Eminem Defends Kid Rock Collab: "Not About Choosing Sides"
Eminem answered fans upset about his verse on Kid Rock's "Heal My Faith" from the Oct. 17 album "Halfway 2 Jesus": "Not about choosing sides, just choosing to make music with my old friend." Lil Wayne is on "7 Sins," the song Em was first announced for.
Eminem is standing on his Kid Rock feature, and he's not backing down.
Kid Rock dropped his faith-based album "Halfway 2 Jesus" on Friday, Oct. 17. Eminem is on track 5, "Heal My Faith." Lil Wayne is on track 3, "7 Sins."
Some of Em's fans were shocked. Eminem endorsed Kamala Harris at a Detroit rally in 2024 and went at Donald Trump on records like "Campaign Speech." Kid Rock is one of Trump's loudest supporters in music.
Hours after the album came out, Eminem answered on social media: "Not about choosing sides, just choosing to make music with my old friend. Praying for all of us."
He says it on the song too. "He is my brother, not my political enemy," Em raps on "Heal My Faith." He also raps, "However you voted or lean, liberal and evangelical can agree."
The two Detroit-area artists go back about 40 years, Kid Rock told Billboard. "I really didn't want to drag him into my political world," he said.
The feature almost landed on a different song. Eminem was first announced on "7 Sins" when the tracklist came out Oct. 1. Days before release, Em asked to switch to "Heal My Faith," the first song they worked on. The Detroit Free Press was in Kid Rock's Nashville studio for the scramble. Kid Rock reached out to Lil Wayne and Chuck D for "7 Sins." Wayne hit him back with "Holler at me" and recorded a verse that day.
Kid Rock told the Free Press the complaints are "confirming the problem to us." This isn't their first time on a record together. Em was on Kid Rock's "F-ck Off," and Kid Rock showed up in Em's 2013 "Berzerk" video.
Sources: Billboard (Oct. 18, 2026); Rolling Stone (Oct. 17, 2026); Detroit Free Press (Oct. 15, 2026). Image: frame from Eminem's "Houdini" official music video, via YouTube.