Fort Minor - The Rising Tied

HHH Official Rating: 4/5
Beats rating: 4/5
Lyrics rating: 3.5/5
Music Quality: 4/5



by the god Dirty Backpacks


A lot of y'all out there only came to know who Linkin Park was after their collaboration album with Jay-Z Collision Course. But LP dropped their classic blend of Rock and Hip Hop and in the process opened the eyes and ears of a lot cats - including a lot of MCs. Unlike Limp Bizkit or Korn, these guys seemed to really know their Hip Hop, not just guys trying to bite off the culture and make money off of "the image".

Mike Shinoda (the lyricist in LP) especially piqued the interest of many, including The X-ecutioners, Black Thought, Alchemist, Pharoahe Monch, The Roots, and many others - including the aforementioned S.Carter (here's a secret - your favorite rappers? More than likely, they listen to a lot more than just Hip Hop). Say what you want about the rock element of LP, but a lot of cats respected the kid's flow.

So after their many collabos with different cats in and outside of Hip Hop, this project was inevitable. But many wondered - with Shinoda doing this side project on his own, what would the result be?

Fort Minor's The Rising Tied is nothing short of uncut dope - a pure Hip Hop album and one of the top 20 complete efforts of the year.

Before you snub your nose at "another white rapper", understand this - many white MCs have the fundamentals of Hip Hop down better than the new school of Black artists. See, Hip Hop is the only area where whites are automatically put into the position that many people of color are grouped into in this country everyday - to succeed, we have to be twice as good and have our stuff completely together to be on equal ground with our white counterparts. So, rappers such as Paul Wall, Bubba Sparxxx, Ra The Rugged Man, and yes, Eminem tend to have a better of understanding of what Hip Hop is really about than say, a Young Jeezy or a Chingy. That's not to say white MCs are nicer or better, or even that there aren't a lot of MCs of color who get "it" as well. It simply means white MCs just have to work twice as hard to be relevant.

It speaks volumes, then, when you examine this album and realize that Shinoda got President Carter to executive produce it, and got such heavy hitters as Common, Black Thought, underground staple Celph Titled and the Styles Of Beyond, and newcomer Lupe Fiasco to work with him. This kid isn't going to necessarily make you forget about Detroit's favorite white boy, but he is nice - and he produced damn-near the entire album himself.

For those of you worrying about the album being "too rock", only one song on the entire album even remotely sounds like typical LP material, which is "Petrified" - and even that song is still hot!

He collabos with Styles Of Beyond on 6 of the 16 songs, and the results are stellar. For those unfamiliar with them, this album should do wonders to raise their stock to both rock heads who like Hip Hop and traditional Hip Hop heads.But it's Mike Shinoda who really shines through and holds his own with all these lyricsts. Like he says on "Remember The Name":

"This is 10% luck
20% skill
15% concentrated power of will
5% pleasure
50% pain
And 100% reason to remember the name."

And so on and so forth, as he and S.O.B. break themselves down over a dope beat. And I hate to seemingly ALWAYS accentuate this, but this is an album with something to say - Fort Minor aren't just rapping about money, hoes, & clothes. Much of the subject matter is a commentary on things, and the beat is molded to these real and powerful topics. Shinoda reflects a lot of hardship and pain,and the pictures painted on this album are both vivid and compelling.

An example of this is "Right Now" featuring S.O.B and the legendary Black Thought of The Roots. Think of a Hip Hop version of Van Halen's classic song - the beat picks up more and more as each MC spits about some of the tragic things that are occuring in the world right now and on a daily basis. The song gets doper and doper as each MC spits, but when it gets to Black Thought, his flow and contemplative verses really steal the show.

Common chips in on "Back Home", a song that has each MC reflecting on the harsh realities back where they originated from. But the collabos are not what make this album - I actually think things are even better when he rhymes solo, like on the moving examination of AmeriKKKan racism on "Kenji". This may be the first song in Hip Hop to ever examine how the U.S. threw it's own citizens into concentration camps (during WWII, Japanese citizens were put into "internment camps", but they were more akin to concentration camps in my opinion seeing as these legitimate citizens were subject to being killed in these overcrowded segregationist areas). Shinoda, who is part Asian, really makes you feel the pain his grandfather and family felt.

Fort Minor deals with a wide range of topics, from people trying to breakup his group on "Get Me Gone" to haters out there trying to bring him down on "High Road" to the missing a loved one on the sincere "Where'd You Go". He also tackles Hip Hop dead-on on the metaphorical "Cigarettes":

"Lemme tell you something that I realized tonight
My Hip Hop radio's like Marlboro Light
They're both selling stories
And they sound about the same
Cigarettes say they're safe
Rappers claim they really bang
We don't care if it's true when we lay the money down
We don't believe the words, we just love the way they sound
They're acting like we're idots, they're lying to our face
Maybe we are idiots - we buy it anyway."

Take heed, kids.

Shinoda, who is a big Jay-Z fan, is obviously influenced by President Carter - you can hear it in his flow a bit, but it's nothing like he's biting or anything. Flat out, this is an extremely well-produced combo of dope beats and pure musicianship that cements Mike Shinoda as a relevant force in the world of Hip Hop. The limited edition of this album contains 3 more cuts (1 with Lupe Fiasco) and a DVD, which I unfortunately don't have (I have the regular album). The people associated with The Rising Tied, like I said before, speak to the respect he's earned and the quality of the music and his rhymes.

Fort Minor's The Rising Tied will surprise a lot of people, and I would group it in the must check out category of music. It's definitely worth owning in your collection, and may open your horizons to other music - but this is intrisically a true Hip Hop effort.

My favorite set of verses on the entire album come from the short song "Get Gone", because they address those who seem to think it's cool to be uneducated:

"Because these people love to put a twist to your words
To infer that you said something f**king absurd
Oh - did I lose you at "infer"?
Not used to hearing a verse that uses over first-grade vocabulary words?"

Translation: Adults should never comment on people using "big words". Read a book, late nighters.


Track List:


1. Introduction [3.5]
2. Remember The Name w/Styles Of Beyond [4]
3. Right Now w/Styles Of Beyond & Black Thought [4.5]
4. Petrified [3]
5. Feel Like Home w/Styles Of Beyond [4.5]
6. Where'd You Go w/Holly Brook & Jonah Matranga [4.5]
7. In Stereo [3.5]
8. Back Home w/Common & Styles Of Beyond [4]
9. Cigarettes [4]
10. Believe Me w/Bobo & Styles Of Beyond [4]
11. Get Me Gone [4]
12. High Road w/John Legend [4]
13. Kenji [4.5]
14. Red To Black w/Kenna, Jonah Matranga & StylesOf Beyond [4]
15. The Battle w/Celph Titled [3.5]
16. Slip Out The Back w/Mr. Hahn [4]