Kid Rock Denies Lip Syncing At 'The All-American Halftime Show', Blames Audio Syncing Issue

Kid Rock‘s much-hyped performance at ‘The All-American Halftime Show‘ that aired yesterday, February 08th, didn’t exactly deliver as expected. The diamond-certified country/rap-rock star opened that two-song headlining set, which was presented by Turning Point USA, with an abbreviated performance of his late 90s hit “Bawitdaba“, followed by a cello-assisted cover of Cody Johnson‘s “‘Til You Can’t“. A studio recording of the latter has since been released online digitally.

With the concert being heavily politicized in advance as a more MAGA-aligned counterprogram to Bad Bunny‘s official halftime performance at the ‘Superbowl LX‘, Rock headlined this rival bill, which also featured Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and more. However, Rock‘s performance of ‘Bawitdaba” that aired appeared to heavily rely on backing tracks, with little vocal participation from Rock himself seemingly taking place. Further criticism has also since emerged online of elements of the second song played by Rock and co. allegedly being mimed onstage, though that criticism has mainly been reserved for the backing musicians.

However, it was the performance of “Bawitdaba” that saw the knives come out on social media, with a veritable flood of posts outright mocking Rock, with some going as far as calling him “Hillbilly Vanilli” — a reference to pop music’s most infamous lip syncing musical act. Appearing on The Ingraham Angle today, February 09th, Rock denied lip syncing during the performance. When host Laura Ingraham mentioned that a lot of comments had noted that “Bawitdaba” seemed “out of whack”, Rock replied [transcribed by theprp.com]:

“It was out of sync. And actually, just to have some fun with the haters — I can’t answer all the trolls, but it’s gonna be some fun. My DJ, who actually raps that song with me, he was not lit up. He’s coming to Nashville tonight, flying in, and we’re gonna do that live in my living room and I’m gonna post it tomorrow to show people exactly how this works. Because #1: if it would have been a lip syncing like people are trying… you know, the left is trying to throw me under the bus again, the mainstream media and social media tries to amplify it.

It would have been super easy to sync it up, if it was pre-recorded. It was very difficult for the Turning Point production crew — who by the way I can’t say enough good things about — but was very difficult for them. I’m jumping around the stage like a rabid monkey, rapping my song, and I’m taking breaths, and my DJ is filling in the other parts of it — I even told them when I saw the rough cut, I was like, ‘You guys got to work on that sync. It’s off.’ So it was just a syncing issue that they had, and I know they tried to get it right. It was very difficult.

But I’ll answer all the haters tomorrow and we’ll put ’em back in the shut up and go back to trying to report the fake news.”