Jelly Roll brought the big surprise to Post Malone’s Big Ass Stadium Tour stop Sunday night at Detroit’s Ford Field.
Having already paid homage to one Motor City hometown hero, Bob Seger, with a bit of his “Old Time Rock and Roll” during his direct support set to Malone, Jelly Roll did the same for Eminem by starting the rapper’s Academy Award-winning “Lose Yourself;” the football stadium erupted when Slim Shady himself joined the proceedings for the second verse on through the end of the song.
Sporting a military-style hooded jacket and baseball cap, Eminem joined Jelly Roll in loping down a ramp that led to the middle of the stadium floor, mugging for each other and for the video camera.
“Detroit, what up?! Make some noise for Jelly Roll!” Eminem shouted to the crowd of over 46,000 at the end of the song. “Long time, no see. I love y’all. Peace!” As he exited, Jelly Roll declared, “If you can’t tell, that was a childhood dream come f–king true, Detroit. This is the greatest show I’ve ever had in my f–king life.”
He noted that Eminem’s music “helped me through the darkest moments of my life” and also shouted out Eminem’s manager Paul Rosenberg, who he said “believed in me” early in the tattooed Tennessee star’s career.
Jelly Roll incorporated Eminem’s backwards E logo and a sign for Mom’s Spaghetti, the rapper’s take-out restaurant just a few blocks from the stadium, into his visual presentation on Sunday.
The surprise duet came just under 11 months after Eminem and Jelly Roll first joined forces on stage for “Sing For the Moment” at the nationally televised Michigan Central Open concert – curated by Eminem and Rosenberg – last June 6 in Detroit, accompanied by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Jelly Roll also appears on “Somebody Save Me,” the closing track from Eminem’s Billboard 200-topping 2024 album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce).
It was Eminem’s first on stage appearance since last Dec. 12, when he headlined at the Soundstorm Festival in Ryadh, Saudi Arabia. He also made a guest appearance at Ford Field with Ed Sheeran on July 15, 2023, performing “Lose Yourself” and “Stan” to an equally effusive hometown crowd.
On Sunday, meanwhile, Jelly Roll joined Malone for their regularly scheduled performance of “Losers” from the latter’s latest album, F-1 Trillion. Malone also brought out Houston rapper BigXthaPlug for a performance of his 2022 hit “Texas.”
Sunday’s show was the eighth stop of the Big Ass Stadium Tour, which next plays Tuesday in Minneapolis and runs through Sept. 14 in Lisbon, Portugal.
