Jay-Z and Linkin Park released Collision Course in the United States on November 30, 2004. The six-track EP turned an MTV collaboration into a studio project, with Mike Shinoda producing new combinations of both artists’ songs. “Numb/Encore” paired Linkin Park’s “Numb” with Jay-Z’s “Encore,” giving the release the track that would eventually take them to the Grammy podium.
MTV had asked Jay-Z whom he wanted to work with for its Ultimate Mash-Ups concept, and he chose Linkin Park. Shinoda responded with music. Using the a cappella edition of The Black Album, he assembled three demo mash-ups and sent them to the rapper. “I wanted to show him what it might sound like if we did it,” Shinoda told MTV News in 2004. The sketches gave them something concrete to develop before they met.
Shinoda’s preparation became central to the collaboration. Chester Bennington later credited him with getting the project moving and getting everyone excited about it. “He really put the whole thing together,” the singer told Jon Wiederhorn in a 2007 interview recalled in Loudwire’s retrospective. Shinoda had already spent years making mash-ups before Linkin Park, using the process to learn production. Here, that experience gave the musicians a starting point for working through songs they had originally made separately.
The studio work changed the performances themselves. Shinoda explained that a different beat called for a different delivery, so he and Jay-Z recorded their raps again. Instrumental parts were reconsidered, too: “Numb/Encore” received cleaner guitar textures, while “Big Pimpin’/Papercut” gained additional bass parts. The recordings gave the musicians finished arrangements to work toward when taking the songs onstage.
Bennington faced a related problem with his singing. In comments published by IndieLondon, he described having to sing Linkin Park’s darker lyrics over music from Jay-Z’s catalog that felt happier. That changed the attitude of his vocal performances. Shinoda also explained that he selected combinations by considering tempo, key and feel. The pairing of familiar titles was only the beginning; the musicians still had to decide how those words and parts should work together.
The material drew on Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory and Meteora alongside several Jay-Z records. Some combinations joined two songs, while the closing “Points of Authority/99 Problems/One Step Closer” brought three into the same arrangement. Across a running time of roughly 21 minutes, the EP kept those experiments compact.
The performance that prompted the project took place at The Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood on July 18, 2004. The original CD/DVD package preserved both sides of the work: studio recordings on the CD, with the concert and behind-the-scenes footage on the DVD. Fans could hear the finished studio versions and then watch the same combinations played by the collaborators together.
Collision Course debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. “Numb/Encore” went on to win Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 2006 Grammy Awards. Accepting the award, Shinoda returned to the decision that had started the project, thanking Jay-Z for choosing Linkin Park when MTV asked whom he wanted to work with.
