Smash that
like button if you are a fan of that epic intro.
Post Malone has had
a meteoric rise to fame.
Shortly after starting out on soundcloud and building a buzz with his single “White Iverson,”
Post Malone has become one of the biggest superstars in modern music.
Whether you know him for his face tattoos or for his hit records, the name Post Malone
rings a bell for music fans of all ages.
And the man is only on his third album.
But as much as it may have looked like it happened over night, Posty’s success was
built over years of experimenting with different sounds and all types of music.
Before the fame, he was living in Texas and playing in a metal band!
Then living with a group of Minecraft YouTubers trying to shop a mixtape no one would to give
a listen.
In this video we’ll walk through his EPIC journey.
What’s going on guys?
It’s your boy Michael McCrudden here for you on Before They Were Famous, documenting
the life and career of Post Malone prior to fame, this time, hitting you with an EPIC
version, in honor of his new album, and how far he’s come in his career.
We’ve done other Epic’s on Lil Uzi, Cardi B and Drake.
We only do these for those who have truly achieved GOAT status.
Like our other series, it's up to you guys to tell us who deserves the next EPIC
Before They Were Famous video.
Alright, let’s get into the video!
Post Malone was born Austin Richard Post on July 4, 1995 in Syracuse, New York and was
raised by his father Rich Post, yes that’s his real name, also his stepmother Jodie.
Little did Rich know that his son would one day become the Richest Post in the family.
Music had always been in the family with his father having worked as a DJ for local events
where he would play music of all genres.
This influenced Austin to love all different types of music everything from Bob Dylan,
Kanye West, Biggie, Hank Williams and everything in between.
And no, not Little Hank Williams:
The family moved to Grapevine, Texas when he was 10 years old because his dad got a
new job.
Grapevine has a population of around 50 thousand but like it says on their official website,
“it’s always a great time, in grape vine!”
Austin’s father got a job working as the assistant director of food and beverages for
none other than the Dallas Cowboys football team at AT&T Stadium.
Of course, the job came with some perks for his son like free tickets for Cowboy games,
and who can forget the unlimited food and drink.
Austin’s birthmother also moved to Texas to be close to her son.
In his teenage years, before playing a real instrument, Post fell in love with Guitar
Hero.
He mastered the expert level on every song so he decided the only logical next step was
to pick up a real guitar.
Post’s mom got him a guitar for Christmas and he began to learn.
But it wasn’t as easy as he had hoped.
His dad told him that if he could stick it out for 6 months, then he would officially
pay for his guitar lessons.
So that’s what Post did.
He would watch YouTube tutorials on how to play and he taught himself the basics.
And he became pretty good:
Post won his 8th grade talent show where he performed a metalcore cover of Rihanna’s
smash song “Umbrella.”
He was doing open mic night covers of Guns N’ Roses and playing any show that he could.
Post wanted to take his musical dreams to the next level and decided to try and join
a band.
At just 15 years old, he auditioned for a band called “Crown The Empire” in 2010.
Here’s one of the members of Crown talking about Post Malone:
The band ended up winning battle of the bands
but long story short their guitar player left the group.
So in need of a new member, they went searching and held open auditions.
So being friends with Post, he suggested to come
to the auditions:
Post was ready to perform but unfortunately during his audition, one of his guitar strings
broke.
Seems like fate to me.
Needless to say, he didn’t get the gig.
And Crown The Empire ended up becoming a huge band in their own right.
But things worked out just fine for Post Malone.
After his failed audition, he did start performing with a metalcore band in high school and we
found an old video from one of their performances.
Ya, it's much different than the soft melodies you hear on his albums today.
But after a short stint in metal, he then transitioned into making softer rock music.
Post wanted to mix his unique ability to create melody and his love for guitar with trap drums
to create his own sound.
He began learning how to produce on an illegally downloaded version of FL Studios and recorded
his first song on Audacity.
Post said his dad liked his beats!
So Post shared his first song with his classmates who thought it was good.
Post graduated from Grapevine high school but was still focused on his initial dream
of being a professional musician.
While he attended Tarrant County Community College in Texas, he was constantly writing
songs.
And his focus shifted so much onto the music that he dropped out of college to chase after
his dream full time.
At 18 years old, he moved from Texas to Los Angeles.
Post was planning on showing his mixtape to anyone who would listen when he got
to LA.-
He told Young and Recklass:
I moved to LA from Dallas to win some godamn Grammys.
Post moved out to LA with one of his close friends Jason Probst, who was a Minecraft
YouTuber and had a channel called “TrueMU,” which stands for Minecraft Universe.
He was also a part of the Minecraft Team called Crafted.
But Jason was no small time YouTuber, he had already accumulated over 1 million subscribers.
So Jason and his fellow Minecraft crew members had some money to spend on a nice place in
San Fernando Valley.
Jason was planning on renting a place with some of the other members, and knew how badly
Post wanted to make it in the music industry, so he let him tag along.
And if you’re thinking, there’s no way gamers had that much money.
Post mentions in a later interview that Jason had a private jet when he was only 17:
When they got out there, the group would make content online.
In some of the videos, Post would cover songs for their audience:
He was also in some of their skits:
He even performed on stage with them, like this epic Coldplay cover about Minecraft:
And at some point, he created this video that is now kind of legendary:
Plus, Post was just joking around when he made that video.
But Post wasn’t making any money while he was crashing with his pal.
And nothing really happened for Post in his first year out there.
Post’s guitar was even stolen one day:
Post was anxious to start recording his real tracks and wanted to make a new kind of music
that he was actually proud of.
He was working with a group of friends who knew someone at a studio, so finally he got
some studio time.
And that is where he was first introduced to 1st from FKi. 1st heard Austin’s voice
and knew that Post had a lot of talent.
The two ended up becoming good friends making a lot of music together.
But Post needed a direction for his music and an image.
He got his hair braided, got some gold grills and some ice after being inspired by AI.
Post wanted to model his look after one of his heroes, NBA superstar Allen Iverson.
In terms of his name, at first he said he just came up with it because it sounded cool
but he later admitted that the name actually came from a random name generator.
I decided to use the same generator myself and got Ol McCrudden, Michaeladonna & Dirtyface
Michael.
It could have been a worry that nobody would take him seriously as a white boy with corn
rows and gold teeth.
But the music spoke for itself.
Post Malone now with a new name, wrote the song “White Iverson” and FKi made the
beat at 7am and recorded it with Post.
White Iverson was the first song Post Malone ever released to the world under his new name.
It was uploaded onto his soundcloud account in February of 2015.
And to say the song blew up would be downplaying it.
The song got an initial boost from 1st posting it on his soundcloud, but people really caught
on and loved the song.
White Iverson had 7k streams over night, but before long, the song had hundreds of thousands
of plays and then soon, it had millions.
Complex and Pigeons and Planes posted his work early on and directed a lot of traffic
to his page.
And then Post had celebrities like Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller telling him how much they loved
his music.
He woke up to all of this one morning.
Post went to SXSW and made a name for himself within the industry.
But the next step was to shoot a music video for his hit.
He wanted to shoot a video for “White Iverson” but only had 5 thousand dollars left in his
bank account.
So he borrowed some money… and a Rolls Royce from a friend to shoot the video in the desert.
The song, the timing, his look and his talent all clicked perfectly and today the video
now has close to a billion views on YouTube.
Safe to say he made his $5K back.
He ended up performing at Kylie Jenner’s birthday party later that year, and James
Harden knew all of the words to the song.
He also met Kanye west at that same party, which lead to him being on Kanye’s “Life
Of Pablo” album.
Post Signed with Republic Records and toured the world with Justin Bieber, even stirring
up some controversy when they got into a little scuffle on the road:
But the two later clarified that they were just joking around!
Post has of course had to deal with some controversy regarding cultural appropriation.
But Post seems to want to just keep to himself and make the music he likes to make.
Since his initial hit, Post Malone has gone on to become one of the biggest stars in music.
His stats speak for themselves with 7 top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and
3 number one singles on the chart with Sunflower, Psycho and Rockstar.
The latter became his most successful single yet going 8 times platinum.
And with his new album I’m sure only more hits will come.
His tattoos have also increased a lot since his success, tatting “Always Tired” below
his eyes.
As for Posty’s love life, he seems to be in a happy relationship, but recently asked
fans not to post about who she is and to respect their relationship!
What a guy, he found fame and fortune and kept the same girl by his side on the come
up.
I'm not sure if their still together but he has made some close ties and lasting relationships
with a few other influencers including H3H3 and Nelk.
Who knows, maybe one day I'll get to kick it with Post.
We have the same jeweler for our Grillz after all.
Toronto Grillz.
Aright, I'm getting off topic so we are gonna wrap this one up!
But as for the rest of the story, well, we’ll have to wait and see because this is Before
They Were Famous.