Thanksgiving in Detroit comes with a few guarantees. Of course, there’s turkey, macaroni and cheese, questionable family conversations, you wishing you could sit at the children’s table and Lions football.
This year, Eminem is adding something nobody had on the menu—the Wu-Tang Clan.
Wu-Tang! Wu-Tang! Wu-Tang!
The Detroit Lions announced Sunday that the legendary New York hip-hop group from Staten Island will headline halftime of their Thanksgiving Day matchup against the Chicago Bears on November 26. Eminem and longtime manager Paul Rosenberg are executive-producing the show, continuing their partnership with the team.
Eminem overseeing Detroit’s Thanksgiving entertainment makes perfect sense. As far as Detroit royalty, he’s the main course, and the game is the dressing. You can be sure there will be plenty of other Detroit staple fixings.
But inviting Wu-Tang Clan is like inviting that new-to-town coworker to Thanksgiving dinner, telling them to bring something to drink, but instead they show up with sweet potato pie—when your family has served pumpkin for generations.
Then everybody takes a bite and realizes the new guy—who just told your mother-in-law she could call him “36 Chambers”—might have brought the best dessert on the table. Suddenly, Grandma’s pumpkin pie has some competition.
“We often like to do things that are both exciting and unexpected,” Rosenberg said in the team’s announcement. “A Wu-Tang Clan Thanksgiving performance in Detroit certainly fits that description!”
That’s putting it mildly.
Related: Nipsey Hussle Fans Just Got Something They’ve Waited 7 Years For
Last Thanksgiving, Detroit native Jack White headlined halftime, with Eminem making a surprise appearance. It was a distinctly Motor City affair. This year’s selection reaches across state lines to the East Coast, where RZA, Method Man, Ghostface Killah and company have spent more than three decades reminding listeners to protect their necks.
Not typically advice one expects between second helpings and a post-turkey nap, but here we are.
Wu-Tang arrives with plenty to celebrate. The group is part of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026, with its induction ceremony scheduled for November 14, just 12 days before Thanksgiving.
Related: Jay-Z Closed His 30 Tour With Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg—and a Warning About AI
Rosenberg said he and Eminem have been fans of the group since the early 1990s, so the booking isn’t entirely out of left field. It’s just a different flavor for a Detroit tradition.
And come halftime, that sweet potato pie might be everybody’s new favorite dessert. No disrespect to pumpkin.
The Lions’ 87th Thanksgiving Day Classic kicks off at 1 p.m. ET on CBS.
