Mike Shinoda

Michael Kenji Shinoda (, shih-NOH-də; born February 11, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and graphic designer. He co-founded the rock band Linkin Park in 1996 as the band's co-lead vocalist, as well as rhythm guitarist, keyboardist, primary songwriter and producer. He also created the hip-hop-driven side project, Fort Minor, in 2004. He has also served as a producer for tracks and albums by artists such as Lupe Fiasco, Styles of Beyond, and the X-Ecutioners.

Shinoda is also the co-founder of Machine Shop Records, a California-based record label. Outside of music, Shinoda is an artist and graphic designer. He has painted several pieces of artwork, some of which have been featured in the Japanese American National Museum. In 2018, Shinoda released his debut solo album Post Traumatic, which consists of 18 songs about his feelings following the death of Chester Bennington, his Linkin Park bandmate.

Michael Kenji Shinoda (Japanese: 篠田 賢治, romanized: Shinoda Kenji) was born on February 11, 1977, in the Panorama City neighborhood of Los Angeles, California to Muto and Donna Shinoda. He was raised in Agoura Hills. His father is Japanese-American. He has a younger brother named Jason, and he was raised as a liberal Protestant. Shinoda's mother encouraged him to take classical piano lessons when he was six. By 13, he expressed the desire to move toward playing jazz, blues, and hip-hop. He later added the guitar and rap-style vocals to his repertoire during his middle school and high school years.

Shinoda attended Agoura High School with future Linkin Park bandmates Brad Delson and Rob Bourdon. The three formed the band Xero and began to make a more serious attempt to pursue a career in the music industry. After graduating high school, Shinoda enrolled in the Art Center College of Design of Pasadena to study graphic design and illustration. He attended classes with DJ and turntablist Joe Hahn. While studying at the Art Center College of Design, he experienced a form of identity crisis. Years later, he told an interviewer:

I think it was probably in college that I realized that there was a difference between Japanese and Japanese-American. That's important to realize. It's not the same thing and then eventually with Linkin Park, I toured in Japan. I've been there now I think four times. I remember the first time I went, how familiar it seemed, just getting out of the plane, it smelled like my aunt's house, in the airport, it smelled like Japan. I don't know if anybody else even noticed it but I walked out of the plane and thought this is definitely familiar to me, didn't even see anything yet. And then going to Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, you just recognize things about the way people act, the small things that people do such as how you'll grab a piece of paper. There are things that are more obvious like taking somebody's business card with two hands. You don't do that in the States. When I saw somebody do that I went, "Oh yeah, my uncle always does that," you know. There are little things that culturally come from Japan but they also exist in Japanese American culture and it made me feel like the connection was there and I kind of hadn't realized how much of it was there.

Shinoda graduated in 1998 with a Bachelor of Arts in Illustration and obtained a job as a graphic designer.

Shinoda founded Linkin Park with Rob Bourdon and Brad Delson in 1996. They eventually brought in turntablist Joe Hahn, bassist Dave Farrell, and vocalist Mark Wakefield. The earliest incarnation of the band was called Xero. The band was limited in resources and originally produced and recorded music in Shinoda's bedroom, which resulted in the release of a four-track demo tape, entitled Xero, in 1997. When the band was unable to find a record deal, Wakefield and Farrell left the band to pursue other musical interests, though Farrell's departure turned out to be temporary. The band later recruited Chester Bennington and successfully landed a record deal with Warner Bros Records. Linkin Park's first studio album, Hybrid Theory went on to become a breakthrough success and helped the band attain international success.

Shinoda is closely involved in the technical aspects of the band's recordings; over the subsequent releases, that role continued to expand. Shinoda, with guitarist Brad Delson, engineered and produced the band's Hybrid Theory EP, and performed similar roles in the recording of Hybrid Theory. He has contributed to the instrumental and lyrical composition on most of Linkin Park's songs. Though Bennington primarily served as Linkin Park's lead vocalist, he occasionally shared the role with Shinoda. Bennington had a higher pitched and emotional style of singing, whereas Shinoda has a baritone hip-hop style delivery. Shinoda organized and oversaw the band's first remix album Reanimation in 2002, contributing his own production of remixes that he made in his home studio for "Crawling" and "Pushing Me Away". Shinoda collaborated with graffiti artist DELTA, graphic designer Frank Maddocks, and bandmate Joe Hahn to prepare Reanimation's artwork. Mike also collaborated with the Flem, Delta, James R. Minchin III, Nick Spanos, and Joe Hahn for the artwork of the band's second studio album Meteora. Shinoda also produced the album, with his bandmates and Don Gilmore which was his first production experience. By the release of the Jay-Z and Linkin Park collaborative mashup EP, entitled Collision Course in 2004, Shinoda's involvement in the creation of the albums continued to grow. He produced and mixed the album, which won the Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in 2006.

The band released their next album, Minutes to Midnight, on May 14, 2007. On this album, Shinoda shared a production credit with longtime producer Rick Rubin. This album was also the first time that Shinoda, best known for his rapping, sang a featured vocal (even though he sang backing vocals for their previous two albums). Shinoda sang in the songs "In Between", "Hands Held High" and the B-side song "No Roads Left", as well as rapping in the songs "Bleed It Out" and "Hands Held High". Despite the rarity of Shinoda-fronted singing tracks, music magazine Hit Parader ranked him at number 72 of the Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time.

Shinoda and Rubin again shared a production credit for Linkin Park's fourth album, A Thousand Suns, which was released on September 14, 2010. This album featured more of his singing than rapping. Shinoda raps in three tracks, specifically "When They Come for Me", "Wretches and Kings" and second single "Waiting for the End", while he sings on numerous songs (specifically verses), such as third single "Burning in the Skies", "Robot Boy", "Blackout", fourth single "Iridescent" and lead single "The Catalyst". Bennington and Shinoda sang simultaneously together on "The Catalyst", "Jornada del Muerto" and "Robot Boy", while "Iridescent" features all band members singing together.

Linkin Park released their fifth album, Living Things, on June 26, 2012. This album was stated as more "rap-centric" by Shinoda compared to the previous two albums. Whereas there were tracks like "Skin to Bone", "Roads Untraveled" and "Castle of Glass" which featured the singing vocals by Shinoda and had folk music, influenced by the works of Bob Dylan, as well as the inspirations of Dylan. Allmusic described Shinoda's work for the album as, "a fitting soundtrack for aging rap-rockers who are comfortable in their skin but restless at heart". Recharged, which is a remix album consisting remixes of original songs from Living Things, was released on October 29, 2013. Shinoda used his EDM experience from his work with Steve Aoki on "A Light That Never Comes", to remix some songs for the album. Shinoda reinterpreted songs like "Castle of Glass" and "Victimized". He also worked with his old friends like DJ Vice and Ryu for the album.

As Linkin Park succeeded in multi-platinum record sales, Warner Music Group granted Shinoda his own record label in 1999. It was first known as The Shinoda Imprint. He and bandmate Brad Delson together worked on the label in 2004 and renamed it to Machine Shop Records. The label signed several artists through late 2007.

Music for Relief is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization dedicated to providing aid to survivors of natural disasters and the prevention of such disasters through environmental programs. Music for Relief was founded by Linkin Park in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Since its inception in 2005, Music for Relief has raised over $8 million for the victims of various natural disasters, including the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the October 2007 California wildfires, cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, hurricane Sandy, and typhoon Haiyan.

Shinoda was greatly inspired by both rock and hip-hop acts when he was a child. He grew up listening to Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, N.W.A, and Juice Crew, and later Nine Inch Nails, Deftones, the Roots and Aphex Twin. Other influences and favorites of Shinoda's include Led Zeppelin, Run-DMC, the Beatles, Rage Against the Machine, Purity Ring, Arctic Monkeys and Santigold. In an interview about his work with Linkin Park as their sound evolved over time from heavy metal toward a more electronic approach, Shinoda explained in an interview with Rolling Stone that "We want to hopefully move even more into being able to make more substantial music. We're definitely paying attention to the substance and the nuance, and we hope to make something that's really cutting edge and really different."

In an Impericon interview, Shinoda stated his 'non-definitive' top three bands of all time to be Nine Inch Nails, Led Zeppelin, and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Various critics have compared Shinoda's rapping style to that of fellow rapper Eminem. A reviewer for Entertainment Weekly noted that Shinoda's vocals were "flowing like Eminem on Ambien" An editor for Uncut stated that The Rising Tied was "bound to please fans of Linkin Park and Eminem alike." Jo Timbuong of The Star compared "Where'd You Go" to Eminem's song "When I'm Gone", noting the former as "more melancholic." A reviewer of the Scripps Howard News Service stated that Shinoda's rapping is "a smidge closer to Eminem than he is to Vanilla Ice."

Shinoda is a third-generation Japanese American (sansei). His grandfather and aunt were both interned in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II.

Shinoda married author Anna Hillinger in 2003. Together, they have three children.

Shinoda was awarded with the Japanese American National Museum's Award of Excellence in 2006. In 2009, Shinoda received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) from the Art Center College of Design. East West Players honored him with a Visionary Award and a dinner in 2010. In September 2012, he started writing articles for The Big Issue in the UK and was the publication's U.S. election correspondent.