Kid Rock invokes Kobe Bryant’s ‘Mamba Mentality’ while gearing up for TPUSA Super Bowl halftime show

The 55-year-old Detroit native is among headliners for Turning Point’s “All-American Halftime Show,” a counterprotest to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show.

Kid Rock made an interesting choice in how he got his thoughts across.

Days before he takes the stage for Turning Point USA Super Bowl halftime show, a counterprotest to Bad Bunny performing the Super Bowl Halftime Show, the Detroit rocker and fervent Trump supporter posted a quote from Kobe Bryant and the late basketball player’s Mamba Mentality ethos.

“Learn to love the hate,” the graphic reads. “Embrace it. Enjoy it. You earned it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and everyone should have an opinion about you. Haters are a good problem to have. Nobody hates the good ones, they hate the great ones.”

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Rock has floated across both aisles of the political spectrum in the last 15 years. He performed at President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009, only to throw support behind Mitt Romney in the 2012 election. Since then, he’s been one of Donald Trump’s staunchest supporters and after he was tapped to play Turning Point’s “All-American Halftime Show”, he professed that performers were taking their performances like “David going up against Goliath.”

He then added a shot toward Bad Bunny.

“He’s said he’s having a dance party, wearing a dress, and singing in Spanish? Cool,” he said, per Variety. “We plan to play great songs for folks who love America.”

Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, and Gabby Barrett, who finished third on Season 16 of “American Idol,” will also perform on the show, which began to take shape weeks after Bad Bunny was named as the Super Bowl halftime performer and activist Charlie Kirk, who co-founded TPUSA, was slain in Utah.

During his scheduled media appearance discussing the Super Bowl halftime show, Bad Bunny addressed the criticism that his show would be completely in Spanish.

“They don’t even have to learn Spanish. Better they learn to dance,” he said. “There is no better dance than the one that comes from the heart.”

Meanwhile, Kid Rock’s “Rock The Country” festival has taken some hits. After Ludacris and others dropped out of performing, the fledgling festival had to cancel a date in South Carolina. Rock band Shinedown became the latest act to bow out, saying they didn’t know it was “Kid Rock’s thing” and said they wanted to unite, not divide.

“Shinedown is everyone’s band. We feel that we have been given a platform to bring all people together through the power and music and song,” a statement posted on X read. “We have one BOSS, and it is everyone in the audience. Our band’s purpose is to unite, not divide.”

The band added, “With that in mind, we have made the decision that we will not be playing the Rock the Country Festival. We know this decision will create differences of opinion, but we do not want to participate in something we believe will create further division.”