Rolling Stone
Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park demands more respect for his mike skills on hip-hop LP on the debut of his full-on hip-hop project Fort Minor, Linkin Park MC Mike Shinoda gets his Eminem Show on, self-producing dark, rock-schooled beats and dropping brassy rhymes about haters ("High Road"), his struggles as a rapper ("Remember the Name") and the internment of the Shinoda family during World War II ("Kenji"). On "Petrified," the album's club-shaking first single, Shinoda spits some surprisingly dexterous boasts, and on "Back Home," Common helps him work up sympathy for the urban poor amid a spare scratch guitar loop. With supervision from executive producer Jay-Z, tracks such as "Believe Me" translate Linkin Park's stylized angst into sleek boom-bap, complete with agitated pop choruses and deft instrumental ornamentation. Shinoda's weighty raps get wearisome over sixteen cuts, but Rising Tied has plenty of humanist appeal; in all, not a bad use of his pop-star status.