Mike Shinoda (born HS+5) is the rapper, songwriter, keyboardist, vocalist and rhythm guitarist, and oh yeah, graphic artist of Linkin Park.
Because he clearly wasn’t busy or productive enough, he started a “side proejct” named Fort Minor, which debuted with the absolutely extraordinary Rising Tied album, best known for the hit Remember The Name but which is peppered with some absolutely amazing work.
One of my favorite cuts is called Kenji a talking blues song in Rap, and one worth paying close attention to; a subject easily given to cliche, that is here given a clean, fresh, angry look…
Let me tell you the story in the form of a dream,
I don’t know why I have to tell it but I know what it means,
Close your eyes, just picture the scene,
As I paint it for you, it was World War II,
When this man named Kenji woke up,
Ken was not a soldier,
He was just a man with a family who owned a store in LA,
That day, he crawled out of bed like he always did,
Bacon and eggs with wife and kids,
He lived on the second floor of a little store he ran,
He moved to LA from Japan,
…When everybody was afraid of the Germans, afraid of the Japs,
But most of all afraid of a homeland attack,
And that morning when Ken went out on the doormat,
His world went black ’cause,
Right there; front page news,
Three weeks before 1942…
This is an album with one after another extraordinary song. Truly great.
