The New Yorker magazine this week carries a long and detailed profile of Kid Rock. Title: "Badass American." Author Kelefa Sanneh, who covers culture for the New Yorker, spent time with Rock at a number of locations, from Ford Field, for a Lions' game, to Tampa, for the Republican National Convention. While Sanneh writes appreciatively about Rock and his shape-shifting music, he notes: "from an uncharitable perspective, Ritchie's whole career can seem like cheating: he has succeeded in an improbably wide range of genres, largely by convincing fans that liking him is more fun than hating him. This, more than anything, explains how he has outlasted so many peers who seemed better equipped for musical success." The story is behind the New Yorker pay wall; here are some highlights: 

In February, Mitt Romney visited for an hour in Rock's Clarkston living room, under a mounted bison head and photograph of Run-DMC. Romney, who asked Rock for campaign help, left with a case of Badass American Lager -- for his security staff, he said.

When Rock played at an inaugural party for George Bush in 2005, one pro-family activist called him a "sex-crazed animal."

Rock on the (failed) candidate: "Romney strikes me as super fuckin' honest. He's a complete nerd, though."

When Rock and Romney appeared together at the Royal Oak Music Theater before the Michigan primary, Rock declined an invitation to speak. "If I say a few words, you'll shit your pants," he told the Romney staff.

In addition to his homes in Clarkston and Detroit, Rock owns places in Malibu and on the east coast of Florida, and he recently invested in a luxury trailer in Alabama.

Rock on the attention he gets in Detroit: "It's like going to fuckin' Disneyland with Mickey Mouse."

Rock is godfather to one of the children of Peter Karmanos Jr., founder and executive chairman of Compuware Corp.

One day when Eminem was visiting Rock, Bob Seger dropped in.

Rock hates pot. But he sold LSD in high school.

He drives the long paths on his Clarkston property in a golf cart painted to look like General Lee, from the "Dukes of Hazzard."

At his childhood home, a statue of a black jockey stood by the gate. The late rapper Proof once asked him, "What's up with that jockey?" Rock didn't have an answer.

Given his obsession with hip-hop in high school and his frequent trips to Detroit, his classmates called him the N word.

His first album, "Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast," for Jive records in 1990, contained what the New Yorker called an "absurd" song about cunnilingus titled, "Yo-da-lin in the valley."

When he was starting out, Eminem would sometimes show up at record stores where Rock was appearing and try, in vain, to lure Rock into rap battles.

When he was young, he tried to pull off his braces with pliers because he didn't think he could be a rapper from Romeo with braces.

The author on Detroit music: "Detroit has produced three of the most prominent white rap acts of all time: Kid Rock, Eminem, and Insane Clown Posse, the cult-favorite duo. But, despite the fact that Detroit is now more than 80-percent black, the area has never produced a major African-American hip-hop star."