MGK pays no mind to the people who would gladly purchase tickets to his downfall, as the musician born Colson Baker — and formerly known as Machine Gun Kelly — has revealed that he thinks his haters are merely “conformists” who can’t think for themselves.
In an interview with People published Wednesday (Aug. 6) ahead of his new album Lost Americana, MGK opened up about why he isn’t bothered by his critics. “The hate for me has become so pop culture that it’s almost like that’s automatically what you say to fit in,” he told the publication.
“That s–t doesn’t even mean anything to me,” he continued. “I’ve let it go completely to where I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s a joke.’ I’ve realized they’re the conformists — you don’t even hate me for a reason that you can actually think of, because all I do is entertain, and entertainment can’t be that serious.”
The rapper-turned-rocker went on to note that most of the hate he gets comes from men. “I think men let their insecurity rule their entirety,” he mused. “I think to them, they’re like, ‘He’s supposed to be like this, because this is this carnal, archaic way of what men are …’ I’m like, ‘Look, we can be protectors and all these other things that we’re supposed to be, and also be expressive and vulnerable and emotional, and we can dress how we want, look how we want.’”
The interview comes just two days before Lost Americana is set to arrive, with MGK appearing to embrace a rootsier musical sound on the LP after previously cutting his teeth on rap music before pivoting to punk rock on albums Tickets to My Downfall and Mainstream Sellout. To promote the record, the Cleveland-bred musician enlisted one of Americana’s biggest heroes, Bob Dylan, to narrate a trailer that dropped in June.
At the time, it was unclear whether it was actually Dylan’s voice in MGK’s video — but on a recent late-night appearance, the latter confirmed that it was authentic. “To be honest, I have no idea how he even knows who I am to this day,” MGK said on The Tonight Show on Monday (Aug. 4). “Something’s going on in the stars where, like, good things keep happening … I don’t know how it keeps happening.”
MGK’s experimentation with various genres over the course of his career is one of several reasons why he thinks certain people hate him without actual cause. But as he said to People, he just doesn’t care: “I became so hated for, what has become apparent to me, no reason … just because I artistically express myself, through fashion, music, whatever.”
He added, “I choose to not stay contained into a societal box.”
