In case you thought the trend of top 40 pop stars changing lanes and entering the Country music genre was close to an end (or not so widespread), we’re going to need you to think again.
Following the success that Post Malone and Beyonce have had thus far, and the recent news of Young Gravy making a country album, it appears that we now have our next participant: mgk. That’s right, the artist formerly known as Machine Gun Kelly — who recently shortened his stage name to just mgk — appears to be on the cusp of making some sort of entry into country music — though at this point it’s unclear in what capacity.
As most country music fans know, CMA Fest is kicking off later this week and is the biggest country music event of the year. It always has fun collaborations and surprises along the way, and this year is shaping up to be no different. Spotify has their own pop-up venue during the fest (taking over Ole Red) and earlier this morning, they posted their official “Spotify House at CMA Fest 2024” playlist which featured what appeared to be a pixelated image of mgk that sent fans on social media into a frenzy. Shout out to Substream‘s favorite country music journalist James Shotwell (aka Country Minute) who initially started piecing things together here.
Now, the picture has been updated to the clear, non-pixelated version of the mgk image and on the description, Spotify notes: “Don’t miss mgk + so many more artists at Spotify House at Ole Red! June 6-8 from 10am – 2am.” Don’t believe us? Go take a peak for yourself.
So while now it’s confirmed mgk is making an appearance at CMA Fest week, there’s still a few things we don’t know. Is he there to announce a country album? Is it just a country single? It’s also possible he’s there as a guest on another country artist’s song — though that seems unlikely given how heavily featured he is on this Spotify House playlist.
At this point, we don’t even know what day mgk will be making an appearance, but we’ve got a three-day window here for things to get a little crazy. And you know what, so far we’ve seen some great tunes come out of transitions like this, so we’ll try anything once at this point, right?
At time of this posting, Substream has reached out to mgk’s team for additional comment and has yet to hear back.
