Fort Minor - DJ Green Lantern Presents Fort Minor: We Major

With its gamut of samples and guest stars running from Zeppelin, Hendrix, and Ghostface on down to Bloc Party, Queens of the Stone Age, and Juelz Santana, DJ Green Lantern’s Fort Minor: We Major, a mixtape of Mike Shinoda’s side project Fort Minor, almost can truly boast to have something for everybody. By the same token, the salvo of samples it unloads might be a little offputting, since only seven out of its nineteen tracks can be conceivably considered totally original. The title itself alludes to Kanye West’s “We Major,” a sample of which can be found in the closing track. At least music fans can make a game out of it, play “Guess that sample,” with the winner receiving some arbitrary music nerd honorific of their choice. Whatever your take, one thing’s for sure: FM:WM is a far better listen than Fort Minor’s Rising Tied, the album it was originally intended to promote. The mixtape excises most of the clunky rhythms and dour petulance of the original, replacing it with a surprisingly cohesive hybrid of borrowed beats and bouncier rhymes. Grade school lyrics like Shinoda’s “My name is Mike/I’m fooling with the new shit/I’m doing it all night/I like what I do, I do what I like” still crop up here and there, but virtuoso verse from the likes of underground rappers Apathy, Styles from Beyond, and Celph Titled more than carries the brunt of the lyrical burden. Just don’t expect to find much in the way of social conscience here. Most of the raps are your standard hip-hop fare of self-aggrandizing rants or the contemptuous diss, but they’re executed well enough that the general lack of commentary doesn’t really matter. Nor does it really belong, as evidenced by the sour note struck by the us-against-them piece “Be Somebody,” arguably its worst track, and “Spraypaint and Ink Pens,” which seems out of place even with Ghostface and Lupe Fiasco turning in some slick performances. The album is, in many ways, a patchwork party, with its flip attitude toward its musical heritage and its ensemble’s outspoken camaraderie, and it’s best enjoyed as such. And, come the end, if you’re still curious about Rising Tied, FM:WM includes the album versions of “Remember the Name” and “Petrified.” [www.fortminor.com]