MGK

Colson Baker was born on April 22, 1990, in Houston, Texas. Baker's parents were both Christian missionaries and moved all around the world during his childhood. He later lived in Kenya and Germany, as well as throughout the United States in Texas, Los Angeles, and Chicago. He began listening to rap in the sixth grade, when he attended Hamilton Middle School, a school with an ethnically diverse student body in Denver. He attended Thomas Jefferson High School (Denver) his freshman year. When he lived in Cleveland, Baker attended Shaker Heights High School. ==Career==

Early career After high school, Baker was kicked out by his father. He recorded music in his home studio, which he refers to as the "Rage Cage", The single earned Baker the "Best Midwest Artist" at the 2010 Underground Music Awards, and his "Alice in Wonderland" clip won Best Music Video at the 2010 Ohio Hip-Hop Awards. He then appeared on the Juicy J track "Inhale", which also featured Steve-O from the television series Jackass in the music video. Prior to the contract, he was featured on the XV song "Finally Home". 2012–2015: Lace Up and General Admission in March 2013 Baker announced that his debut album would be titled Lace Up and would have an intended release on October 9, 2012. "Wild Boy" served as the lead single for the album and the song peaked on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 98. It was soon certified gold by the RIAA. The song "Invincible" was released on iTunes on December 16, 2011, featuring co-writer and singer Ester Dean as the second single of the album. The song is featured in a commercial for the HTC ReZound as well as the official theme song of WrestleMania XXVIII. WWE also used the song to highlight John Cena in his match at the event, with Baker also performing at WrestleMania prior to the main event between Cena and The Rock. "Invincible" was also used as the theme for Thursday Night Football when it was on the NFL Network. WWE also used the song "All We Have" to again highlight Cena on his rematch with The Rock at next year's event. On December 14, 2011, Baker was named the Hottest Breakthrough MC of 2011 by MTV. On March 18, 2012, Baker won the MTVu Breaking Woodie award before being featured on the cover of XXL as part of their annual "Top 10 Freshmen list" along with fellow rappers Macklemore, French Montana, Hopsin, Danny Brown, Iggy Azalea, Roscoe Dash, Future, Don Trip and Kid Ink. On August 13, 2012, Baker self-released a mixtape titled EST 4 Life, which contained both old and recently recorded material. Lace Up was released on October 9, 2012. The album featured guest appearances from Bun B, Cassie, DMX, Ester Dean, Lil Jon, Tech N9ne, Twista, Waka Flocka Flame, Young Jeezy and Dub-O. The album debuted at number 4 on the US Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 57,000 copies. It slid down to No. 22 in its second week, giving it a total of 65,000 copies sold. As of September 2015, the album has sold 263,000 copies. In early 2012, Baker announced that he would be releasing a new mixtape. Pusha T and Meek Mill were the first artists to be featured on the mixtape, both appearing on the track "Pe$o". Baker also announced that Wiz Khalifa will be featured on the mixtape. On February 18, 2013, Baker announced the name of the mixtape as Black Flag and revealed the cover. He also released a music video for "Champions" which features Diddy and samples The Diplomats song "We Are the Champions", as the music video release served as a promotional video for Black Flag. On June 26, Baker released Black Flag without prior announcement. The mixtape also featured guest appearances from French Montana, Kellin Quinn, Dub-O, Sean McGee and Tezo. On June 4, 2013, Baker posted a picture of a letter on his social media accounts which read: This project is dedicated to love, because for my entire life it has been taken from me. Granted, when it was given, I pushed it right back. I couldn't handle it. This was until I experienced the loss of love for what I love doing most: music. That was the one thing worth fighting for, even more-so then[sic] the love of my father. I've found that love again. And I plan on never surrendering it. Find what you love and fight!! Black Flag. Following the release of Black Flag, rumors surfaced that Baker had begun working on his second studio album. In January 2014, he confirmed that he was in the early stages of working on the album, with 2015 being the scheduled year of release. On January 5, 2015, Baker released the song "Till I Die", which was accompanied with a music video on his VEVO account. Months later, a remix of "Till I Die" with hometown fellow hip-hop group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony was confirmed and released on June 5, 2015. The song aired via WorldStarHipHop and featured French Montana, Yo Gotti and Ray Cash. On May 18, 2015, the music video for another song titled "A Little More" was released, with the single featuring vocals from Victoria Monet. Baker soon had an interview with MTV, describing the reason as to why he wrote "A Little More". Stating in the interview: "People always came up to me after the first album and a lot of my friends back home said 'we need something for the streets' and then I did 'Till I Die'. Months later, when I look back at the video [for Till I Die] I [was] like 'Okay, he's in jail, he's shot, he's dead, he snitched' and just to the point where it's sad and I wrote the song to describe how I see the world as a much mature person." He also updated the status on his second studio album, noting that the album is finished, and stating that the album would contain "more lyricism and [would be more] stylistically [influenced by] hip-hop but musically, sonically [would contain] more live instrumentation." On June 25, Baker released the title of his second album as General Admission, due to be released in late September 2015. 2016–2019: Bloom, feud with Eminem and Hotel Diablo In February, Baker appeared at Fastlane, which was hosted at the Quicken Loans Arena in downtown Cleveland. Baker released "Bad Things" in late 2016, a joint single with Camila Cabello, which has reached a peak of number four on the US Billboard Hot 100. Baker was going to be the opening act on the North American leg of Linkin Park's One More Light Tour before the tour was cancelled due to Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington's suicide. Baker would subsequently pay tribute to Bennington by releasing an acoustic cover of the Linkin Park song "Numb". On September 3, 2018, Baker released the song "Rap Devil". The track was a response to Eminem's diss track "Not Alike" off of his album Kamikaze. Playing on Eminem's own "Rap God" single, the track accuses Eminem of trying to sideline Baker's career after a comment Baker made in 2012 about Eminem's teenage daughter, Hailie. Baker publicly stated on his Twitter account that on the response track he was "standing up for not just myself, but my generation. [I'm] doing the same shit you did back in your day." "Rap Devil" topped the iTunes Chart on September 10, 2018. On September 14, Eminem responded to "Rap Devil" with his diss track, "Killshot". On September 21, 2018, Baker released his second extended play (EP), Binge, which had first week sales of 21,519 units and debuted at number 24 on the Billboard 200. It was preceded by the singles "Loco" and "Rap Devil", and coincided with the release of his Ronny J-produced single, "Lately" that same day. The EP saw a largely unfavorable critical response. In April 2019, Billboard reported that Baker's upcoming album would be titled Hotel Diablo. The first single, "Hollywood Whore", was released on May 17, 2019. The second single, "El Diablo", was released on May 31, 2019. On June 7, 2019, Baker released the third single, "I Think I'm Okay", with Yungblud and Travis Barker, a pop punk song. Hotel Diablo was released on July 5, 2019. On July 9, 2019, he released the official music video for "Candy" featuring Trippie Redd. He released the final single, "Glass House" featuring Naomi Wild on the same day. The album debuted at number 5 on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming his fourth top ten album. On December 18, 2019, Baker released the single "Why Are You Here", another pop punk song. Later in the same month, he began teasing an upcoming project with Travis Barker as producer. He later revealed that the album would be entirely pop punk, stating that he was inspired to pursue a whole release in the style because of his two previously released in the genre. 2020–2023: Tickets to My Downfall and Mainstream Sellout On January 14, 2020, Baker announced the title of his project Tickets to My Downfall, which would be released on September 25, 2020. On March 17, 2020, he released the song "Bullets with Names", featuring Young Thug, RJMrLA and Lil Duke, a rap track not associated with the album. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Baker began to release daily recordings, covers, and collaborations as part of his #LockdownSessions series. Some tracks were later re-released on special editions of Tickets to My Downfall. Tickets to My Downfall's first single "Bloody Valentine" was released on May 1, 2020, and "My Ex's Best Friend" featuring Blackbear on August 7. In August 2020, Baker opened his own coffee house called 27 Club Coffee in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. On September 29, 2020, a music video was released for the Tickets to My Downfall song "Drunk Face", directed by Mod Sun, which was followed on October 22, 2020, by a music video for "Forget Me Too". Throughout October 2020, the four episodes of Halloween in Hell, a fictionalised musical horror podcast that Baker created and starred in, were released. The series also starred Iann Dior, 24kGoldn, Dana Dentata, Phem and Tommy Lee. The podcast was accompanied by the album Audio Up presents: Original Music from Halloween In Hell, a soundtrack performed collaboratively by all the actors involved, and written and composed by Jared Gutstadt. Baker directed the music video for Mod Sun's song "Karma", which was released on November 12, 2020. On November 22, 2020, after his performance at the AMAs, Baker announced his album Tickets to My Downfall was going to be turned into a "first of its kind musical film experience" titled Downfalls High which aired in January 2021. On November 30, 2020, Yungblud announced on Twitter he'll be releasing a new collaboration featuring Baker and Travis Barker titled "Acting Like That". On January 15, 2021, Baker released Downfalls High on his Facebook page followed by a release to YouTube on January 18. Directed by Baker and Mod Sun and narrated by Baker and Barker, the film stars Chase Hudson and Sydney Sweeney as teenage lovers in what Baker described as a "pop-punk [version of] Grease". Iann Dior, Phem, Jxdn, and Trippie Redd, also make appearances. On April 29, he released the single "Love Race" featuring Kellin Quinn, the pair's third collaboration. On August 9, 2021, he announced that his next album would be titled Born with Horns and would be another collaborative project with Barker. The first single, "Papercuts", was released on August 11. On January 30, 2022, he posted a preview of a collaboration with singer Willow titled "Emo Girl". On August 26, 2021, it was announced that he would star in and co-direct the film Good Mourning, alongside Mod Sun, Dove Cameron, Megan Fox and Becky G. On February 5, 2022, MGK performed during the 2022 NHL All-Star Game halftime show in Las Vegas. On January 31, 2022, he announced that the album had been retitled to Mainstream Sellout. Critical reception was mixed. 2024-present: Genre: Sadboy and Lost Americana On March 23, 2024, Baker, alongside rapper Trippie Redd, announced a collaborative extended play titled Genre: Sadboy, which would release on March 29. Two singles were released for the EP: "Lost Boys" and "Beauty". The duo performed two free concerts to promote the release, which took place April 2 at Irving Plaza in New York City, and April 4 at the Bluestone in Columbus, Ohio. On May 6, 2025, Baker released a freestyle rap cover over NSYNC's song "Bye Bye Bye", where he teased that his next single would be a pop song. A few weeks later, on May 23, he released the single "Cliché". On June 10, he announced that the album was named Lost Americana and would be released on August 8, with one of his idols, Bob Dylan, narrating over the album trailer. On October 16, 2025, it was announced MGK would be performing at halftime at the Canadian Football League's 112th Grey Cup in Winnipeg, Manitoba. ==Musical style and influences==

Baker's musical style has been mainly described as hip-hop, pop rap, and rap rock. and alternative rock. Baker cites DMX and Eminem as music influences, as well as listening to rock bands Guns N' Roses and Blink-182 during his youth. Baker cites these rap and rock artists as major musical influences. In an interview discussing his collaboration with DMX, Baker called the rapper his idol. He also stated that DMX's music helped him through his troubles while growing up, especially bullying. ==Acting career==

Baker made his film debut in the 2014 romantic drama Beyond the Lights, where he played a "shallow, self-important" rapper named Kid Culprit. In 2016, he co-starred and co-executive produced the drama film The Land, a Cleveland-set drama produced by fellow rapper Nas. The same year, he had a minor role in the techno-thriller adventure film Nerve with Emma Roberts and Dave Franco; and had a recurring role on the Showtime comedy-drama series Roadies as Wes, a former Pearl Jam roadie. He played Felix in the 2018 Netflix post-apocalyptic horror thriller film Bird Box with Sandra Bullock, and portrayed drummer Tommy Lee in The Dirt, a 2019 Netflix biographical comedy-drama about Mötley Crüe. He played the role of Newt in the 2020 superhero film Project Power opposite Jamie Foxx, and the following year, he co-starred with Bruce Willis and Megan Fox in the crime thriller film Midnight in the Switchgrass; and starred in the action western film The Last Son with Sam Worthington. Having previously been credited as Machine Gun Kelly for his acting performances, Baker began using his birth name for film credits in 2021. ==Personal life==

at the 2022 NBA Celebrity All-Star Game on February 18, 2022 In his teens, Baker was in a relationship with Emma Cannon, with whom he has a daughter named Casie, who was born in July 2009. He is open about his use of cannabis and has claimed in interviews that he smokes daily, describing it as a "source of happiness and a way people can feel a little more love [in their own right]". He has frequently mentioned cannabis references within sources of his music and rap persona, making it a forefront of both his rap and personal character. Before the release of Lace Up, he had an addiction to heroin. He was also a heavy user of cocaine and alcohol before 2020, when he revealed that he had become addicted to Adderall and was seeking treatment. In a 2012 interview, he stated that he identifies politically as an anarchist. In 2022, when he was asked on whether he plans to vote in the midterm elections, he replied: "I have anarchy tattooed on my stomach. I'm not a political person". In May 2020, he began a relationship with actress Megan Fox after the two met while filming Midnight in the Switchgrass. On January 12, 2022, Fox announced that the two were engaged. In March 2024, Fox revealed that the couple had called their engagement off. In November 2024, Fox revealed on Instagram that she was pregnant with his child, following a miscarriage earlier in their relationship. Their daughter was born on March 27, 2025. ==Feuds==

Eminem Baker's feud with Eminem began on May 7, 2012, when he wrote a tweet saying that Eminem's daughter Hailie was "hot as fuck"; he was 22 and she was 16 at the time. In an interview with WQHT on October 19, 2015, Baker alleged this led to Eminem blacklisting him from a number of radio stations. On March 1, 2018, Baker featured on a verse of Tech N9ne's song, "No Reason". Shortly after, on August 31, 2018, Eminem released his diss track "Not Alike," where he claimed that Baker's verse on the song was about him. On September 3, 2018, Baker responded to this with his own diss track "Rap Devil". On September 12, 2018, Eminem released an interview with Sway Calloway through his YouTube channel where he discussed his reason behind the feud. On September 14, 2018, Eminem released "Killshot," in response to "Rap Devil". On January 17, 2020, Eminem released the song "Unaccommodating," which featured a verse directed at Baker. On March 17, 2020, Baker released the song "Bullets with Names," featuring Young Thug, RJMrLA and Lil Duke, in which the chorus was directed at Eminem. On December 15, 2021, Dr. Dre released a song titled "Gospel" off his new EP The Contract featuring Eminem which also contained shots at Baker. In January 2022, fans speculated the feud would reignite after TikToker Hannah Neuman (@unluckyp1ckle) resurfaced a 2013 interview with Fuse.tv, wherein a then 23 year old Baker said he had a crush on an underage Kendall Jenner and wouldn't wait until she was 18 to pursue her. Baker continued the interview by praising other celebrities like Robert Plant and Axl Rose for their relationships with a 14 and 16 year old girl, respectively, prompting commenters to spotlight Baker's past comments about Hailie once again. In response to the backlash, Baker tweeted a quote from Eminem's song, "The Way I Am," furthering the speculation about the controversy rekindling their feud. Eminem declined to comment on either situation, however. G-Eazy Baker's feud with G-Eazy began after the end of G-Eazy's relationship with Halsey, when photographs of Baker and Halsey together surfaced. On July 18, 2018, G-Eazy revealed that he had bleached his hair blond, which Baker alleged on Twitter was in an attempt to look like him. On August 30, 2018, G-Eazy released the diss track "Bad Boy" against Baker, who responded the next day in a freestyle performed for Hot 97. The same day, Baker tweeted side-by-side photos of the two, with the caption "I fucked his girl now he looks like me this shit overbearing". In the track "Killshot", Eminem defended G-Eazy and the two ended the feud in April 2019, through what NME described as an "intervention by Eminem". In October 2019, G-Eazy stated that Kid Cudi squashed the feud. Corey Taylor In 2021, Baker engaged in a feud with Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor after being alluded to in an interview where Taylor stated: "I hate all new rock for the most part – well, 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." At Riot Fest in September 2021, Baker and Slipknot were scheduled to play on the same day and time, albeit on different stages. Baker took the opportunity to respond to Taylor's comments, beginning his set by asking the crew to light the crowd so he could "see who chose to be here instead of with all the old weird dudes with masks." He later insulted the band again by stating, "You wanna know what I'm really happy that I'm not doing? Being 50 years old, wearing a fuckin' weird mask on a fuckin' stage, talking shit." Later on, Baker revealed on Twitter that Taylor was originally meant to feature on "Can't Look Back", a song for the deluxe edition of Tickets to My Downfall, but the collaboration did not come to fruition because Baker thought the verse was "fucking terrible" and accused Taylor of being bitter about not being featured on the album. Taylor later addressed the feud during a fan Q&A in January 2022 where he claimed that Baker had started it. He went on to insult Baker's change in musical direction and told him to "suck every inch of my dick." In July 2022, Baker admitted in his Life in Pink documentary that he regretted his feud with Taylor and wished that both of them handled the situation better instead of acting "ridiculous". In 2023, Taylor also expressed remorse regarding the feud they had, even clarifying that the two singers have a lot in common, saying: "He and I are very similar in certain ways. Which, shock and awe. Big-mouth singers. We are big-mouth singers". ==Backing band==

Current members • Steve "Baze" Basil – bass, keyboards (2017–present) • Travis Barker – drums (2019–present) • Justin "Jus" Lyons – guitars (2021–present) • Sophie Lloyd – guitars (2022–present) Former members • AJ Tyus – guitars (2017–2021) ==Discography==

Studio albums • Lace Up (2012) • General Admission (2015) • Bloom (2017) • Hotel Diablo (2019) • Tickets to My Downfall (2020) • Mainstream Sellout (2022) • Lost Americana (2025) ==Tours==

Headlining tours • Hostile Takeover Tour (2012) • No Class Tour (2014) • Alpha Omega Tour (2016) • 27 World Tour (2017) • Hotel Diablo World Tour (2019) • Tickets to My Downfall Tour (2021) • Mainstream Sellout Tour (2022) • Lost Americana Tour (2025–26) Co-headlining tours • The Justin Bieber Big Tour (with Young Thug) (2019) == Filmography ==

Film For film roles, he is credited as Colson Baker unless otherwise noted. Television & video games Internet Audio ==Awards and nominations==