About

Machine Gun Kelly is the stage name of Richard Colson Baker, an American rapper. He has released three albums and several mixtapes as of September of 2018.

History

Baker was born April 22nd, 1990 in Houston, Texas and spent most of his youth in Cleveland, Ohio.^[1] He took his stage name from an American gangster active in the early 20th century.^[2] He released his first mixtape, Stamp of Approval in 2006. He began growing in popularity in 2009 when he appeared at Harlem's Apollo Theater and later MTV2's Sucka Free Freestyle. In 2010, he made his national debut with his single "Alice In Wonderland" (shown below, left). His second mixtape, Lace Up featured the song "Cleveland" and was played at Cleveland Cavaliers home games (shown below, right).

His debut album, also titled Lace Up, was released October 9th, 2012. The album's lead single "Wild Boy" was used as the theme song for Wrestlemania XXVIII (shown below, left). The song "Invincible" is the theme song for Thursday Night Football on the NFL Network. In June of 2015, Kelly appeared on Monday Night Raw, where he was attacked by Kevin Owens (shown below, right).

Kelly's other albums are General Admission (2015) and Bloom (2017). He has won several Ohio Hip Hop Awards and was nominated for Best Collaboration at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards. He has also made several television appearances as an actor, playing a recurring character on Roadies.

Feud With Eminem

On August 31st, 2018, Eminem surprise released his album Kamikaze. The album featured the song "Not Alike," a Diss Track on Machine Gun Kelly. Kelly responded with the track "Rap Devil," a play on the Eminem track "Rap God" (shown below).

Online Presence

Machine Gun Kelly has a strong online fandom, with over 5 million Facebook likes^[3] and over 4 million YouTube subscribers.^[4] A subreddit for his fans has over 600 subsribers.^[5]

Search Interest

External References