mgk - bloom

On his 2017 album bloom, mgk caught himself in transition, a rapper with a rock-star streak pushing toward big pop hooks without sanding off his edge.

His third album, released through Bad Boy and Interscope, landed between the Cleveland street-rap grit of his early years and the pop-punk reinvention still to come. It is a record about ambition, excess and vulnerability, often in the same breath, and it put him in front of a far wider audience than ever before.

"Bad Things", his duet with Camila Cabello, borrows a familiar 1990s melody and turns it into a smouldering crossover hit. "At My Best" with Hailee Steinfeld turns self-doubt into a soaring anthem, and "Trap Paris" brings in Quavo and Ty Dolla $ign for a glossy, late-night flex. Across the record he swings between swagger and self-doubt, and that tension is what keeps it interesting.

The production moves easily between booming trap beats, chiming guitar textures and radio-ready choruses, an early sign of the genre-hopping that would define his later work and his eventual turn to rock.

Pressed on a single LP, it is a snapshot of an artist on the cusp of reinvention, and a key piece for fans tracing how Machine Gun Kelly became mgk, one hook at a time.