Machine Gun Kelly Takes Stock of Career on Intense ‘Pressure’ Single

After taking a detour into rock, Machine Gun Kelly is back on his rap game on the new four-minute career retrospective track “Pressure.” Over a laid-back “la-la-la” background, MGK raps, “The diamonds are symbolic of all the pressure they put on me until I shined/ My life is symbiotic with the culture, I could never, ever lose the vibe,” in the opening verse of the song that dropped on Monday.

The accompanying video finds Colson going home to Cleveland to hang with his pals and making sure you know he’s repping his hometown via a white hat that reads, “I’m From Cleveland.” Though he’s risen up from his humble roots, MGK revisits the lean years in the second verse, where he raps, “I was eleven/ Sharin’ a bed with my dad, but didn’t have a bedroom/ In a recession/ Six of us in a Ford Explorer, didn’t have leg-room/ Everything’s destined/ It was inevitable I take on his aggression.”

The visual ping-pongs between MGK and his dancers bopping down the city’s streets, cars and four-wheelers burning out in front of a liquor store and Baker casually sitting on a gold and crimson throne. About a minute and a half in, the hi-hat heavy beat subtly shifts to a molasses-slow chopped and screwed vibe as MGK’s pal, Bupkis star Pete Davidson, makes a brief cameo chilling in front of an ice cream truck.

The third part of the song shifts into a slinky uptempo beat, with MGK turning his attention to flossing about his money, jewels, women and some of his demons. “I slept in the attack, had demon nights/ That’s in the house off Lee Road/ I saw my friend’s eyes change, now he just a body with no soul,” he laments.

“Pressure” is MGK’s return to rap following two rock-leaning albums, Tickets to My Downfall (2020) and Mainstream Sellout (2022) and it comes on the heels of his “Doja Freestyle” and “Renegade Freestyle,” with the latter seemingly taking shots at Jack Harlow.

Check out he “Pressure” video below.