A few years ago, Machine Gun Kelly decided to give pop-punk music a try, shying away from the rap that made him famous. On a commercial level, that turned out to be a terrific idea, as MGK’s two rock albums, 2020’s Tickets To My Downfall and last year’s Mainstream Sellout, where his first ones to go No. 1 in the US. He’s apparently not done with rap yet, though, as he’s now saying he wants to get back to making that type of music.
In a new Audacy Music interview (as Rap-Up points out), Kelly said of what’s next for him:
“I’m going to make a rap album for myself, for no other reason, no point to prove, no chip on my shoulder. 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. I made Tickets and Mainstream Sellout because I wanted to make them. I need to now also make people miss that sound. […] I’m going to do this tour and I’m gonna step into where I left 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 archaeologist wants to explore.”
While pop-punk has brought Kelly his biggest commercial success, he wasn’t exactly slouching in his early rap days: All of his albums were top-5 on the charts, save for 2017’s Bloom, which peaked at a respectable No. 8. Bloom, however, yielded Kelly’s biggest hit song, as the Camila Cabello collaboration “Bad Things” peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it his only top-5 (or even top-10) single.
Watch the interview above.