Kid Rock

 

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Robert James Ritchie, best known as Kid Rock, is an American rapper, singer and rock musician most notable for his albums Devil Without a Causeand Cocky and his hit singles "Bawitdaba" and "Picture." His backup band is known as Twisted Brown Trucker. Together, they fuse rap, hard rock, southern rock, country, blues, and rapcore.  Kid Rock's career started at the age of 11, as a member of the b-boy group 'The Furious Funkers'. Later, after the success of Run DMC and The Beastie Boys, he bought himself a cheap belt driven turntable, locked himself in his room, and honed his craft. In High School he would DJ parties for beer. He eventually joined Bo Wisdom of Groove Time Productions, in Mt. Clemens, where he played a few shows. It was during these shows that he was given his stage name; Wisdom dubbed him with the moniker 'Kid Rock' after fans had enjoyed watching "that white kid rock."  He started emceeing around this time as well, joining the Detroit Hip-Hop collective The Beast Crew, which contained members like The Blackman and Champtown. He also became friends with producer D-Nice of the legendary Hip-Hop group Boogie Down Productions. When Rock opened for BDP one night, D-Nice invited an A&R of Jive Records to see him perform. This eventually led to a demo deal which developed into a full record contract. Against his parents' wishes, he signed the deal at the age of eighteen. Though he was now signed, he had a falling out with The Beast Crew when he got signed over fellow member Champtown (though Champ has spoken well about Rock in recent years, on the VH1 shows Behind the Music and Driven). He later became part of the 'Straight From The Underground Tour', where he found himself alongside several heavyweights of rap including Ice Cube, Too $hort, D-Nice, and Yo-Yo.  In 1990, Kid Rock released his debut album Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast on Jive Records. The first single, Yo Da Lin In The Valley, was mostly ignored by radio because of its raunchy subject matter. In 1991, Jive dropped Kid Rock from their label. 

In 2000, after reacquiring the rights to his early material, he released The History Of Rock, a collection of remixed or re-recorded songs. The only new track, "American Bad Ass", sampled the Metallica track "Sad But True". It was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 2001 Grammy Awards. It was later used as professional wrestler The Undertaker's entrance song in World Wrestling Entertainment. ECW's Kid Kash used Bawitdaba and WCW's Jeff Jarret used a remixed version of Cowboy as their theme songs as well. WWE/F Diva Stacy Keibler used Kid Rock's cover version of ZZ Top's Legs, Rock dedicated the song to her.  Kid Rock went on the Summer Sanitorium Tour with Metallica, Korn, Powerman 5000, and System of a Down. Kid Rock filled in for James Hetfield of Metallica for three shows after Hetfield was injured. Kid didn't know all of the lyrics, so he had to read them off a sheet of paper. Metallica members Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett joined him on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno for an all-star performance of 'American Bad Ass'. Kid Rock appeared on SNL doing American Bad Ass with snippets of Sweet Home Alabama, Back In Black and La Grange. The second song was Only God Knows Why it was arranged by David Allan Coe and ft Phish's Trey Anatasio.  Later that year, he joined Phish on stage for several songs at a concert in Las Vegas. At the end of 2000, Joe C died of Celiac disease. Kid Rock inducted Aerosmith into the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame and performed Sweet Emotion with them at years end. He would have a role in the David Spade film Joe Dirt before going to work on 'Cocky'.  A new studio album from Kid Rock is in the works and is set for release in 2007.  See Kid Rock LIVE  Purchase your Kid Rock tickets today!

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