Jay Z & Linkin Park:
Collision Course

Release Date: 29 November 2004

Reviewed By: Nooreen Kara

Disc1

1. Dirt Off Your Shoulder / Lying From You

2. Big Pimpin' / Paper Cut

3. Jogga What / Paint

4. Numb / Encore

5. IZZO / In The End

6. Points Of Authority / 99 Problems / One Step Closer

Disc2

1. Live Performances

2. Behind The Scene Documentary

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It’s often customary for leading artists to collaborate on a ‘super’ track – most recently Usher and Ludacris for ‘Yeah’ – but does this formula work when crossing genres? Not since Run DMC and Aerosmith conjured up ‘Walk This Way’, just short of 20 years ago, has rap and rock been combined commercially. For this project we have Linkin Park, contemporary rock sensations, and Jay-Z, hip-hop’s multi-platinum emperor. Jigga knows that putting the best together doesn’t always come up trumps – both ‘Best of Both Worlds’ efforts with R. Kelly were flops, and his second tour with the R&B singer infamously collapsed - but he’s here to try again with this spin-off from the MTV ‘Ultimate Mash-Ups’ series.

With only 6 tracks and a duration of little over 20 minutes, you’ll notice each minute of music amounts to roughly 50p. The EP is produced predominantly by Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park, and the accompanying DVD footage comes from the performance for MTV and a select number of fans in West Hollywood’s renowned Roxy Theatre back in July.

The first track features Jigga’s chilled-out ‘Dirt Off Your Shoulder’ and Linkin Park’s more intense ‘Lying From You’. It starts with Chester Bennington from Linkin Park demanding, ‘Where's my Frappuccino? I ordered a f***ing Frappucino’. What this is supposed to represent, other than the fact Bennington would like a cup of coffee, I don’t know, but it’s there. The Timbaland-produced Jay-Z track then comes into play, but the song varies between instrumentals and hard-edged vocals from each of the two parties to create a solid blend.

In ‘Big Pimpin/Papercut’, Jigga’s light-hearted flute and drum-lined track starts playing, with Mike singing his verses over it, before Jay seamlessly comes back in and raps over his own beat.

‘Jigga What/In The End’ begins with Jay-Z rapping before the ‘In The End’ comes in. Chester ends it with his own lyrics over the original music. The live performance actually sounds better than the CD version, with Jay-Z’s vocals sounding clearer and not so lost over the heavy backing music.

‘Numb/Encore’ is the lead single of the album, and slows the pace, away from the blasting guitars and drums typically associated with Linkin Park’s music. Although the lyrics are somewhat contradicting (‘I've become so numb/One last time, I need y'all to roar’), the transitions mesh brilliantly together. Chester sings the line ‘What the hell are you waiting for?’ as Jay-Z raps his own verses.

‘Izzo/In The End’ features the Kanye West-produced backing track of ‘Izzo’ with Linkin Park’s vocals over the top. This was maybe one of the less creative songs on the CD, but it still sounds unblemished.

The final song is ‘99 Problems/Points of Authority/One Step Closer’. Mike starts rapping the first verse to the Jigga song, re-written in third person, to the Linkin Park music. The ‘99 Problems’ beat is one of the finest from ‘Encore’, so naturally there were apprehensions about how this song would compete. In fact, it works particularly well, probably as the original Rick Rubin-produced cut, ‘99 Problems’, has a more rocky, old-school hip-hop feel, so fits in pleasingly with the Linkin Park instrumental.

Admittedly, when I first heard about the ‘Mash-Up’ project, I laughed. This was partly for the reason that rock and rap have never been commercially and successfully released together. It was also partly because my friend who worships Linkin Park has put me completely off them with her scarily-high amounts of dark eyeliner and intimidating poster-covered bedroom walls. However, I was satisfyingly surprised at how all the tracks interlaced so well.

‘Collision Course’ is possibly the most flawless cross-genre creation and Linkin Park and Jay-Z have effectively commercially broken the traditional boundaries. The only downside is that there are only 6 tracks, which amounts to just over 20 minutes of play. I don’t know whether that was an MTV decision, or a personal choice. Whatever the reason, I’d love to see more of this refreshing music coming out. A big thank you is in order for the probably overpaid but proved genius MTV executive who initiated the whole ‘Ultimate Mash-Ups’ series and decided to bring these two together.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Best 3 songs:
6) 99 Problems/Points of Authority
4) Numb/Encore
2) Big Pimpin/Papercut

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