Let's do this record." We worked on "Polyfuze Method" at the (Ferndale studio) Tempermill in '92. He got a deal with an independent label, Continuum, and said, "(Screw) it, Clark. They couldn't see the future, and they dropped Kid Rock, which was devastating to him. So Jive decided they didn't want a white rapper anymore. He gave him a couple of his tapes: "Check me out." At least Kid Rock was cordial about it.ĬLARK: (In 1990) Vanilla Ice came out and stunk things up. Maybe one day you'll have your day, but leave the guy alone." He followed him out to the parking lot still wanting to battle. I came up to him: "Dude, this is his day, his event. Toward the end, this blond-haired skinny kid kept yelling out - "I'll battle you! I'll battle you!" Just persistently getting in Kid Rock's face. He had the tall hair, spinning like he would at the bars in Mt. MIKE HIMES (owner, Record Time shop): When "Grits Sandwiches" came out, he came in for an in-store (performance) at 10 and Gratiot. But I remember telling him, "Dude, if you're going to make it to the next level, you've got to clean it up." I wasn't a big rap fan, but I liked his stuff. You've heard that early stuff - a lot of profanity, real edgy, hard-core. NIEPORTE: Bob was just straight-up rap then. JERRY (VILE) PETERSON (publisher, Orbit magazine): He had this giant Mt. He had a great street team, a lot of little kids helping him back then. We did the gig and he put 1,200 people in there. He came in pretty cocky: "I'm going to fill this place." Every band I talk to says that. JOE NIEPORTE (manager, the Ritz, State Theatre): I ran the original Ritz in Roseville, an 1,800-seat venue. He took those demos and got a deal with Jive. He had a shitty little Casio keyboard, and knew exactly how he was going to do it. You could tell right away he wasn't bullshitting. He was very confident, had the high-top fade, very sharp. He had his shit together and blew me away. He had his turntable, had his beats, his stuff already written. A white guy is going to rap." But he shut me up. I didn't know he was white - we caught each other off-guard when he came in. I was working with mostly young black teenagers then. CLARK (producer-mixer): I cut his demos as a kid before he got signed in 1989. It would be the key stage in Kid Rock's evolution, as his hair grew longer, his music grew louder and his live show grew bigger. Jive booked Kid Rock on that year's Straight from the Underground package tour with Too Short and others - a shot at a national audience.īut his Jive stint was brief, and the young rapper was soon back in Detroit plotting his next move. Romeo-born Ritchie was a little-known 17-year-old rapper and DJ when he was signed by the New York hip-hop label Jive Records, which issued his 1990 debut album, "Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast." He'd spent his teen years playing east side house parties and making connections on Detroit's fledgling hip-hop scene, and "Grits" was his Beastie Boys-inspired record of bawdy, boasting rap. Here's a look back at those early Detroit years, 1990 to '98, when a young Bob Ritchie hustled hard to get noticed - and molded himself into the Kid Rock the rest of the world knows today. The teenage Kid Rock had been dropped by his first label, and he returned to Detroit in the early '90s disillusioned but determined to make it on his own terms - driven not by money but by an intense thirst for fame. Getting to that point wasn't without struggle. This year brought a new career chapter: Rock's album, "First Kiss," marked his departure from Atlantic Records, the company that launched him into the national spotlight with 1998's 10-million-selling "Devil Without a Cause." Why is Kid Rock so big in Detroit?īecause Kid Rock got a head start in Detroit: a decade of building his name, grooming his sound and reinventing his persona from scrappy hip-hop street kid to swaggering rock-rap showman. When Kid Rock kicks off a sold-out, 10-show stand Friday at DTE Energy Music Theatre, he'll roll out a set of familiar hits and stage moves - the material he's made famous since his national breakout in 1998.īut as most Detroit fans know, there's far more to the Kid Rock saga than that.īy the time his 10-show run wraps up, he'll have played to 150,000 hometown fans. "It felt like being part of this secret in Detroit that soon the whole world was going to know about." - Tommy Valentino
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