Kid Rock Explains Classic Hit 'Bawitdaba'

08-15-2023

Video still from interview

AXS TV is looking back at a Kid Rock appearance on The Big Interview with Dan Rather where he looks at his early hit "Bawitdaba". The network sent over these details: Is it rap? Is it rock? No matter how you classify "Bawitdaba," you can't deny that this Kid Rock anthem is incredibly entertaining.

"[Bawitdaba] makes people want to drink whiskey and throw things, it's the ultimate rock song," Rock said during an interview with Dan Rather. "It pisses your parents off when you turn it up loud, makes old people go, 'What the hell is that?' It's got all the ingredients to be a great rock song."

Released this week in 1998 on his "Devil Without a Cause" album, "Bawitdaba" is arguably Kid Rock's most famous song, but its origins are lesser-known.

"This song went through like three different phases, so I just started screaming that kind of hip hop, 1940s, I don't know what you'd call 'doing the dozen'-type thing over it, and started layering it with semitones of vocals," Rock explained in the interview. "It came out to be this Gregorian chant of some sort which meant absolutely nothing, the lyrics mean absolutely nothing, there's little things I hit on in there but I don't know what the hell I was talking about."

You can watch the full conversation with Kid Rock on The Big Interview with Dan Rather, available now on the AXS TV website here, mobile app, and ConnectedTV platforms.