The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

Write for Us
Want your voice to be heard? Submit a letter to the editor, send us an op-ed pitch or check out our open positions for the chance to be published by the Daily Utah Chronicle.
@TheChrony
Print Issues
Write for Us
Want your voice to be heard? Submit a letter to the editor, send us an op-ed pitch or check out our open positions for the chance to be published by the Daily Utah Chronicle.
@TheChrony
Print Issues

Holding it down

Fort Minor

The Rising Tied

Warner Bros. Records, Inc.

Three out of five stars

Within the first minutes of Fort Minor’s The Rising Tied, it becomes obvious: Mike Shinado was the better half of Linkin Park.

Make no mistake about it, Shinado’s album-under the moniker Fort Minor-is a solo project and an epitome at that: Shinado seems to have his hand in everything on the album except the shrink-wrapping. He produced every beat, played every instrument, wrote every rhyme and even crafted the illustration for the cover.

The result is a full-blown hip-hop effort in which Shinado plays both emcee and producer-and does a surprisingly solid job.

His rhymes are highly personal and refreshingly imaginative. In “Kenji,” he retells touching family history, and in “Cigarettes,” the tobacco industry becomes an analogy for hip-hop.

The beats on Rising Tied are fresh hip-hop bangers full of diverse instrumentation. And when hip-hop notables Common, John Legend and Black Thought appear on the album, Rising Tied seems to have it all-even Jay-Z as executive producer.

Unfortunately, somewhere during the second half, the album becomes redundant. Shinado’s personal rhymes seem like over-sharing, and his creative efforts are dulled.

Whether you love them or hate them, forget what you know about Linkin Park-Fort Minor’s is a far-removed sound worth checking out.

Marshal Hogan

Leave a Comment

Comments (0)

The Daily Utah Chronicle welcomes comments from our community. However, the Daily Utah Chronicle reserves the right to accept or deny user comments. A comment may be denied or removed if any of its content meets one or more of the following criteria: obscenity, profanity, racism, sexism, or hateful content; threats or encouragement of violent or illegal behavior; excessively long, off-topic or repetitive content; the use of threatening language or personal attacks against Chronicle members; posts violating copyright or trademark law; and advertisement or promotion of products, services, entities or individuals. Users who habitually post comments that must be removed may be blocked from commenting. In the case of duplicate or near-identical comments by the same user, only the first submission will be accepted. This includes comments posted across multiple articles. You can read more about our comment policy at https://dailyutahchronicle.com/comment-faqs/.
All The Daily Utah Chronicle Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *