Kid Rock Brings RNC Crowd to His Feet with His Hit “American Bad Ass”

Kid Rock Brings RNC Crowd to His Feet with His Hit “American Bad Ass”

Kid Rock brought the cheering Republican National Convention crowd to its feet Thursday and chanted “Fight! Fight! Fight!” for former President and 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

The singer and rapper performed his 2000 hit American Bad Ass with some changes to the lyrics to make them election-appropriate. He had the audience shout “Trump! Trump! Trump!” by replacing the original lyrics with “Hey! Hey! Hey!”

Kid Rock also named major presidential election battlegrounds like Pennsylvania and Arizona, instead of other locations in the original version of the song.

Kid Rock performs at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee.

AP Photo/Matt Rourke

“Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to face the most patriotic and badass president on the planet, Donald J. Trump,” Kid Rock told the crowd before leaving the stage and introducing Dana White.

The right-wing musician described Trump as one of his “best friends” in an interview with Rolling Stone in May.

Kid Rock reacted to the assassination attempt on the former president at a rally in Butler this weekend.

“If you make fun of Trump, you make fun of me,” he shouted in a shirtless selfie video.

Minutes into Donald Trump’s speech at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, there were loud banging noises as people scrambled to safety. Trump appeared to hold his ear and fell to the ground. When he got back up, surrounded by Secret Service agents, blood was streaming down his face.

“We came within inches of one of the darkest moments in our nation’s history,” Trump Jr. said at the RNC on Thursday night. “My father’s goal was not … to give up, not to surrender, but to show the world that the next president of the United States has the heart of a lion.”

The shooting is officially being investigated as attempted murder. A poster with images of the shooter, Thomas Crooks, was seen outside the RNC in Milwaukee on Wednesday.

Kid Rock performs at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee.

AP Photo/Matt Rourke

Over the past decade, Kid Rock has become increasingly polarizing. He’s dove into all things Trump, going on interviews to predict Trump’s election winner, discuss “DEI bullshit,” and all things MAGA.

Kid Rock, whose birth name is Robert Richie, began making his concerts look like Trump rallies. He put Trump on a giant screen and told his audience, “He’s your president now, so deal with it!” according to one of his peers.

Kid Rock has said in the past that he knew it would be risky to publicly support Trump.

“When I stepped up, I knew it could end my career,” he said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “But I was betting there were a lot of like-minded people out there.”

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