mgk has opened up about why his stage name has changed, and why the version he uses now feels more true to who he is.
Born Colson Baker, the Houston-born, Cleveland-raised artist spent years performing as Machine Gun Kelly, a name that became closely tied to his earlier rap career.
He began using the moniker as a teenager, with the name reflecting both his rapid-fire delivery and a reference to the historical figure George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly.
Many listeners will remember that era from the 2010s, especially the period between his major-label debut ‘Lace Up’ in 2012 and 2019’s ‘Hotel Diablo’.
That period also included one of the most public moments of his rap career: ‘Rap Devil’, the 2018 diss track he released after Eminem called him out on ‘Not Alike’. Its title was a play on Eminem’s ‘Rap God’, and Eminem later responded with ‘Killshot’.
Since then, though, both his music and image have shifted dramatically.
His style evolution has been hard to miss, moving away from the look many fans first associated with him and leaning into a more pop-punk aesthetic.
That reinvention became especially visible with 2020’s ‘Tickets to My Downfall’, the Travis Barker-produced album that took him into pop-punk and gave him his first Billboard 200 number one. He followed it with another chart-topping rock-influenced album, ‘Mainstream Sellout’, in 2022.
That change has also extended to how he presents his name.
Rather than using Machine Gun Kelly, or even the capitalised MGK, he now prefers mgk in lowercase.
Speculation about a name change had been building for a while. In late 2023, he asked photographers at the GQ Men of the Year event to call him “Machine” instead of “Machine Gun”, after a fan sign had previously urged him to change his name. By 2024, his artist name on several streaming platforms and social accounts had shifted to the shorter lowercase styling.
He explained the thinking behind that change during an appearance on TODAY while answering questions in an ‘8 Before 8’ segment.
There, he read a card that asked: “You recently shortened your stage name to mgk. What was the significance behind that?”
“Yeah, these are, these are good questions…um, Machine Gun Kelly…I was bestowed that name,” the singer revealed, noting: “It was derived from a mobster, right?”
He added: “So, it wasn’t technically my name, and I think ultimately that like was a character.
“I think now I’ve infused the artist with the humans, so I am mgk and mgk all lower case just very much more matches who I am now.”
The original stage name was a reference to George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly, the Prohibition-era gangster linked to the kidnapping of oil tycoon Charles F. Urschel in 1933.
George Kelly Barnes, as he was born, became known by the nickname ‘Machine Gun Kelly’ partly because of his association with the Thompson submachine gun. His criminal notoriety is a very different legacy from the one Baker is now trying to define for himself, which helps explain why the artist has framed the old name as more of a character than an identity.
The lowercase mgk branding has arrived during another major chapter in his life and career.
In 2025, he released ‘Lost Americana’, his seventh studio album, under the mgk name. The album included singles such as ‘cliché’, ‘vampire diaries’ and ‘miss sunshine’, and its rollout attracted extra attention when Bob Dylan narrated the album trailer.
He has also continued to revisit his rap roots. In May 2026, mgk and Wiz Khalifa released the collaborative mixtape ‘blog era boyz’, a nostalgic project that looked back to the online mixtape era that shaped both artists’ early fanbases. The pair have also been touring together as part of the ‘Lost Americana’ run.
The name change is only one part of a broader transformation for the performer.
He also recently spoke in more detail about the major blackout tattoo design that now covers much of his torso and arms.
Discussing that decision with Billboard Canada, he said: “I was looking for a change that wasn’t just a sound wave. It had to be something physical.”
That period of reflection also led him to ask himself: “Who the f**k am I?”
He eventually settled on what he described as a ‘dark mode’ tattoo, stretching across much of his arms, chest and stomach, though he has said the process left him feeling unwell.
The tattoo, the lowercase name and the shift between rap, pop-punk and more recent genre-blending projects all point to the same idea: Baker is trying to separate the person from the old persona while still keeping the initials fans know.
With a different sound, a different look and a different way of styling his name, mgk’s reinvention appears far from over.