Remember When Jay-Z and Linkin Park Released This Epic Rap-Rock Collaboration in the Early Aughts?

In 2003, Jay-Z announced his retirement from the music business. The news shocked fans, as the Brooklyn rapper had grown tired of the grind. Meanwhile, Linkin Park had emerged from California with Hybrid Theory, a colossal and inescapable debut. But before Jay-Z exited, he reached out to Linkin Park about a collaboration.

Do You Want More?

“Numb/Encore” is a Jay-Z reprise propelled by Linkin Park’s 2003 hit “Numb”, which appears on the band’s second LP, Meteora.

Can I get an encore? Do you want more?
Cookin’ raw with the Brooklyn boy,
So for one last time I need y’all to roar.

Also released in 2003, “Encore” appears on Jay-Z’s then-farewell release, The Black Album—though his retirement didn’t last long.

Still, the collision between a retiring legend and a young band feels like the perfect bookend to rap-rock’s commercial arc as Jay-Z’s swagger merges with the melodic screams of Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington.

Who you know fresher than Hov? Riddle me that,
The rest of y’all know where I’m lyrically at,
Can’t none of y’all mirror me back.
Yeah, hearing me rap is like hearing G rap in his prime,
I’m Young H.O., rap’s Grateful Dead,
’Bout to take over the globe, now break bread.
I’m in Boeing jets, Global Express,
Out the country but the blueberry still connect.

Doper Than Him With No Pen

Jay-Z stopped writing down his raps years ago. And on his way out, he wonders who else out there has the mental skill to match his type of genius. (Three years later, he answered his own question and returned with his ninth album, Kingdom Come.)

On the low but the yacht got a triple deck,
But when you young, what the f**k you expect?
Grand opening, grand closing,
Goddamn, your man Hov cracked the can open again,
Who you gon’ find doper than him with no pen,
Just draw off inspiration.
Soon you gon’ see you can’t replace him,
With cheap imitations for these generations.

For Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, “Numb/Encore” was a full-circle moment. As a young musician, Shinoda mixed Jay-Z samples from the rapper’s 1996 debut, Reasonable Doubt, with the alt-rock riffs of The Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails. It became a blueprint for Linkin Park’s own chart-topping fusion of hip-hop and rock.

Photo by Marc Andrew Deley/FilmMagic