Mike Shinoda

Mike Shinoda is an American musician, rapper, songwriter, record producer, and visual artist whose three-decade career — primarily as the co-founder of American rock band Linkin Park — has produced one of the defining American rock-band bodies of work of the early 21st century. He was born Michael Kenji Shinoda on February 11, 1977, in Agoura Hills, California, into a Japanese-American family. His father Muto Shinoda was an American Sansei (third-generation Japanese American) whose family had been interned at the Manzanar internment camp during World War II.

His 1996 founding of Xero (later renamed Linkin Park in 2000) with high-school classmates Brad Delson, Joe Hahn, and Rob Bourdon at Agoura High School launched his rock-band career. The 1999 lineup addition of singer Chester Bennington anchored the Linkin Park sound that would launch the 2000 commercial breakthrough.

The 2000 Warner Bros. Records debut album Hybrid Theory sold over 32 million copies worldwide — making it the bestselling debut album of the 21st century. The singles "In the End," "Crawling," and "One Step Closer" established Linkin Park as one of the defining American rock acts of the early 2000s. The 2003 second album Meteora sold over 16 million copies worldwide and produced the singles "Numb" and "Somewhere I Belong."

His Linkin Park career through subsequent decades produced seven studio albums and continuous international touring. The July 20, 2017 death of Chester Bennington effectively ended the original Linkin Park lineup's recording career. Shinoda's 2018 solo album Post Traumatic — his processing of the Bennington loss alongside other 2017 solo projects — was shaped by the grief. The 2024 reformation of Linkin Park with new lead vocalist Emily Armstrong produced the 2024 album From Zero and the 2024–2025 international touring. He has been with American writer-and-business consultant Anna Hillinger since 2003, and the couple has two children.

His name Mike is the English short form of Michael (from the Hebrew Mikha'el meaning "who is like God?"). Mike has been a leading American boys' name for over a century.