Austin Richard Post (born July 4, 1995), better known by his stage name Post Malone, is an American recording artist. He first gained major recognition in February 2015, after the release of his commercial debut single "White Iverson". In August 2015, Malone landed a record deal with Republic Records. Early life[edit] Post Malone was born Austin Richard Post on July 4, 1995, in Syracuse, New York.[1][2] When he was 10 years old, he and his family moved to Dallas, Texas. He enjoyed playing basketball and watching sports. His father was the Dallas Cowboys' a**istant director of food and beverage, and this meant that he was able to get free food and tickets to Dallas Cowboy games.[3][4] Post began to play the guitar, while becoming a member of a heavy metal band in his high school. He credited his initial interest in learning guitar to the popular video game Guitar Hero. He began first learning how to produce music through FL Studio. When he was 16 years old, he has started working on his first independent mixtape. He showed it to some of his cla**mates and it gained him some popularity at his high school.[5] He credited his love for music to his father, who exposes him to be making music for all genres, which includes country music. Post attended and graduated from Grapevine High School. He then enrolled in Tarrant County College, but he only attended there for a few months.[1] Musical career[edit] After he left college, Malone moved from Dallas, Texas to Los Angeles, California, with his longtime friend Jason Stokes. He later participated in a music group, called BLKCVRD, with Jason Stokes and Billie Gvtes, among others.[citation needed] He met 1st and Rich from FKi Music, who helped Malone produce several tracks, one of which is title "White Iverson".[1] Malone recorded the song two days after he wrote it.[5] It made him think that with that name of the song, after getting his hair braided, that it made looked like "White Iverson" (which is a reference to the professional basketball player Allen Iverson).[4][6][7] In February 2015, upon the completion, it was uploaded to Post's SoundCloud account.[8] Post Malone released a music video for "White Iverson" on July 19, 2015, which has received over 163 million views since its initial release. After the initial hype of "White Iverson", Post released several other popular singles to his SoundCloud; including "Too Young", "What's Up" and "Tear$", all of which saw a similar level of popularity to the breakout hit. These songs quickly gained him attention from record labels, after plays of over a million in one month each time that it upload.[6] In August 2015, he secured a recording contract with Republic Records.[9][10] Since his breakthrough hit, Malone began working with a number of prominent rappers, such as 50 Cent, Young Thug and Kanye West.[11][12] Malone also began a friendship with Canadian singer Justin Bieber, which led to Malone opening for Bieber on his Purpose World Tour.[13] On April 20, 2016, Malone premiered his new single "Go Flex" on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 show.[14] On May 12, 2016, he released his first full-length project, a mixtape titled August 26th.[15] On June 9, 2016 Malone made his national television debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, performing "Go Flex".[16] In June, XXL editor-in chief Vanessa Satten, revealed Post Malone was considered for XXL's "2016 Freshmen Cla**" magazine cover, however she was "told by his camp that he wasn't paying attention to hip hop so much. He was going in more of a rock/pop/country direction."[17] However, Malone denied these claims a couple days later, saying: "My love of music should never be questioned... I shouldn't be chastised in whichever way I see fit." He then went on to explain that his latest mixtape as well as his upcoming album are both hip-hop: "I have a hip-hop album coming out in August... I made a HIP HOP mixtape promoting my HIP HOP album."[18] Stage name[edit] Although it is suggested that Post's stage name is a reference to the professional basketball player, Karl Malone,[7] he has said otherwise. In an interview with The Breakfast Club, he explains "Well Post is my last name, and I just made Malone up.