Linkin Park's hip hop homage

Linkin Park pay homage to Public Enemy on their new album 'A Thousand Sons'.

The nu-metal group have incorporated a number of political messages into the songs on their fourth album and guitarist and rapper Mike Shinoda paid tribute to the legendary rap group, which is led by Chuck D, on the track 'Wretches And Kings'.

He told NME magazine: "There is a homage to Chuck D on there. It's probably the most hip-hop song on the record and one of the most aggressive.

"Public Enemy were very three-dimensional with their records because although they seemed political, there was a whole lot of other stuff going on in there too.

"It made me think how three-dimensional I wanted our record to be without imitating them of course, and show where we were at creatively."

Although Mike said 'Wretches And Kings' has an "aggressive" sound, the band - which also includes Chester Bennington, Rob Bourdon, Brad Delson, David Farrell and Joe Hahn - toned down their style on the rest of the album.

He added: "These songs are not kicking you in the teeth. Whenever we made something that sounded like stuff we'd done before we felt lazy and ended up ditching it.

"In the end we wanted to do something that explored a different space for us. Hopefully it will surprise people."