When the tracklist for Kid Rock’s upcoming Christian rock album first surfaced, a lot of Eminem fans assumed it was a fake. It wasn’t. Eminem really is on “7 Sins,” a song from Halfway 2 Jesus, and the reaction has been loud.
Most of the noise has little to do with faith or with the song itself. It’s about politics. Kid Rock has become one of Donald Trump’s most visible supporters, while Eminem has spent years in the opposite corner.
Em has taken shots at Trump in his music. He also turned up at a Kamala Harris campaign rally in Detroit in 2024.
So for a chunk of his audience, seeing his name next to Kid Rock’s on a gospel-leaning project felt like whiplash.
Ebro Darden didn’t hold back. Marshall @Eminem, if you are approving verses or doing verses and creating music in 2026 and beyond, there are a lot of other great hip-hop acts, i would love to see stand next, that would be great for your legacy, Kid Rock is not one of them,” he said in a clip that spread quickly on October 5.
Podcasters have been going at it too. In one widely shared segment, Emanny raised the new record and Marc made it clear he wasn’t a fan.
Ish argued that the private, off mic conversations between the two men matter, and Emanny shot back with a blunt dismissal of that idea.
Flip added another layer to that same conversation. He pointed out that artists sometimes stand next to someone from the culture as a way of apologizing, which suggests some listeners are reading the pairing as more than a simple feature.
Kid Rock, for his part, saw the backlash coming and addressed it in the album’s foreword. “We differ politically and on other things, but we’ve stayed friends through it all,” he wrote. “We hope that sets an example for people who’ve lost friends or stopped talking to family because they think differently.”
That friendship goes back a long way. Eminem appeared on “F#ck Off” from Kid Rock’s 1998 album Devil Without a Cause, before the Slim Shady era took over pop culture. Years later, Kid Rock showed up in the video for Eminem’s 2013 single “Berzerk.
So there’s real history here, and some fans see two old Detroit friends refusing to let presidential politics wreck a decades long bond.
Others think political convictions should shape who an artist chooses to work with, especially an artist who has been as outspoken as Em.
AllHipHop’s take was far less forgiving, arguing that Eminem is losing fans over the collaboration and that it feels like a betrayal to those who bought into his political stance. Eminem himself hasn’t publicly weighed in yet.
For now, “7 Sins” sits on the tracklist of a Christian album that hasn’t even dropped. Once people can actually hear what Em says on it, the argument is only going to get louder.
