Former rapper Machine Gun Kelly performed at the Louder Than Life Festival in Louisville, Kentucky over the weekend alongside Metallica, Anthrax, Judas Priest and other hard rock/metal acts. At one point, several people began boo’ing and flipping the Tickets To My Downfall singer off as he took the stage.
But Machine Gun Kelly — who traded rap for pop-punk last year — has a much different recollection of the event and thinks media is to blame for painting the narrative of a negative concert experience. On Sunday (September 26), MGK shared a clip of the crowd singing along to his music but simultaneously admitted there were a handful of disgruntled festival attendees.
“I don’t know why the media lies in their narrative against me all the time,” he wrote. “But all I saw was 20,000 amazing fans at the festival singing every word and 20 angry ones.” The person who shared the clip tagged Loudwire in the post and wrote, “@Loudwire here is the crowd singing along with no boos for @machinegunkelly. I’m a far bigger Slipknot fan than MGK fan but come on with the relentlessly bood headline.”
Fans hypothesized Machine Gun Kelly was booed because of the disparaging comments he made about Slipknot‘s lead singer Corey Taylor the previous week. MGK said he was happy to not be a “50-year-old wearing a mask” and also claimed Taylor did a verse for Tickets to My Downfall that was “fucking terrible,” so it was scrapped from the album.
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Taylor replied via Twitter, writing, “I don’t like people airing private shit like a child. So this is all I’ll say: I didn’t do the track because I don’t like when people try to ‘write’ for me. I said NO to THEM. So without further ado….#receipts. This is all I’m going to say about it.”
He attached multiple emails to the post from Blink-182 drummer and MGK collaborator Travis Barker that illustrated just how satisfied they were with Taylor’s verse.
Machine Gun Kelly Boo'ed & Flipped Off At Louder Than Life Rock Festival
“Yo Corey!” Barker began. “We love it. Peep these notes from Kels. It’s super fuckin close.” He then copied and pasted MGK’s response to Barker which read, “yo Trav!!! got super inspired again after listening to Corey’s vocals on ‘Can’t Look back’ and added some guitars over his part so it’s kicks u in the face right when his voice comes in. 1.) Can u tell him he fucking killed it and im stoked and HONORED he is even on it wtf!!!!”
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From there, Machine Gun Kelly continued to tell him how much Taylor “rocks.” The second email was from Taylor and proved he actually turned down the opportunity to be on the project.
“To be honest, I don’t think I’m the right guy for the track,” he said in part. “Nothing personal, I just think if this is what MGK is looking for, someone else is the guy to do it.”
Read the full exchange below.
