Perhaps it’s a sign that I am an empathy-poisoned liberal, but it was hard to choke back the pity watching the alternative halftime show aired by Turning Point USA during Sunday’s Super Bowl game. Despite having months to book and organize an event that was supposed to draw millions away from the real deal, TPUSA couldn’t even pack the small space for audience members on the soundstage — not a stadium, arena, theater or even a club — they rented for the occasion. The promise of seeing the washed-up Kid Rock in an intimate setting appears to thrill no one. Organizers declared that huge numbers of Americans would prefer this to the actual halftime show, but the anemic audience present for the taping suggested they couldn’t get anyone who isn’t a paid TPUSA staff member.
Initially, it looked like there might not be much of an “All-American Halftime” at all. TPUSA announced the show in October in an impulsive attempt to capitalize on an explosion of right-wing outrage after reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny was revealed as the halftime headliner for the Super Bowl. Racist whining is certainly a good source of money and attention for TPUSA, but as the day of the “alternative” halftime drew nearer, the organization still hadn’t announced any performers. Speculation was rife that they’d simply been unable to book anyone, which could lead a cynic to wonder if Kid Rock and the D-list country performers they finally revealed as headliners at the last minute swooped in to save TPUSA from embarrassment.
Mr. Rock himself was presumably a competent performer at some point in his life, and he can certainly jump around more than most Republican voters his age. But as the counterpoint to Bad Bunny, one of the most popular musicians and electrifying performers in the world, his set was a tough hang.
Things got even weirder when it came to the headliner. Mr. Rock himself was presumably a competent performer at some point in his life, and he can certainly jump around more than most Republican voters his age. But as the counterpoint to Bad Bunny, one of the most popular musicians and dynamic performers in the world, his set was a tough hang. Kid Rock didn’t really bother to lip sync while bouncing around half-heartedly to “Bawitdaba,” his breakthrough single from 1999. Somehow, that was still the least bad part of his brief show. He did one more song under his real name, Robert Ritchie, about how he loves Jesus. His performance wasn’t even amusingly bad. It was the worst thing you can be in music: boring.
The same cannot be said for the real deal. Bad Bunny’s halftime show was sheer joy — a celebration of Latino culture and American values. In sets that included a field of sugar cane, a wedding ceremony, a bodega and workers on electric poles depicting the rebuilding of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, the rapper turned in an electric performance mostly in Spanish that included surprise assists from Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin. In one emotional moment, Bad Bunny handed one of the Grammys he won last weekend to a boy who resembled Liam Conejo Ramos. Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump took to social media to call the show “absolutely terrible” and “an affront to the greatness of America.”
On the other hand, TPUSA’s night was doomed from the get-go. Beyond snagging Kid Rock as a last-minute salvation, the show had no marketing aside from “Watch this to trigger the liberals.” The irony is that it could turn out to not have been worth the hassle of booking Kid Rock in the first place. Andrew Kolvet, who serves as the organization’s spokesman and now hosts Charlie Kirk’s podcast, announced on X that the show would “celebrate faith, family, and freedom.” In response, a sea of users reminded him of Kid Rock’s 2001 song “Cool Daddy Cool,” which instead celebrates raping teenage girls. “Young ladies, young ladies / I like ’em underage / See some say that’s statutory / But I say that’s mandatory,” he declares, acknowledging with the word “statutory” that this is, in fact, rape.
In defending his decision to appear at the TPUSA event, Kid Rock said of Bad Bunny: “He’s said he’s having a dance party, wearing a dress and singing in Spanish.” His ability to pack racism, queerphobia and misogyny into one statement certainly is more creative than any of his music. His association with the event also seems to have backfired on him. A number of musical acts recently pulled out of his Rock the Country Festival, and one town on the eight-stop tour cancelled the show altogether. Rock band Shinedown explicitly cited politics as the reason, posting on Instagram, “We do not want to participate in something we believe will create further division.” Creed quietly had their name removed from the line-up. The festival’s website had initially listed the rapper Ludacris as a performer, but his name disappeared after he insisted he had never agreed to play.
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But no one should be surprised at Kid Rock’s unvarnished racism. He has a long history of racist behavior, which beyond being appalling on its face is also pretty ungrateful, considering that his early career was built on Black-created music. “Bawitdaba” reuses the hooky “up jump the boogie” chants from “Rapper’s Delight,” the 1979 Sugarhill Gang classic, which might be fine if he had honored the source material by doing something clever with it. Instead, he just made it palatable to insecure white guys by shouting the lyrics and stripping them of their playfulness.
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In the end, Kid Rock wasn’t really the star of the “All-American Halftime Show.” No, it was the ghost of Charlie Kirk. Although Kid Rock tried to convey vulnerability by doffing his usual sunglasses, which helpfully hide what appears to be unfortunate cosmetic work, his two-song set was trumped by a short video of Kirk going off on one of his rants about how you “defend this country” by being “getting married” and “having children.”
TPUSA promised a musical extravaganza. Instead, it was the same tired fundraising pitch about how this alleged “youth” organization was going to make all those wayward young people shape up, stop having sex, give up their urban careers and act like characters in a Hallmark movie. No doubt it was good at getting their aging audience to open up their wallets, after asking their grandkids how to use the “superchat” donate function on YouTube. But as a bid for cultural relevance — well, let’s just say Bad Bunny has nothing to worry about.
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