What Is the Real Name of Kid Rock?

Some musicians seem to pick defiant names because they have such conservative names given to them at birth. One example of such a musician is American rocker Kid Rock – whose real name is actually Robert James Ritchie. Apparently, you can sell more albums with a name like Kid Rock than with a name like Robert James Ritchie.

As of October 2007, Kid Rock has been able to produce a total of 11 albums (the last one was released in that month and was entitled Rock and Roll Jesus.) Kid Rock has been able to sell up to 22.5 million albums as of this 2007.

The name Kid Rock is derived from listening to people say after he had performed as a DJ in his teenage years: that white kid rock. It was Bo Wisdom who gave him that name. And it has stuck. So now, remember to say you are buying a Kid Rock ticket instead of a Robert James ticket – Robert James sounds like the name of a 1970s balladeer instead of the modern day rocker that Kid Rock is.

Kid Rock can rap, rock, play a turntable, and sell controversy better than many publicity-hungry musicians today. He went against the advice of his parents and signed a record deal when he was just seventeen. His single entitled Yo Da Lin in the Valley was banned from the airwaves by the FCC for promoting the glories of oral sex (and of course, Kid Rock benefitted from the attention brought by the controversy.)

There were hungry years after the Vanilla Ice controversy caused Jive Records to drop Kid Rock from their pool of talents. But you have to admire Kid Rock for his faith in himself and his music because he was able to convince Atlanta Records later on to sign him to a $100,000 record deal after Atlanta Records executives listened to some demo songs he created for them.

One notable album is the one entitled Cowboy where he surprisingly used country music plus folk music to fuse with his rap style. This shows that maybe there is more to Kid Rock than just explicit lyrics. In fact, in 1999, he received two Grammy Award nominations – a nod from other musicians that maybe this rocker has musical talent after all and not just the potential to get arrested.