Eminem Has a Verse on Kid Rock's New Christian Album. Here Is Everything Actually Confirmed About “7 Sins.”

Kid Rock posted a tracklist Thursday with Eminem's name on it. Fans spent the next few hours calling it fake. Here is what actually checks out, and why the pairing goes back further than most people remember.

On Thursday, October 1, at 3:38 p.m., Kid Rock posted the cover art and full tracklist for his upcoming album Halfway 2 Jesus on X. He called it "soon to be released" and said lead single "James 1:17" (subtitled "Jesus Is King") was "available everywhere NOW," with the official video premiering that night. Track 3 on the 17-song list is "7 Sins," featuring Eminem. Here is the post itself, with the cover and the tracklist everybody has been passing around:

Kid Rock's October 1 post with the Halfway 2 Jesus cover and tracklist. View it on X.

This is Eminem's first credited feature on a new Kid Rock song since "Fuck Off" in 1998. Within hours, the replies were full of disbelief. "No f*cking way," one read. Others flatly called the credit "FAKE." Some argued that two artists this far apart politically would not end up on the same Christian rock record, and others guessed Eminem must have handed over an old, unused verse. That skepticism is understandable given how the two men usually get framed in headlines. It is also, as far as every outlet that has looked into it can tell, wrong.

The full Halfway 2 Jesus tracklist

Here is the tracklist image from Kid Rock's post. "7 Sins" is credited "w/ EMINEM":

The Halfway 2 Jesus tracklist. Image: Kid Rock via X.

And typed out:

1. 1. Freedom
2. 2. James 1:17
3. 3. 7 Sins (feat. Eminem)
4. 4. Why Don't You Look Into Jesus
5. 5. Water Into Wine
6. 6. Halfway 2 Jesus (feat. Gary LeVox & Jimmie Allen)
7. 7. I Don't Drink The Whiskey Anymore
8. 8. Me And Jesus
9. 9. God Is Good (Prelude)
10. 10. God Is Good
11. 11. Into The Setting Sun
12. 12. Broken Hearted People
13. 13. 'Til You Can't
14. 14. Why Don't You Look Into Jesus (Riri Mix)
15. 15. High Road
16. 16. Procession
17. 17. God Bless The USA

The album is due October 17, which also happens to be Eminem's 54th birthday. It is Kid Rock's first new album since 2022's Bad Reputation. Besides Eminem, the only other guests are Rascal Flatts frontman Gary LeVox and country singer Jimmie Allen, both on the title track. The cover shows Kid Rock, in his words, "halfway to Jesus," with the devil at his back. The art itself spells the title out as "Halfway to Jesus," while his post uses "Halfway 2 Jesus."

The Halfway 2 Jesus cover. Image: Kid Rock via X.

"James 1:17 (Jesus Is King)," the Halfway 2 Jesus lead single that Kid Rock released the same day as the tracklist.

What's actually confirmed

Complex reached out to Eminem's camp after the tracklist went up, and a representative confirmed to the outlet that "7 Sins" is an official track that will appear on the album. That is the part the "fake" theories miss. This was not a leaked rumor or a fan edit of a cover. Kid Rock posted the credit himself, on his own verified account, and Eminem's own representative has since backed it up. Consequence, Whiskey Riff and Blunt all independently reported the same tracklist and release plan.

The quote that explains why Eminem is on it at all

Complex also obtained Kid Rock's foreword to the album. In it, he addresses the Eminem feature directly and frames it as a statement about staying friends through disagreement, not a reunion for its own sake:

Kid Rock: "I'm proud of the guests who joined me, especially my old friend Eminem. His verse speaks to something we've talked about and that really needs to be heard: we differ politically and on other things, but we've stayed friends through it all."

Kid Rock: "We hope that sets an example for people who've lost friends or stopped talking to family because they think differently."

That is Kid Rock's framing, not Eminem's own words. Eminem has not personally commented on "7 Sins" as of this writing, and we found no post from him about it. But the foreword lines up almost exactly with something the two men already said to each other in public two years ago. More on that below.

Eminem and Kid Rock: a 28-year history

The pairing only looks strange if you start the clock in 2016. The two came up in the same Detroit-area scene in the '90s: Kid Rock from Romeo, north of the city, and Eminem from the east side. Both were white rappers in a scene that didn't have many.

1998: the trade that put Eminem on a major-label album

While Kid Rock was making Devil Without a Cause, Eminem was recording in the same studio. As the story is told in the album's history, Eminem asked his friend to record scratching for his song "My Fault." In return, Eminem delivered a guest verse on Kid Rock's "Fuck Off." Devil Without a Cause came out August 18, 1998, half a year before The Slim Shady LP. That made "Fuck Off" one of the first times most people ever heard Eminem on a major-label release. The album went on to be certified 11× Platinum in the U.S.

1999: the same breakout year

Both men broke through in 1999. Eminem's "My Name Is" and Kid Rock's "Bawitdaba" were all over MTV in the same stretch, and Eminem's own "My Fault" landed on The Slim Shady LP with Kid Rock's scratches on it.

2013: the "Berzerk" cameo

When Eminem made the video for "Berzerk," the lead single from The Marshall Mathers LP 2, Kid Rock showed up for a cameo alongside Rick Rubin, Kendrick Lamar and Slaughterhouse. He pops in just before the line nodding to his own "Bawitdaba."

Eminem's "Berzerk" video (2013), with a Kid Rock cameo.

2017 to 2024: the politics

This is where the headlines split them apart. Kid Rock became one of Donald Trump's most visible supporters in music and performed at the Republican National Convention in July 2024. Eminem went the other way. At the 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards, he aired "The Storm," a freestyle tearing into Trump that ended by telling fans who supported Trump to pick a side. Then on October 22, 2024, he took the stage at Huntington Place in Detroit to introduce Barack Obama at a rally for Kamala Harris.

Three days later, on October 25, Kid Rock posted a video of himself playing guitar and said: "I love Eminem. We've been friends for many years. I don't agree with his politics, but I do give credit to him and people like Taylor Swift for standing up and not being afraid to be vocal for that which they believe." Two days after that, Eminem answered him on X:

Eminem's October 27, 2024 reply to Kid Rock. View it on X.

"Here's one thing @KidRock and I do agree on... GO @Lions!!!! Appreciate you, Bob." Read that next to the "7 Sins" foreword and the feature stops looking like a mystery. Kid Rock says the verse is about two friends who "differ politically and on other things" and stayed close anyway. The two of them already acted that out in public two years ago, in front of millions of people, during the most heated weeks of an election.

What is not yet verified

A few things are still open. Nobody has published Eminem's actual bars from "7 Sins," and the song itself has not leaked or streamed anywhere we could find. So the fan theory that it's a recycled, previously unused verse is speculation. We can't confirm or rule it out from what's been reported. Eminem's camp confirmed the credit is real, but not what the verse says or when it was recorded. And Eminem himself has not said a word about it publicly yet.

The tension fans are reacting to is real, too. Eminem's own Revival sessions, as Denaun Porter has told it, started as an explicitly political record aimed squarely at the kind of politics Kid Rock has aligned with. That is exactly why Kid Rock felt the need to explain the feature in his own liner notes rather than let the credit speak for itself.

Precedent: Em's unlikely features tend to be real

This would not be the first surprising name on an Eminem credit that turned out to be exactly as billed. Fat Joe has told the story of talking his way into the "Lean Back" remix on nerve alone. Snoop Dogg and Eminem spent years feuding before reconciling into some of the more unexpected collaborations in either catalog. Pairings that look implausible on paper tend to check out once someone asks the people involved. That is what Complex did here, and that is why "7 Sins" clears our bar even with the verse still unheard.

Until the album drops on October 17, or Eminem says something himself, here is where the story sits: a real credit on a real album, confirmed by Eminem's representative, from two Detroit artists who traded verses and scratches before either was famous and who were saying "we disagree, we're still friends" in public long before this tracklist existed. The skepticism is fair given how rare this kind of pairing is. It just does not hold up against the record.