Some have said that beef with Eminem drove Machine Gun Kelly out of the rap game and into the pop-punk world. To commemorate his return to hip-hop, MGK (Colson Baker, 33) seemingly picked a fight with Jack Harlow. In the “Renegade Freestyle” video that MGK dropped on May 6, the “Emo Girl” singer seemingly dissed Jack, 25, with the lines, “I see why they call you Jackman/ you jacked man’s whole swag / Give Drake his flow back / I eat rappers like Pac-Man.”
The “Jackman” line is an apparent reference to Harlow’s recently released album, Jackman. That album contained the song “They Don’t Love It,” in which Jack proclaims himself the best white rapper since Eminem, 50. “The hardest white boy since the one who rapped about vomit and sweaters,” rapped Harlow, per Genius, referencing Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” the hit track from 8 Mile. Harlow also added. “And hold the comments ’cause I promise you I’m honestly better than whoever came to your head right then.”
Jack Harlow compared Drake with the release of his 2022 album, Come Home The Kids Miss You. “From the sidelines of Louisville, he’s watched Drake’s dominance proliferate since he was 11 years old – studying the ultimate crossover artist’s transformation and taking notes,” writer Larisha Paul wrote for The Fader. “Now, he has access to the oracle himself, and we’re seeing the Drake-ification of Jack Harlow play out in real-time.”
It remains to be seen if “They Don’t Love It” will be the alabaster version of Kendrick Lamar’s verse on Big Sean’s “Control.” The 2013 song saw K.Dot call out eleven emerging rappers by name, which saw them drop their own songs in response to the call-out.
MGK also seemingly referenced his feud with Eminem in the “Renegade Freestyle,” rapping how “The Crosshair’s a little shaky, they missed me by two inch.” Genius indicates that this might be a nod to Eminem’s “Killshot,” a 2018 diss track whose artwork put MGK’s face in the center of the crosshairs. “So before you die, let’s see who can out-petty who / With your corny lines (“Slim, you’re old”)—ow, Kelly, ooh / But I’m 45, and I’m still outselling you,” rapped Em.
Eminem and MGK’s feud stems from a 2012 tweet in which MGK said that then-16-year-old Hailie Jade was “hot as f***, in the most respectful way possible cuz Em is King.”
In 2018, MGK threw a little shade at Eminem on Tech N9ne’s “No Reason,” dissing Eminem’s “Rap God” song (“You just rap, you’re not Gods.”) Eminem responded on his song “Not Alike” (“But next time you don’t gotta use Tech N9ne / If you wanna come at me with a sub, Machine Gun / And I’m talkin’ to you, but you already know who the fuck you are, Kelly / I don’t use sublims and sure as fuck don’t sneak-diss / But keep commenting on my daughter Hailie.”)
MGK responded with “Rap Devil,” Hello Marshall, my name’s Colson / You should go back to Recovery (Wouh) / I know your ego is hurtin’ / Just knowin’ that all of your fans discovered me (Hi) / He like, ‘Damn, he a younger me / Except he dresses better and I’m ugly / Always making fun of me’ / Stop all the thuggery, Marshall, you livin’ in luxury (Ayy).” Less than two weeks after MGK released “Rap Devil,” Eminem put out “Killshot.”
Though Kelly would say that Eminem “missed” with the diss track, he referenced how the audience sided with Slim Shady. “Hotel Diablo…as a hip-hop album, it’s flawless front to back, and also a hint at the evolution of how I went into a pop-punk album,” MGK said to Dave Franco in 2020 when discussing his 2019 album. “But it was coming off the tail-end of that infamous beef [with Eminem]. So no one wanted to give it the time of day.”
In 2020, MGK released his first pop-punk album, Tickets To My Downfall. MGK’s rock career wasn’t without controversy, as he feuded with Corey Taylor of Slipknot. In 2022, MGK released Mainstream Sellout, indicating that he was leaving rock to return to rap.
“There have been some people in the rock community who have called me a tourist, but they’re wrong. I’m a rocket man,” he said during the 2022 American Music Awards. “These last two rock albums were me going to the moon, but I’m not done exploring the universe yet, and I am all genres. I’ll see you on Mars.”