Rapper turned pop-punker turned rapper again, Machine Gun Kelly found himself engaged in an escalating beef with Slipknot, etc. vocalist Corey Taylor last year. MGK would go on to assert that a comment made by Taylor on Cutter’s Rockcast was the catalyst for the feud. Appearing on that podcast in February of 2021, Taylor at one point said:
“I hate all new rock for the most part. I [hate] the artists who failed in one genre and decided to go rock – and I think he knows who he is. But that’s another story. I’m the worst. And I hate everything.”
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The beef spilled over into the public domain several months later, when both Slipknot and MGK were performing a dueling stages at the September 2021 edition of the ‘Riot Fest‘ in Chicago, IL. During that festival, MGK stated onstage:
“Hey, you wanna know what I’m really happy that I’m not doing? Being 50 years old wearing a fucking weird mask on a fucking stage, talking shit. So anyway, what’s everyone’s favorite candy? Reese’s Pieces?”
With the tension rapidly escalating, Kelly would go on to state via social media that at one point he and Travis Barker had recruited Taylor to guest on Kelly‘s platinum-certified 2020 album “Tickets To My Downfall“. However, he claimed that Taylor‘s contributions were “fucking terrible” and were scrapped as a result.
Kelly claimed that Taylor being dumped from the record was what set him off to initially speak out. However, Taylor would go on to respond with screenshots of a chain of emails between himself and Barker related to that unused cameo that indicated that he withdrew from the record on his own accord.
Speaking recently with The Pit, Kelly revealed that he could have handled the whole situation differently, offering:
“It’s funny, the whole Slipknot issue (which really isn’t a Slipknot issue, it’s a Corey issue). That situation’s unfortunate because I think both of us let our egos get in the way.
You know, I was a fan of Slipknot. I was a fan of Corey. That’s why I’d asked him to get on Tickets to My Downfall. He obviously had mutual respect, too, because he cut a verse.
I kind of tried to give notes back, like ‘oh, you know, this wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, can we try this?’ And respectfully he was like, you know, ‘no.’ And I was like, ‘okay, cool.’ So we didn’t use it. You know, then I heard him on a podcast.”
Speaking on Taylor‘s initial statement about failing in one genre and going rock, Kelly added:
“That narrative always confused me. My most successful album was the album I just put out. Hotel Diablo, that’s a rap album that has a billion-plus streams. I could have handled it differently. I should have just picked up the phone and been like hey dude, ‘why would you say that’? But, instead, we all acted ridiculous.”
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