Ever since gaining mainstream notoriety 17 years ago with his breakthrough album Devil Without a Cause, country/rap/rock star Kid Rock has been something of a pop culture rorschach test. Songs like the Upper Peninsula, redneck anthem “All Summer Long” either speak to you or make your skin crawl with lyrics about “sipping whisky out the bottle” and “not thinking ’bout tomorrow.”
But a recent picture of the “Bawitdaba” singer has created a new dividing line in the culture war. A photo of Kid Rock taken with a mountain lion he presumably shot and killed on a hunting trip has triggered a backlash from animal rights activists while drawing support from pro-hunting fans.
The photo was initially posted on Facebook by fellow rock star, Michigan native, and cultural lightning rod Ted Nugent on Jan. 3. The post includes three photos, including one of Nugent and Kid Rock together dressed in camouflage hunting gear and holding up the body of the dead mountain lion. (In case you’ve never been on Nugent’s Facebook page, photos shared by the Motor City Madman alternate regularly between hunting trophies and electric guitars.)
Nugent writes: “And what a grand conservation New Year it is! HAIL my MotorCity boy KidRock for saving all those muledeer elk & livestock by whacking this magnificent mountain lion. I can hear the braindead squawkers already with their obscene denial that killing lions is wrong. Its legal its necessary its good its beneficial its a damn riot!”