Last Friday Eminem dropped the blistering diss track Killshot, where he absolutely destroyed Machine Gun Kelly. It was the musical equivalent of Thanos snapping his fingers. After the song was released, MGK mumbled, "I don't feel so good," and crumbled away into nothingness.
Okay, not really. Actually, this is a win-win situation for Machine Gun Kelly, because now we're all talking about Machine Gun Kelly. It's not like MGK is a nobody. He's signed to Puff Daddy's record label and has been making music for over a decade. Yeah, you never see his albums on those "Best Of" lists at the end of the year, but they sell pretty well. Now, thanks to this feud with Eminem, he's captured the culture's attention like never before.
The beef started in 2012, when MGK tweeted that Eminem's 16-year-old daughter Hailie was "hot as f*ck." Although he deleted the tweet, the incident wasn't forgotten. In interviews, Kelly claimed that Eminem blackballed him from the Shade45 radio station. Flash forward to 2018, and MGK threw subs (subliminal disses) at Eminem on the Tech N9ne song No Reason. Eminem finally responded on Not Alike, calling out Machine Gun Kelly by name. Why settle your differences with a phone call when you write angry poems about each other?
MGK responded to Eminem with the surprisingly good diss track, Rap Devil. It's not a lyrical masterpiece ("Your beard is weird!") but the shots he takes are effective. MGK calls "Oscar the Grouch" out on sounding angry all the time, dropping subpar albums, and being 45 years old - which, in hip-hop years, is like 100. "Somebody help your mans up," raps Kelly. "Knees weak of old age, the real Slim Shady can't stand up!"
On Killshot, Eminem channels B. Rabbit, cleverly flipping all of MGK's disses. It's not a catchy bop to throw on at the club, but the wordplay is straight fire. Shady calls Kells out on writing a diss track full of compliments, sounding like an obsessed fan, and having a subpar career, where the apex is this petty beef. "This is it, as big as you're gonna get, so enjoy it," raps Eminem. "Had to give you a career to destroy it!"
While we wait for Machine Gun Kelly's response, one of his old tweets has resurfaced, and it's pretty embarrassing. In 2010, he tweeted, "Eminem makes me want to quit rapping...fuck, he's good lol." It's no secret the 29-year-old rapper is a fan of Eminem. On Rap Devil, MGK called Em the G.O.A.T. and said his idol became his rival. But still, that's a cringeworthy tweet to read today. On Killshot, Em repeatedly compares MGK to Stan, the obsessed fan from his classic 2000 song.
Yesterday, MGK fired back at Eminem with a savage Instagram post: a photo of him on stage, in front of a huge crowd, wearing a T-shirt with Killshot's cover art. The caption reads, "You missed." The crowd's not all there for him - he's currently opening for Fall Out Boy - but it's a cool photo. When his beef is done, he should write Eminem a thank you letter.