𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐪𝐮𝐞 | machine gun kelly

3

THEY PLAYED SOME BEATS, beats that Machine Gun Kelly had decided on for his song, 'Candy.' I have heard Trippie's verse so many times now, I was there when he wrote it, I had it oddly memorized like I memorized most of the things he said or did. They were going to record it today, and I was strangely on edge. It was fine before, I was fine before. I thought this would be like every other process of Trippie recording a song with someone. I would have to listen quietly, watch them record, and tell Trippie how much I liked the song, despite how vulgar the lyrics were. But this was different, this felt different. This friend was different.

"Baby, come here," Trippie's voice reached my eyes, snapping me back from my reverie. He stood in the doorway of another equipment room, where the rest of the guys were. He was looking at me impatiently. I got up, fixed my knee high dress and walked towards him, my heels clicking on the wooden floor. When I approached, he wrapped his right hand around my waist and pulled me closer.

"Kelly right here is about to make us record and we ain't even done a practice run," he said and Colson Baker looked up from the candy pink guitar he was holding, our eyes meeting yet again. I blinked and he looked away, a slow nod of his head of acknowledgement. His face barely moved to show any facial expression, it looked as though his features were wrought in iron, fixed in place. 

"Watch how we fucking ace this right off the bat," Trippie laughed, leaning into my side, his lips on my left ear as he nibbled slightly. 

We walked out of the equipment room and he made me take a seat outside of the recording room. The glass of the room displaying a two tall mics inside, a pair of those big headsets on top of each.

Colson and Trippie stood just outside the recording room, their backs to me as they smoked a joint each, exhaled smoke forming glow clouds over their heads. I watched him, his tall back was tensed, each exhale relaxing the muscles in his back, his shoulders relaxing. He was like Trippie and his friends in that way, getting high before recording a track. It made sense when you heard Trippie's tracks, maybe it would make more sense if I was familiar with Machine Gun Kelly's music too.  

He shrugged his shoulders slightly and then made his way inside the recording room, Trippie followed right behind. The studio lights dimmed, the red fusing out to soft pinks. Lights that only promenaded the darkness, a neon effect that glowed slowly. The instrumental began as the guy in charge pressed a few buttons and adjusted the beat on the music board outside. The guys took their places, each placing a headset on and standing in front of their mics. Then on his cue, Colson Baker first began his vocal chorus on the track. 

"You know I keep that candy yeah, I need more like mandy yeah. I stay up take addies yeah, I'm tryna fix this damage yeah—"  

I looked at him as he sang, his voice hitting the mic like bricks in flow. His brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, he sang his chorus with an intensity I never saw before. He was mesmerizing in front of a mic, his throat constricted, his veins bulged out of his skin as he sang. His face a map of tension and severity. 

"Ayy fuck it I was raised like that, so I guess I never really changed like that. I be takin' shots to the brain like that, blacked out drunk and I came like that—" 

My lips parted as I got lost in him and his words. His voice was crisp, his lyrics were harsh and so melancholic. His words were just how he looked, it was as if what came out of mouth was truly a map of his mind and heart. If it was, I had the sudden urge to soothe it. A stranger urge to do something to make him feel better, if the words of his song was truly the image of his mind.  As I watched intently, Colson neared his last verse of the first part of the song, and Trippie's verse began.