A completely out-of-the-blue hunch. The next Linkin Park record will be their most hip-hop influenced release. With the inception of Straight Out Of Compton (stated time and time again as a big fan of NWA) and long hiatus from Fort Minor, I'm more than confident that Shinoda's interest in the genre has since been rekindled, and will permeate throughout LP7.
Mike has stated multiple times that he thinks Hip-Hop is in a good place right now, so I really doubt that that's the direction they are going for. Maybe a slight influence in terms of production, but I doubt we will hear a new LP album where Mike raps for the majority of its duration. And thank god for that. However, if he got a bunch of guest rappers it would be pretty cool.
Well, I think it is not that unlikely, albeit Alexrednex argument is pretty good. Also, we won't ever hear an album where Mike raps for the majority. After all, he didn't release Welcome under the name of LP, because he felt that it didn't fit. So such a thing won't happen. But since he rediscovered this whole rap thing for himself and had much fun doing it, I doubt we won't hear some influences of that. To be fair, LP won't be LP if they wouldn't be in for another surprise.
Shinoda's been saying rap's in a good place and acclaiming virtually the same artists for years now, though.
I agree that that the next album won't be hip-hop focused, but I really don't want any guest rappers. In my opinion Rakim ruined Guilty All The Same, I only listen to the radio edit. I listen to LP because I love how they sound, if I wanted to hear someone else rap I'd listen to their music instead. Mike should save guest rappers for FM projects.
just my opinion, but these guys who produced THE HUNTING PARTY, "Mike Shinoda" and "Brad Delson", they ruined everything that we loved about Linkin Park's music!
Actually I loved those two, Rebellion is one of my favourite songs. I just don't see the point of guest rappers, when they already have Mike. I also liked All For Nothing, it made good use of having three vocalists. But there's no reason why Mike couldn't do the rapping on Guilty All The Same.
You literally said you'd rather listen to "their music" earlier than have a guest, but you now say you like having guest guitarists and vocalists...so which is it? It sounds more like you just have a bias toward hip-hop that's not in LP's music.
I just don't like rap in general, but for some reason I like Mike's rap. I cannot stand any other rapper. Any other sort of collaboration I like.