Fort Minor
Fort Minor
by Millionout on Aug.06, 2010, under Fort Minor
Fort Minor is a hip hop musical project spearheaded by the American singer-songwriter, rapper and multi-instrumentalist Mike Shinoda.
Born on 11th February 1977 in Aguora Hills, California, Shinoda first came to prominence as a vocalist, rhythm guitarist and keyboardist in the alternative rock group Linkin Park. The band enjoyed significant success during the 2000s, releasing three studio albums (Hybrid Theory, Meteora and Minutes to Midnight) which sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and spawned a number of smash hit singles, including One Step Closer, Crawling, Papercut, In the End, Numb, Breaking the Habit, What I’ve Done, Shadow of the Day and New Divide.
In late 2004, Shinoda signed with Machine Records and began creating music under the name of his side project Fort Minor. He released two EPs in May and October 2005 – Fort Minor: Sampler Mixtape and Fort Minor: We Major – before releasing his debut solo album The Rising Tied in November. He played almost all the instruments on the album himself but employed a string orchestra and choir for a few of the tracks and also had his Linkin Park bandmate Mr. Hann, Bobo from Cypress Hill and the rap group Styles of Beyond provide vocals on a number of the songs.
The album was a reasonable mainstream success, reaching number 51 on the US Billboard 200 album chart and producing the huge hit single Where’d You Go (ft. Holly Brook and Jonah Matranga) – which sold over a million copies in the US alone and earned the singer an MTV Video Music Award in 2006. Three other singles were also released from the album: Petrified, Remember the Name and Believe Me.
Mike Shinoda is currently working on his next Fort Minor album and is also set to release A Thousand Suns with his group Linkin Park (their fourth studio album) on 14th September 2010.