This month marks the twentieth anniversary of Collision Direction, the six-song collaborative challenge from Jay-Z and Linkin Park. A landmark unencumber between two famous person artists, Collision Direction debuted at No. 1 at the Billboard 200 chart following its unencumber on Nov. 30, 2004, and spawned a Grammy-winning ruin in “Numb/Encore.”
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To have a good time the anniversary, underneath is an excerpt in regards to the genesis and affect of Collision Direction from It Begins With One: The Legend and Legacy of Linkin Park, a brand new ebook from Billboard government director of tune Jason Lipshutz, revealed in October via Hachette Books.
Tasks like Collision Direction weren’t odd in in style tune in 2004, so when it was once first introduced, it seemed like a fever dream. Jay-Z and Linkin Park participating on an legitimate multi-song challenge?
Two artists on the height in their industrial energy combining their greatest hits, Voltron-style, into new megahits? It was once unfathomable, however in some way, it was once taking place.
Jay-Z had labored with rock artists ahead of 2004, and Reanimation proved Linkin Park’s bona fides as hip-hop interlopers. But even so — Collision Direction was once one thing other. This was once Godzilla as opposed to King Kong, a mega-wattage showdown that, worst- case situation, can be a exposure stunt assured to transport numerous gadgets. Very best case? It might upend the way in which listeners considered in style tune.
Timing is the whole lot when the arena’s greatest rapper calls to collaborate on a longer challenge. In 2004, Jay-Z was once the 34-year-old king of in style hip-hop: the good artist in any room, on a years-long scorching streak that had reworked him from a rap headliner right into a crossover pop celebrity. Whilst mega- promoting albums like 1996’s Affordable Doubt and 1998’s Vol. 2 . . . Onerous Knock Lifestyles have been met with crucial acclaim and produced more than one movies in MTV’s hip-hop blocks, Jay became a Best 40 hit-maker within the early 2000s with singles like “Large Pimpin’,” “I Simply Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me),” and “Izzo (H.O.V.A.).”
In 2003, a couple of months after Linkin Park crowned the Billboard 200 album chart for the primary time with Meteora, Jay- Z hit No. 1 at the Scorching 100 along his female friend, Future’s Kid breakout Beyoncé, at the summer-ruling pop ruin “Loopy in Love.” Then, in November, Jay launched The Black Album, a document full of extra hits in addition to fond-farewell messaging. The Black Album was once situated as Jay- Z’s ultimate album: he was once going to head out on most sensible, relinquishing his throne to transform president of Def Jam Recordings in order that he may just increase different artists (like his manufacturer buddy Kanye West and newly signed upstarts named Rihanna and Younger Jeezy) into stars.
Jay- Z’s “retirement” was once all the time tenuous, a sentence that ended with an ellipsis as a substitute of a duration. That’s as a result of Jay didn’t truly move anyplace after The Black Album. He was once making strikes within the Def Jam boardroom however would nonetheless pop up on remixes and as a visitor artist on songs by means of Mariah Carey, Snoop Dogg, Lenny Kravitz, and Mary J. Blige, amongst others. Jay- Z even launched Unfinished Industry, a moment collaborative album with R. Kelly following 2002’s The Very best of Each Worlds, not up to a yr after supposedly striking it up. So it was once transparent that, although Jay- Z wouldn’t be running on a brand new solo album imminently, he sought after to stay lively within the recording studio as a complementary voice and collaborator.
As success would have it, that duration was once precisely when executives at MTV known as him up with a brand new display concept.
MTV Final Mash-Ups was once pitched as a taped live performance sequence wherein a rap artist and rock artist would leap onstage and rearrange a minimum of one track in combination in entrance of a reside target audience — assume MTV Unplugged, however as a genre-splicing jam consultation. Jay-Z, who had labored with The Roots on a real MTV Unplugged in 2001, was once one of the crucial community’s first calls, they usually requested him point-blank which rock act he’d need to paintings with for the display.
At that second, Linkin Park was once headlining extra North American arenas as “Numb” saved mountain climbing the Scorching 100 and Meteora trailed The Black Album at the Billboard 200. Jay pointed at them.
For the band, the decision from Jay-Z’s control now not most effective got here at a fortuitous time — just about a yr into the Meteora marketing campaign, round the similar second throughout the Hybrid Concept album cycle that Mike started to devise Reanimation — but additionally got here from the precise artist. “There are six guys in our band who all grew up paying attention to various things,” Mike defined. “There are only a few artists I will say that all of us like. Jay is certainly one of them.”
Whilst the entire band have been fanatics, Mike was once the one that had worshiped Jay-Z rising up, an adoring teenaged manufacturer because the MC ascended the NYC hip-hop scene. Previous to becoming a member of Xero, Mike had mashed up Affordable Doubt songs with tracks by means of Smashing Pumpkins and 9 Inch Nails in his bed room; the Meteora observe “No person’s Listening” opens with an grownup Mike reminiscent of Jay with a lyrical callback to his observe “Brooklyn’s Best.” So when Linkin Park gained the be offering to paintings with Jay, Mike sought after to be sure that — no matter this MTV display would ultimately transform — the collaboration would transform extra significant than a cable sequence one-off. “I didn’t simply need to say, ‘Hell yeah, let’s do it.’ I sought after to turn him what it will sound like if we did it,” Mike stated.
The paintings itself was once moment nature to Mike. He had grown up looking at artists like Public Enemy and Anthrax mash up their sounds into formative data, in addition to actually making Jay-Z mash-ups himself! So, ahead of any deal was once agreed on, he slipped into the recording studio behind Linkin Park’s excursion bus and fired up his pc. Mike synced up Jay- Z’s vocals from a couple of songs on The Black Album with Linkin Park instrumentals by means of matching the beats in line with minute (BPMs) of every: the hater- losing anthem “Grime Off Your Shoulder” aligned with the Meteora wall-rattler “Mendacity from You,” and Jay’s self-mythologizing curtain name “Encore” paired completely with “Numb.”
For the latter, Mike chopped up his band’s still-rising hit and reorganized the instrumental right into a repeating development, very similar to a DJ sampling a part of an previous rock track for a brand new rap observe. He then added within the prospers of “Numb” — the keyboard hook, the guitar, the piano, the bass — in ways in which would make stronger Jay’s waft, ahead of turning the again part of the track right into a changed model of Chester’s prone show off.
Stitched in combination, the mash-up of Jay’s braggadocio and Chester’s naked emotion isn’t lyrically coherent, however in some way the tones make sense in combination. Jay-Z sounds extra reflective spitting “As destiny would have it, Jay’s standing seems / To be at an all-time top, highest time to mention good-bye,” over brooding piano and splintered guitar chords, whilst the advent of Chester’s verse with “I’m uninterested in being what you wish to have me to be” acts as a dramatic shift into the track’s again part, his phrases using with ease over accented hip-hop beats.
Mike completed the demos for “Numb/Encore” and “Grime Off Your Shoulder/Mendacity from You” in not up to two days at the excursion bus, then despatched them to Jay-Z to look what he considered the route for the songs. “His answer was once, ‘Oh shit!’” Mike recalled. “Remember that, we have been off at the proper foot.”
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When Jay-Z hosted listening classes for The Black Album previous to its unencumber, he ceaselessly seemed across the room and learned that a few of his lyrics weren’t connecting with listeners, his strains getting misplaced within the manufacturing. The answer was once easy sufficient: he requested his major engineer, Gimel “Younger Guru” Keaton, to play the songs a cappella.
As Jay watched the rooms take in his unadorned phrases, he preferred what he noticed. So he requested Roc-a-Fella and Def Jam to unencumber a complete a cappella model of The Black Album, and it hit shops one month after the unique. It was once an outrageous request, however Jay wielded sufficient celebrity energy that the labels briefly acquiesced.
Mike had downloaded {that a} cappella album whilst making the demos to ship to Jay-Z; with out it, he couldn’t have made such blank mash-ups and would possibly not have got one of these robust reaction from Jay. However however, with out the a cappella model of The Black Album, MTV may now not have get a hold of the mash-up display concept within the first position.
Jay’s secondary motivation for the a cappella version of The Black Album was once for different manufacturers to “remix the hell out of it,” consistent with Younger Guru — to position Jay’s voice over different instrumentals, proportion them on-line, play them at golf equipment, and lend a hand his legend develop throughout his “retirement.” This was once a stroke of promoting genius, and a number of manufacturers have been satisfied to oblige. Manufacturer Kevin Brown created a funk- and jazz-based remix album titled The Brown Album, as an example, and Minnesota DJ Affordable Cologne positioned Jay-Z’s vocals over Metallica’s personal Black Album for . . . stay up for it . . . The Double Black Album.
Most famed of all was once The Gray Album, which fused Jay- Z’s Black Album vocals with The Beatles’ landmark 1968 self-titled double LP (aka the White Album), by means of the LA manufacturer Brian Burton, who went by means of the moniker Risk Mouse. The idea that was once, without delay, deceptively easy and musically sensible: Jay-Z’s “99 Issues” smacked even tougher over The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” freakout, and “Public Carrier Announcement” changed into oddly blissed-out above the looped folks of “Lengthy, Lengthy, Lengthy.” Created over two and a part weeks in December 2003 in an instant after the a cappella Black Album was once launched, The Gray Album changed into web lore in early 2004, with bootlegged CDs promoting like hotcakes and file-sharing websites swarmed with its twelve songs.
Mash-ups had existed for many years ahead of The Gray Album as an integral a part of DJ tradition, however they changed into much more not unusual on the flip of the century. Chalk it as much as the proliferation of music-swapping platforms and manufacturing instrument, just like the Professional Equipment that Mike preferred or the Acid Professional that Risk Mouse used for The Gray Album. Artists like Richard X, Soulwax (with their 2 Many DJs challenge), and Freelance Hellraiser rethought the remix within the early 2000s by means of jamming songs in conjunction with ingenious panache and lights up the early blogosphere.
But The Gray Album represented a crucial turning level for the medium: the challenge was once this type of underground sensation that functioned like a viral YouTube video ahead of YouTube even existed. Abruptly, Risk Mouse changed into one of the in-demand manufacturers of the mid-2000s — helming albums from Gorillaz, Beck, and The Black Keys, amongst others — however now not ahead of getting into a prison quagmire over The Gray Album, as EMI, The Beatles’ copyright holder, close down distribution of the challenge. Clearly, the White Album samples hadn’t been cleared; however, Risk Mouse had by no means meant to get wealthy off of The Gray Album, most effective to make one thing cool.
Jay-Z, for his phase, preferred The Gray Album — which made sense, since he was once the only pushing for his a cappella vocals to transform herbal sources for manufacturers like Risk Mouse. “I champion any type of creativity,” he stated in a 2010 interview with NPR. “And that was once a genius concept to do, and it sparked such a lot of others adore it.”
Even supposing The Gray Album wasn’t legally sanctioned, MTV obviously noticed the economic possible of mashing up Jay-Z’s rapping with the acquainted sounds of a well-known rock band. So, possibly, did Jay-Z, he of the “I’m now not a businessman, I’m a industry, guy,” credo. The tune business normally facilitates collaboration between artists, manufacturers, and songwriters irrespective of label or publishing data — it’s how chart-topping duets and cross-affiliate excursion pairings are born. However a mash-up album is other, with extra prison stumbling blocks involving rights clearances, even if each artists are on board. As Mike and Jay traded demos over e mail and learned that this collaboration may just transform extra important than an MTV particular, each camps driven to be sure that, no matter was once created, it was once in a position to head on sale. Then, after Linkin Park labored at the rearranged manufacturing, Jay and the band logged a complete of 4 days in combination at NRG in West Hollywood in July 2004, rerecording the vocals in their present songs to higher have compatibility the deconstructed tracks.
The outcome: a retail-ready EP, that includes 13 songs blended into six mash-ups, with all label companions— Def Jam, Roc- A- Fella, Warner Bros., and the Linkin Park imprint Gadget Store — on board and an “MTV Final Mash- Ups Items” decal slapped at the duvet.
On the finish of that week, on July 19, 2004, the 2 artists took over the Roxy in Los Angeles for a different joint efficiency that might double because the pilot of MTV’s mash-ups display. Some fanatics on the Roxy sported LP tees, others held up the Roc for Jay image, and lots did each. The mash-up challenge aired on MTV and confirmed up in big-box outlets by means of November, simply in time for vacation buying groceries.
“To me, Collision Direction is a landmark album,” Mike stated later that yr, “as it’s a primary: two multiplatinum artists getting in combination, the usage of their unique masters and new performances and manufacturing to create an album of mash-ups — that’s one thing that hasn’t ever been finished ahead of.”
Inside of a yr of The Gray Album going viral, Jay-Z and Linkin Park had increased its thought, jumped via all of the essential prison hoops, and primed it for giant industry. A pair years later, when Linkin Park and Jay-Z have been status at the Grammys degree in combination to gather a trophy for “Numb/Encore,” Mike made certain to thank “everyone in control and prison groups that made this document imaginable, as it was once a nightmare!”
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What stands proud maximum lately about Collision Direction, in each Linkin Park’s and Jay-Z’s respective discographies, is how a laugh it sounds.
Jay has made a number of birthday celebration hits over time, however he’s by no means been a birthday celebration rapper, his waft authoritative and down to earth in gritty come-up tales whilst catchy melodies waft round it. In the meantime, Linkin Park’s maximum uptempo singles nonetheless fascinated with heavier issues, and their first two albums were laboriously fine-tuned by means of Don Gilmore. When arrange facet by means of facet and not using a perfectionist manufacturer lurking within the studio, on the other hand, each aesthetics calm down, the lyrics freed in their depth when positioned in recent, buoy-ant atmospheres.
Take “Large Pimpin’/Papercut”: Mike’s phrases about paranoia and rigidity from “Papercut” stay intact, however his rhyming is moderately bogged down and positioned atop the opulent island growth of Timbaland’s “Pimpin’” manufacturing. On “Jigga What/Faint,” Jay re-creates the knuckle-bruising threats of 1998’s “N—a What, N—a Who” — however truly, the primary appeal of that track is the advent of the “Faint” strings beneath his rhyming across the thirty-second mark, which turns into the EP’s purest rush of adrenaline.
By way of design, Collision Direction is a stunt unencumber, and the mash-ups can’t most likely grasp the inventive energy of the unique tracks. But the inherent looseness of the ones moments — the playful power of 2 massive artists of their high, tinkering in combination in the similar room — makes Collision Direction price returning to within the years since its unencumber.
In the end, it was once the shared studio time, with Jay-Z arriving at NRG and dapping up the band ahead of laying down his verses one-on-one with Mike, that proved the most important to production the chemistry on the core of the EP. Collision Direction gave Mike the chance to proportion house with, and bring, a early life hero who had transform a peer. Jay-Z were a celeb for years ahead of Linkin Park took off; it would have simply been a vintage never-meet-your-heroes second for Mike. However the recording classes have been filled with bro-hugs and simple comments, Chester clowning on Mike for running too arduous and Jay uttering “That transition’s imply!” whilst scrunching his face at the back of the forums.
“I like this shit — I like to do various things,” an animated Jay-Z exclaims at one level at the Collision Direction making-of DVD. He’s talking to Chester whilst huddled within the nook of a studio room, gesturing and breathlessly looking to stay alongside of his ideas. “You simply convey what you do to the desk, I convey what I do to the desk, uncompromising — you’re now not looking to be me, and I’m now not looking to be you, that fusion, and simply no matter occurs occurs. I really like that!”
The informal tone provoked a number of ad-libs that may be heard at the ultimate minimize of the EP: Chester muttering, “I ordered a Frappuccino, the place’s my fucking Frappuccino?” and garnering a Jay-Z stomach snigger; Jay quipping, “You’re wasting precious ability, Randy!” to a couple man within the studio Reddit customers are nonetheless looking to determine. Even the verdict to mix “Numb” and “Encore” was once partly because of Mike simply in need of to listen to Chester bellow the “What the hell are you ready fo-o-o-r-r-r?” line. Once more: a laugh.
“There was once no ego in any respect running with Jay,” Mike mirrored later. “If I requested him to accomplish one thing a definite means or put a vocal line right here or there, he was once satisfied to do it. He’s truly simple to paintings with.”
As they have been completing up within the studio and getting ready to accomplish on the Roxy, a objective shaped in Mike’s thoughts: he sought after the mash-up assortment to be so excellent, so in an instant efficient, that MTV would by no means be capable to make any other one. And that’s precisely what came about. MTV Final Mash-Ups reworked from a sequence right into a one- off live performance display that aired on November 10, 2004, with the CD and behind- the- scenes DVD hitting shops 3 weeks later. To these days, no follow-up episode has ever been finished.
Collision Direction debuted at No. 1 at the Billboard 200 — a rarity for a six-song EP, in any technology — however its true legacy is “Numb/Encore,” which rose to No. 20 at the Scorching 100 because the challenge’s lead unmarried and gave choice programmers an excuse to sneak Jay-Z onto their airwaves. Past that early radio play, “Numb/Encore” has continued as an immaculate equilibrium of rap and rock — its melodies joined logically and wholly, soul-mates that made their means to one another from other portions of the arena. Even supposing “Numb” has now crossed a billion Spotify performs by itself, “Numb/Encore” isn’t a ways at the back of it; moderately astonishingly, the mash-up stays one of the crucial 5 most-streamed songs at the platform throughout Jay-Z’s mythical occupation.
“‘Numb’s’ different size is ‘Numb/Encore,’” Brad asserted. “It’s good to love only one. Then again, I consider them in tandem. And while you recall to mind Meteora, you recall to mind Collision Direction — that second in collaboration with Jay-Z, which is truly particular.”
In the end, Collision Direction didn’t trade in style tune in a literal sense — formally launched mash-up albums stay a rarity to these days, basically as a result of the prison crimson tape. On a extra summary degree, even though, the challenge did foretell a long term wherein beginner {and professional} manufacturers crashed songs into one any other.
Quickly after the discharge of Collision Direction, hip-hop’s mixtape technology exploded: artists like Lil Wayne, Gucci Mane, and Clipse spent the mid- aughts hijacking different rappers’ beats, freestyling over them, and liberating compilations without cost on-line, one-upping the unique artist and favoring web buzz over industrial gross sales. In the meantime, the discharge of mash-up songs and albums — from DJ Earworm’s annual “United State of Pop” singles, that includes the twenty-five greatest songs of the yr rolled into one, to Lady Communicate’s full-length pastiches of masses of samples, to a 2022 mash-up of Britney Spears’s “Poisonous” and Ginuwine’s “Pony” that charted as “Poisonous Pony” — changed into extra not unusual within the years after the album’s unencumber.
And the appearance of social media and streaming platforms additional delivered that mash-up energy into customers’ fingers, with multimedia mash-ups continuously concocted and posted in ways in which helped artists achieve extra listens — even lately. Need to know why Woman Gaga’s 2011 track “Bloody Mary” all at once changed into a Scorching 100 hit in 2023? That’s as a result of TikTok customers synced up the track with a dance collection from the Netflix sequence Wednesday, and the mash-up went viral sufficient to make “Bloody Mary” a belated sensation.
Collision Direction was once like a star-studded summer season blockbuster that lived as much as the hype upon its unencumber, then proved sneakily influential within the years since. Its mainstream affect nonetheless reverberates lately with each new spin of “Numb/Encore,” however in all probability most significantly, Collision Direction additional legitimized Linkin Park within the second. Jay-Z is extensively regarded as the best rapper of all time — and he picked this band, out of any artist, to reimagine his greatest hits.
Linkin Park had entered rarefied air, the kind of rock stratosphere that’s reserved for only some bands in line with era. However they sought after extra.
Excerpted from It Begins With One by means of Jason Lipshutz. Copyright © 2024. To be had from Hachette Books, an imprint of Hachette Guide Crew, Inc.
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