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Michael Kenji Shinoda is best known as the emcee of the world famous rock band, Linkin Park. His other talents include artistry
and record producing.
He was born on February 11, 1977 in Agoura Hills, California to Leslie(Father) and Kim(Mother) Shinoda.
His first exposure to the music business came during his middle and high school years, and attended a concert featuring
Anthrax and Public Enemy. He soon began taking piano lessons, studying classical pianist techniques, and later moved on to
jazz and hip hop. It was during this period that he added the guitar and, eventually, rap-style vocals to his repertoire.
After his teens, Mike started to write and record songs in a makeshift studio set up in his bedroom with Linkin Park bandmate,
Brad Delson. By the end of high school, Linkin Park drummer, Rob Bourdon, became involved and the trio formed the band Xero,
and began to take a serious attempt at making it into the music industry.
After high school, Shinoda enrolled in the Art Center College of Design to study graphic design and illustration. It was
here that he met DJ and turntablist Joseph Hahn, who, along with Delson's college-mate Phoenix, were soon added to Xero's
line-up. Shinoda eventually graduated from college.
With his background as a graphic artist, Shinoda has taken it upon himself in designing all of Linkin Park's artwork with
Hahn, and has even designed the album cover for Styles of Beyond's debut album, 2000 Fold. In later years he would go on to
showcase his art skills; he had his debut art showcase at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles in the time leading up to Linkin Park's
album Minutes to Midnight.
Mike's band (at this point called Hybrid Theory) brought in second vocalist Chester Bennington, replacing Mark Wakefield.
Only one six-track EP would be released under the new name before legal issues forced them once again to change it and thus
the band decided to call themselves "Lincoln Park". However, the domain name lincolnpark.com was already taken,
so it was ultimately changed to Linkin Park. Several labels had passed on the band until, finally, Warner Bros. Records made
the decision to add the band to its long list of artists. The band's first album surfaced in the Fall of 2000 as Hybrid Theory,
sporting a cover designed by Shinoda himself; before long the album had found its way high into the charts, launching Linkin
Park as one of the most popular exponents of the rap-metal crossgenre.
The band later on went to produce albums like Reanimation, a remix album with Shinoda producing some tracks himself, Meteora,
the band's sophomore album and Shinoda continuing his multiple duties as a musician and studio technician, Collision Course,
a 'mash-up' album with Jay-Z and Shinoda continued to have his hands in every aspect of the release, and on May 15th, the
band released their third official album titled Minutes to Midnight. Mike, for the first time got recognized for his work
by being labeled an official producer of the album and was mentioned on the album's inlay.
In May 2003, he married childrens author Anna Hillenger. Shinoda formed a side project named "Fort Minor" between
2004 and 2005 because he couldn't demonstrate as much of his hip-hop background in Linkin Park. The debut album from Fort
Minor, titled The Rising Tied, was released on November 22, 2005, and scored a Top 10 smash with the surprise hit single "Where'd
You Go", which peaked at #4 on Billboard Hot 100 chart.
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