I have to say that I haven't paid much attention to Post Malone although he is certainly one of the biggest acts in pop music right now. While I know it's not fair or right but I think it has been mostly due to his physical appearance: the face tattoos, the grills on his teeth and his overall look of just rolling fresh out of the gutter. For me, it was all a little off-putting.
But I have to admit that I really like the music of the twenty-four year old performer who was born in New York and raised in Grapevine, TX. From his breakout single, "White Iverson" in 2015 to his latest top-ten hit, "Take What You Want" which features heavy-metal legend, Ozzy Osbourne and Travis Scott, Malone's easy blend of hip-hop, r&b, country, and indie rock makes him a thrilling and dynamic force in contemporary music.
Born Austin Richard Post, his father had been a disc jockey when he was young and introduced his son to a wide variety of music. Following in his father's footsteps, Post did some DJing before learning to play guitar and joining a heavy-metal band as a teen. After dropping out of college and moving to LA, he joined a group of musicians and producers, drifting towards rap and hip-hop.
This lead to the self-released single on SoundCloud, "White Iverson" (which in part was a reference to basketball player, Allen Iverson) and the single quickly reached a million plays. Record labels came courting with Malone signing with Republic Records and his debut studio album, "Stoney" released in 2016. Several hit singles followed with "Congratulations"(featuring Quavo), his first number one, "Rockstar" (featuring 21 Savage), "Psycho" (featuring Ty Dolla Sign), "Better Now", "Wow" and "Sunflower" from the 2018 animated film, "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse". To date, Post Malone has sold an estimated sixty million records in the U.S.
To respectfully honor this artist and publicly acknowledge my poor initial judgement, here is a showcase of the exceptional sounds of Post Malone:
