Machine Gun Kelly, the Invention of Raging & the Ignorant Bliss of Youth

I won't even bother to front and play the "I've known about him since he was in the womb" card. Up until a couple months ago I had no idea who Machine Gun Kelly was, and like a lot of people since he signed to Bad Boy I've been watching and learning about the young man. From everything I've seen and heard I've got nothing but respect for MGK - he truly did build his own movement - but something caught me ear when I was watching his latest video montage:

"When everyone else was moving the crowd, we were jumping in the crowd. The wet shit? Water all over the spot? Us. Crowd surfing? That was us, until everyone decided to take it, which is fine. We came up with the flips...I mean I learned that from Wu-Tang. When no one else was thinking about incorporating any of the head banging we were doing that shit. That punk rock element you see at our shows? That's ours." - MGK (3:00)

With all due respect, my laced up friend, you didn't even come close to inventing any of that, at all. Crowd surfing? Spraying water? Adding heavy metal/punk elements into hip-hop shows? That shit's been going on for literally decades. We could fight over who's leading the new rap/rock hybrid movement (Yelawolf's certainly in that discussion) but we don't have to. The roots of what MGK's doing now go way, way back.

Right off the bat, as he admitted above, Wu-Tang's been diving into crowds since before he was even an embryo. In fact, just a few short years ago I was holding Method Man's Timbalands as he flipped and then walked into the crowd at Rock the Bells.



But even that's just the very tip of the tip of the iceberg. The heavy metal/hip-hop blend you seem to think you just invented has been common since the early '90s. How about a little Rage Against the Machine for ya?



And even Rage (fitting name, huh?) was simply building on the foundations laid down by bands like Fishbone (this is from '87 by the way, three years before MGK was born):



And, of course, the most successful rap/rock hybrid group of all-time, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, who've been mixing rap with raging since the '80s:



That's not even mentioning Faith No More, that entire album Loud Records did, the Insane Clown Posse/the Juggalos and too many other examples to name here.

Here's the thing though - I don't think MGK's lying or trying to steal anyone's style. I think he genuinely believes he invented a lot of what he's doing now, but he's young. When you're young you're convinced that what you're doing is the biggest, the best, the first, ever. And while no one else has literally done exactly what he's doing, he's certainly the beneficiary of everyone who's laid down the groundwork before him.

Maybe he's never even heard of the bands above, but that still doesn't mean he can claim invention. Even if I've never seen a pizza in my life, I can't put some sauce and cheese on bread and say I invented a new food. It just means I had the same good idea a lot of other people have.

Obviously though, the merging of rap and hard rock, both live and on record, has been happening since the beginning, and with a younger, iPod-driven generation coming up that don't make the same distinctions between genres that even those of us in our 20s do, the lines are only going to continue to blur.

So rage on Machine Gun Kelly, you've got my full support. Just take a minute to recognize that hip-hop has been raging long before you ever picked up a mic.

UPDATE: Threw in MGK's new single, "#STFU".