Mike Shinoda Tickets

Mike Shinoda In Concert

If frontman Chester Bennington provided the howling catharsis in Linkin Park, Mike Shinoda served as the rock band's understated, Yoda-like presence. On hits such as "In The End" and "Somewhere I Belong," Shinoda dishes out hard-fought wisdom in an easygoing voice that reveals an intuitive grasp of groove and flow. Despite such outward calm, he isn't always even-keeled: On the angsty "Faint," Shinoda cranks up the urgency of his rapping to match the jagged, electro-metallic instrumentation. 

Unsurprisingly, his non-Linkin Park work is just as wide-ranging and adventurous. Fort Minor serves as a solo outlet for inventive hip-hop with socially conscious lyrics and eclectic instrumentation. And on the 2018 album ‘Post Traumatic,' released under his own name, Shinoda exudes raw-nerve vulnerability as he works through the range of emotions he felt after Bennington's 2017 suicide. Naturally, it's a moving collection steeped in evocative electronic sounds, moody hip-hop production, and ruminative lyrics. 

This genre-busting approach makes sense: Shinoda was raised in southern California, where he grew up a hip-hop fan—albums by Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, and LL Cool J were early faves—and he played piano and keyboards. As a teenager, his tastes broadened to include blues and jazz; later, he started dabbling in guitar, sampling and making beats, and eventually rapping.

Shinoda co-founded Linkin Park precursor band Xero while still in high school. He continued playing with the group during and after college, juggling graphic design work with his burgeoning music career. That love of art has never dissipated; in fact, Shinoda even contributed to Linkin Park's design aesthetic and packaging. 

Appropriately, fans coming to his headlining tour can see displays of original artwork he made in parallel with ‘Post Traumatic,' in addition to hearing songs culled from that album, plus select cuts spanning his entire career.