Machine Gun Kelly to Drop Rock, Go Back to Rapping on Next Album

Machine Gun Kelly is changing it up.

The vocalist, who rose to fame as a rapper out of his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, later let that genre go and became even more famous with his pink guitar and blond hair as a self-proclaimed pop-punk artist.

MGK’s two rock albums, Tickets to My Downfall and Mainstream Sellout, each hit No. 1.

Now, though, the rocker is exchanging his pink guitar for rhyming, going back to the music that he participated in as a breakout rapper several years ago.

In a new interview with Kevan Kenney of Audacy, Machine Gun Kelly said that he’s accomplished all he’d set out to with pop punk. Now, the musician who is engaged to the actor Megan Fox (the two recently said they drink each other’s blood), is set to go back to rapping. (Many claim that he left rap after he lost a public battle to Eminem in 2018.)

“I’m going to make a rap album for myself. For no other reason, no point to prove, no chip on my shoulder,” said MGK in a recent interview. “If I keep doing things to prove things to people, I’m going to, one, drive myself crazy and, two, not make a good product.”

He added, “I made Tickets and Mainstream Sellout because I wanted to make them. I need to now also make people miss that sound because Tickets and Mainstream Sellout are companion albums, I don’t think making a third that’s so [similar to those] is going to be exciting unless it’s missed.”

MGK continued, saying that he’s “going to do this tour and I’m gonna step into where I left [2019 rap album] Hotel Diablo and expand on my storytelling as a rapper and find a new innovative sound for the hip-hop Machine Gun Kelly. That’s where my excitement is and where me as a music archeologist wants to explore.”

Check out the full interview below.

Photo by Jeff Kravitz/MTV VMAs 2021/Getty Images for MTV/ViacomCBS