20 years in, Kid Rock, Eminem and ICP are politically relevant — and culturally divided

Roll back the clock precisely 20 years, and you’d encounter a curious phenomenon bubbling up in Detroit.

September 1997: Kid Rock had just landed a major-label record deal. Little-known Eminem was about to catch Dr. Dre’s ear and land his own. The face-painted duo Insane Clown Posse was grabbing headlines and hitting the charts amid controversy.

Within 15 months, all would be household names in the wider music world, a strange bit of synchronicity that sparked magazine essays, cultural analysis and no small amount of head-scratching: Detroit had not only managed to produce three white rap acts. It had produced three of the most prominent white rap acts of all time.

Two decades on, against the odds, all three remain active and loyally supported, still making music and selling out shows in their respective domains. In the entertainment business, especially in the digital age, that endurance is remarkable enough.

But even more notable — and downright fascinating — is that Kid Rock, Eminem and ICP find themselves in the thick of the 2017 political conversation, relevant and newsy in ways few would have foreseen in 1997.

It’s not just that they've thrust themselves onto the combative front lines of politics, taking high-profile stands on issues and ideas. These are three natural-born provocateurs, after all, and right now there’s no hotter button to push than the one labeled “politics.”

"All three of them have talked about politics down the line. It's just that politics is a bigger fish now," says John Quigley, a filmmaker who has known and worked with Eminem and Kid Rock since the '90s. "These guys are all captains of staying in the media."

But beyond the day-to-day partisan causes and opinions is a more significant reality: Kid Rock, Eminem and ICP have become avatars for three distinct white political identities. Whatever loosely linked these guys 20 years ago has long since fractured. They were once just rivals on the Detroit rap scene; at this point they operate in disparate social and cultural spheres, each politically pitted against the other.

Recent weeks have punctuated the point:

ICP and its Juggalo fan base — a self-described family of social outcasts — were joined Saturday by progressive and socialist groups for a march in Washington, D.C., protesting the federal designation of Juggalos as a gang.

Kid Rock, moving ever rightward and teasing at a U.S. Senate run, has dined at the White House with President Donald Trump, Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent. His new concert production features a populist, politically incorrect “stump speech” laying out his views, and his opening night at Detroit's Little Caesars Arena last week drew angry demonstrators.

Eminem, meanwhile, has served up blistering tirades against Trump, including the freestyle track “Campaign Speech” and summer shows where he led tens of thousands in F-bomb chants against the president.

While there were already clear differences in their music and personas when they emerged in the ’90s, the divisions then weren’t quite so stark.

As three white rap acts from the Detroit area, they made an irresistible trend story for media, and it was easy to lump them together: They were young white men fascinated by hip-hop while slipping rock elements and attitudes into their work. They were do-it-yourself hustlers who built careers from the ground up. They were rough and anti-glamour, with edgy, theatrical lyrics designed to shock, part of a local tradition stretching back to the likes of Alice Cooper.

And there was plenty of overlap in their audiences, especially here in southeastern Michigan, where they drew from the same broad blue-collar base.

But less obvious at the time were the cultural and social fault lines lurking in that white working-class foundation — fault lines that have since cracked open, leaving the three acts and their respective audiences on very different corners of the political map.

Whatever the reason — depends who you ask — the freewheeling Clinton era of their 20s has given way to an increasingly heated political environment. Ideological rhetoric has become more intense, party affiliations more entrenched. It’s natural that would lead to more cultural segmentation, says Mark Grossman, director of Michigan State University's Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.

“There have always been divisions within culture in terms of the degree of radicalism,” he says. “What’s new is to have these more minute divisions within rock and hip-hop, to have more partisan divisions at stake.”

The three Detroit performers reflect the divide: Kid Rock, now more singer than rapper, is the flag-waving Trump booster proudly embracing redneck imagery and Southern rock. Eminem is the Trump-bashing hip-hop purist ever conscious of his place in a black art form. ICP is the radical underdog, under fire from the government and winning solidarity from libertarian and leftist groups.

Those are broad strokes, of course, and no doubt there are fans who would squirm at being politically pigeonholed.

Still, Kid Rock, Eminem and ICP are timely symbols — “three archetypes for whiteness in the 21st Century,” says Dan Charnas, an associate arts professor at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute. “They represent the (different) ways white America will deal with this new era.”

Metro Detroit, with its geographic racial separation and postindustrial economic struggles, is a microcosm.

“That’s the colorful and poetic thing about these three acts,” says Charnas, a longtime hip-hop critic and author. “I see Michigan as a metaphor in many ways — especially the relationship between Detroit and its suburbs as a metaphor for America.”

Building communities

Near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Saturday, several hundred ICP fans gathered for a colorful afternoon of protests and performances as they contested the FBI's labeling of Juggalos as a gang. It’s a battle they’ve been fighting in court and elsewhere since 2011, winning solidarity from groups such as the ACLU, the Democratic Socialists of America and the libertarian Reason magazine.

ICP and Juggalos say the "gang" designation has affected fans' jobs, personal relationships and interactions with police. They also call it the most wounding insult in a long history of ostracism toward the group and its fans, who have described themselves from the beginning as predominantly lower-class whites and social misfits building a community.

In those early days, there was nothing blatantly partisan in the work of the three Detroit white rap acts, and ICP still describes itself as an apolitical group that welcomes all.

But ICP was certainly including social messages from the outset, attacking bigotry in the violence-soaked lyrics of early songs like “Your Rebel Flag” and “Chicken Huntin’.” And the duo was unwittingly thrust into free-speech activism in summer ’97, when their Disney-operated label recalled “The Great Milenko” from CD racks over “inappropriate lyrics.”

Kid Rock went public with his political values in the 2000s, touting Republican causes like gun rights as his music shifted from rap-rock to country and other rootsy sounds. That’s also when he began displaying the Confederate flag onstage and elsewhere, calling it a symbol of rebellion and Southern rock. He would stop using the flag in 2011 after receiving an NAACP award, but controversy has dogged him since.

Eminem went big during the 2004 presidential election with the anti-Bush song and video “Mosh.” His work had already grappled with race and culture in more personal forms, exploring and even mocking his own place as a white artist in a black milieu. No song conveyed his unease with mainstream suburban acceptance more forcefully than 2002’s “White America” — which also included his latest lyrical salvo against would-be censors such as Lynne Cheney and Tipper Gore.

When it comes to being a white rapper in Detroit, it's conventional wisdom that Eminem has most skillfully threaded the needle of hip-hop credibility and authenticity. Raised in poverty and domestic turbulence along Detroit's borders, he has a deep and relevant personal experience to inform his work.

For some, like Charnas, he's the only one who counts.

Charnas emphasizes that he’s no fan of Kid Rock’s politics or “mercenary” approach to hip-hop. He’s also never cared for ICP’s music, the group's “costumed detachment” from hip-hop’s roots, or what he calls a focus on class over race — “the same flaws people see in the Bernie (Sanders) Bros.”

Eminem, on the other hand, "has leaned toward Detroit — and not just Detroit as a city or a symbol, but the people," says Charnas. "He hung out with the people at the Hip Hop Shop, at Dilla's house. He paid his dues. It's not that black hip-hop folks in Detroit see him as some god, but they do see him as one of them. He was never a tourist. He was a polite guest."

Fans at Kid Rock's recent Michigan shows have pushed back hard on criticism that the Romeo native recklessly co-opted hip-hop and Detroit imagery for personal profit. Among other things, they cite his teen years woodshedding as a DJ in the city, his black musical associates and personal relations, and the philanthropic contributions he's made since striking it rich.

Some said they were unhappy and confused that racial issues were injected into what they saw as the celebratory opening of a new arena — featuring an artist they regard as a native son. Others were just happy to have an entertainer who operates from the more conservative end of the spectrum, evidenced by his concert speech taking on national anthem protests, "redistribution of wealth" and transgender bathroom use.

Longtime fan Joe Steffes, 50, arrived at Rock's Sept. 6 show in Grand Rapids sporting his new "Kid Rock for US Senate" T-shirt. Three friends who couldn't make the concert had asked him to grab Senate shirts while he was there.

"I like the idea," he said of a potential Rock run. "But I'm interested in what he has to say before I make any final judgments. I'm just glad there's a superstar from the right side of things for a change."

Steffe's friend Bonnie Garvin-Jones, 42, is a longtime Kid Rock fan from Grand Rapids. She described herself as a true-blue liberal and Democratic supporter who isn't bothered by Rock's political moves.

"He has his own mind. That's what I like about him," she said. "Even though he's a Trump supporter, I love him."

All told, they're the sorts of discussions that might have been unthinkable to those in local music circles in 1997, when Kid Rock was diving into "Devil Without a Cause," Eminem was heading to L.A. for his big break at the Rap Olympics, and ICP was scrambling to shore up its post-Disney career.

But they are signs of a cultural phenomenon that could have emerged only from a place like Detroit, layered with decades of racial complexity, class struggles and a towering musical history to provide perpetual momentum. And in a political age that doesn't appear to be simmering down anytime soon, the white-rap class of '97 might very well be destined to remain in the thick of it all.

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.





