released the generative Ziggurats mixtape project at the end of 2021, he also released a traditional single in February 2021 called 'Happy Endings,' featuring iann dior and UPSAHL. Mike explained that the song was written via Zoom, saying, "I immediately felt comfortable. We got on the Zoom and it was comfortable, it isn't always like that." Upsahl added that sessions are already weird for her but Zoom was a super weird experience. He added, "For me, it was like, "This song is dope, I want to put it out. It's not part of an album. It's a moment." Mike spent much of 2021 and 2022 producing singles for other artists, including PVRIS, grandson, and more. Mike stayed quiet with his own music until 2023, where he returned with 'In My Head' featuring Kailee Morgue in March, featured as the credits song for the movie Scream VI. Mike also wrote another song from this soundtrack: Demi Lovato's 'Still Alive.' In October, Mike released 'Already Over,' a rock song reminiscent of Linkin Park's Minutes To Midnight sound. Describing how the song came about, Shinoda said, "For the last few years, I've been writing and producing for other people. I had songs with Demi Lovato, Grandson, Justus Bennetts, and PVRIS. A number of other things. There was a point where I realized, "Okay, I've done things, I've been avoiding getting on the microphone, and really just focusing all this attention on other people's things." He added, "I realized that I missed the artistic reward of going into a project for your own voice – for my voice – and kind of going deep on that. And, you know, the other thing was that I've never really considered myself a singer so much. I mean, I do sing, but it's functional. It's something that I would do to write a song, like sing harmonies or whatever. And I've occasionally sung on Linkin Park stuff." To promote the song, Mike flew around the world and composed bands out of established musicians and influencers from the area and performed the song (and an additional song from one of Mike's other projects), these versions being released as the Already Over Sessions in 2024.

Mike Shinoda has also delved into the world of scoring, with a number of original scores under his belt. While Linkin Park's music was featured in multiple films and shows throughout the early 2000s, his first original score work was his MTV VMA 2005 Score he made in collaboration with Lil Jon. Mike's first proper movie score came in the format of his score for 2012's The Raid: Redemption, in partnership with Joseph Trapenese. Mike announced his work on the soundtrack on September 9, 2011 through his personal blog. "For a long time, I have been wanting to score a film. In order for it to work, it would have to have a great story, stunning visuals, and the timing would have to work out in a way that didn’t distract from all the things I want to do with Linkin Park. I’m really excited to have finally found the right project. The movie is called The Raid. Its intense martial arts choreography, amazing cinematography, and great story have been inspiring all kinds of new music. I’m excited for all of you to see—and hear—this film." Also in 2012 came Mike and Rami Djawadi's score for the Medal Of Honor: Warfighter game, for which the music video for 'Castle Of Glass' was made in partnership with. This soundtrack saw Shinoda experiment with more Middle Eastern sounds, combining them with his own electronica. Samples of 'Castle Of Glass' are used in tracks like 'Saa'iq.' His latest score work was for Joe Hahn's Mall in 2016, the score being produced with the rest of Linkin Park and Alec Puro. Full tracks like 'White Noise,' 'It Goes Through,' and 'The Last Line' featured on this release, some of which were demos worked on for previous Linkin Park records.

Production work

see Mike Shinoda Discography#Songs Written of Produced By Mike Shinoda for further information.

From 2020 onwards, Mike Shinoda began producing singles for up and coming artists. Many of these artists were discovered by Shinoda simply through his own music discovery methods, as he is always listening to brand new music and trying to stay caught up to what the current state of art is. Some of these low-key discoveries include AmirSaysNothing, a New York rapper for whom he produced the songs 'Overstand' and 'Clockwatch' for, and grandson, who features on Shinoda's own 'Running From My Shadow' from Post Traumatic. Shinoda has also worked with a number of well-established artists over these years: he produced Sir Sly's 'Are We Having Any Fun?,' PVRIS's 'Take My Nirvana,' and Mike Posner's 'Home,' to name a few. During his Twitch livestream era, Mike hosted the #ShinodaProduceMe series, where creators could send Mike music for him to produce live on his stream. Many of these were later officially released, including Alex McMillian's 'Bones,' Pealeaf's 'What Is Yours,' and Wax//Wane's 'The Way Down.'

Remixes

Remixing was part of Mike Shinoda's core musical talents as he developed his skills, and over the years he has produced a variety of officially released remixes. He has released a variety of remixes for his own songs, including Reanimation's 'P5hng Me A*wy' and the 'Victimized' and 'Castle Of Glass' remixed from Recharged. Mike's own The Crimson Chapter EP features multiple versions or remixes of his own 'Already Over,' including a hip-hop Fort Minor remix and a Trent Reznor-esque minimalist remix.

Mike created 'Enjoy The Silence (Reinterpreted)' for Depeche Mode's Remixes 81-04 collection in 2004. Depeche Mode's hit 'Enjoy The Silence' was reimagined by Mike Shinoda as a distortion guitar-driven version of the song, in which he imprinted what, at the time, was Linkin Park's distinctive nu-metal sound. Despite his bandmate Rob Bourdon being credited for drums on the remix, Mike said "They are VST drums, synth drums. I made them. I played them with the keyboard". Linkin Park wrote about the impact Depeche Mode's music had on them: "We grew up on the band. They were one of our earliest influences--from the sounds they used to the ways they put a song together." Linkin Park songs influenced by Depeche Mode include 'Crawling,' 'Numb,' 'Heavy,' 'Breaking The Habit,' 'The Catalyst,' 'In Pieces,' and 'Pushing Me Away.'

For their 20th Anniversary release of White Pony, Deftones released a remix album of the record entitled Black Stallion, on which Mike's remix of 'Passenger' featuring James Maynard Keenan was included. Shinoda has said that the song is one of his favorites from White Pony. The remix earned him a Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards on March 4, 2022.

Art and graphic design

Alongside other collaborators, Mike Shinoda has been largely involved with Linkin Park's aesthetic. For the band's entire career, he has worked alongside either Joe Hahn or Frank Maddocks (or both). The trio together designed the album cover for Hybrid Theory, with Mike and Joe doing the line art and sketches before Maddocks finalized the artwork. (see Hybrid Theory#Artwork for more)

Mike also worked on the artwork for Meteora, painting on the warehouse-sized mural alongside Joe Hahn, Boris Tellegen, Frank Maddocks and James Minchin III. Mike described his work as "interesting, cubist satellites." The art was a depiction of where the album was at on that particular day. Each member kept painting over other works, and it at all became a cohesive work of art riddled with sketches and random words everywhere. The album cover is a picture of Delta working with spraypaint taken by photographer James Minchin III. (see Meteora#Artwork for more)

Other album covers Mike Shinoda has designed for his projects include for his own solo album Post Traumatic, Fort Minor's The Rising Tied, and Linkin Park's 'The Emptiness Machine' physical CD single, amongst others.

In 2008 and 2009, Mike hosted his Glorious Excess art exhibition series. The first was the Glorious Excess (Born) exhibition, showcasing both large-scale pieces that blended his experiences in the popular spotlight and more classically driven pieces. The exhibition ran at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California from July 12 to August 3, 2008 in the George and Sakaye Aratani Central Hall. The artwork displayed was a mixture of digital creations and physical paintings. A follow-up exhibition, Glorious Excess (Dies) was held the following year from August 30 to October 4, 2009, which displayed Shinoda's latest artwork, expanded upon Mike's social and consumerist commentary, the museum writing, "Shinoda’s new works continue to evolve, blending his personal experiences in the spotlight with social commentary and fine art technique while expanding his signature visual vocabulary, juxtaposing symbols of death, money and sex against vibrant neo-pop imagery. In an age where superstardom dominates the media, Glorious Excess (Dies) immortalizes consumption, fame and wealth, challenging the viewer to question what is real."

The first Glorious Excess show coincided with Mike Shinoda's second collaboration with DC Shoes, his MSDC series featuring his artwork mixed with traditional Japanese imagery on DC's Xanders and Prides models, showcasing the shoes at the exhibit before becoming available on August 1, 2008 alongside a booklet containing Mike Shinoda's artwork. Mike had previously worked with DC Shoes in 2004, remixing their Clientele skate shoe with artwork reminiscent of Reanimation and the forthcoming The Rising Tied. The proceeds from these collaborations and the art shows went directly to aiding ArtCenter scholarships.

For Fort Minor's 2015 single 'Welcome,' Mike Shinoda set up a 12x80ft. canvas in Venice Beach, California and painted it for the song's music video. This canvas was broken up into 1,000 vinyl jackets that were used for the exclusive pressings of the single's vinyl for sale on the Fort Minor online store. A fan project was launched by LPCatalog to piece back together the wall based off of fan submissions of the vinyl jacket they received.

During Mike's Twitch streaming era, Mike began investing in and creating NFTs. In December 2021, Shinoda released Ziggurats, a generative mixtape featuring over 5,000 unique audio and visual NFTs on the Tezos chain. Each mixtape features a unique instrumental track generated with the same vocal track and a unique album cover.

Other Ventures

Mike Shinoda and the other members of Linkin Park founded Music For Relief in 2005, a nonprofit charitable trust that provides aid to survivors of communities affected by natural disasters. It was founded in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Linkin Park made multiple trips out to affected areas on behalf of the organization, members traveling to areas such as New Orleans, Haiti, and Thailand, some of which were documented in LPTV and LPUTV episodes.

In 2015, Mike Shinoda collaborated with luxury watch brand Bamford Watch for the M. SHINODA X BAMFORD Daytona watch, a sleek fully matte black watch featuring a dark grey dial, military grade titanium coating, and Shinoda's own skull design from the Glorious Excess exhibits. Shinoda described the watch as a "wearable piece of art."

Shinoda collaborated with 686 PARKA in November 2013, creating exclusive snowboarding parkas designed by Shinoda, blending "technical features with street styling." Only 175 were made and were available at specific retailers.

Mike Shinoda has invested in a number of companies and startups, including Sonos and Spotify. Shinoda was heavily involved in promoting music technology and AI advancement in 2021. Explaining his feelings about the new state of technology in an interview with Billboard, Shinod said, "With labels and future tech, I feel like doors are opening to new types of artists. At a certain point, you wouldn’t have considered a content creator on a social platform to be a music artist. Now you can! In the future, those doors might also be open to nontraditional projects that are pushing the boundaries of what it is to be an artist.”

Discography

Full article: Mike Shinoda Discography

Albums and EPs

• Post Traumatic EP (2018)
• Post Traumatic (2018)
• Ziggurats (2021)
• The Crimson Chapter EP (2023)
• Already Over Sessions (2024)