Research Paper On Mike Shinoda

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Mike Shinoda

Mike Shinoda (real name: Michael Kenji Shinoda) is a talented musician and rapper who is the co-founder of the nu metal band Linkin Park, as well the rap-rock band Fort Minor. Aside from his talent in music, he is an artist in every sense of the term, having graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1998 with a Bachelor of Arts in Illustration. His art has even been featured in the Japanese American National Museum.

Shinoda founded the band Linkin Park with a couple of his friends in college as the lead rapper, eventually expanding to bring in Chester Bennington, who would become the lead singer of the band. Linkin Park quickly exploded in popularity after signing on with Warner Bros studio, and released …show more content…

Shinoda has stated that he played every instrument on their first (and currently only) album, The Rising Tied.

One song in particular from the album was titled Kenji, after his own middle name. The song was about Shinoda’s grandfather, a Japanese immigrant during the time of World War II, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It tells how Kenji and his family was taken to an internment camp, and used audio clips from Shinoda’s own family members: his father and aunt.

After the release of The Rising Tied, Shinoda went back to work with Linkin Park, leaving Fort Minor on an extended decade-long hiatus. Most recently, however, Shinoda has teased the return of Fort Minor on a new Twitter page. During the late summer of 2015, Fort Minor released a new single, their first in over a decade. The single was titled “Welcome”, and is described as “an underdog song, an outsider’s song”. The music video even depicts a mural showcasing people from all walks of life. Just as Shinoda played all of the instruments on The Rising Tied, he also played each instrument, wrote and sang each line, produced and mixed the song, as well having created all of the artwork on the murals in the music …show more content…

Because of the tragedy, Mike Shinoda produced a digital album titled Download to Donate for Haiti, a compilation of multiple artists and bands. Linkin Park also devoted a song to the album, titled “Not Alone”. The music video for the song showcased footage of the aftermath of the earthquake and the subsequent relief effort.

Hikaru Utada

Hikaru Utada was born in Manhattan to Teruzane Utada and his wife, Junko Utada. Her father was a Japanese record producer, and her mother an enka singer, who performed under the stage name Keiko Fuji. Hikaru entered the music industry with her mother under the band U3, also known as Utada 3. Hikaru was named as “the most influential artists of the decade” by The Japan Times

In 1996, Hikaru began her solo career with the song “I’ll Be Stronger”, released under the artist name Cubic U, a reference to her being the third Utada ‘power’. She then debuted in Japan as Cubic U with her first album, Close To You and was very well received by the Japanese audience. She went on to release three more albums in the Japanese market, before returning to the US in 2004, during which time she contributed to the soundtrack of Square Enix and Disney’s collaboration video game series Kingdom Hearts, Simple and Clean and

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