Post Malone made waves in 2015 with the release of his debut single, and has continued to both shock and delight his fans ever since. But where did he grow up?
Post Malone was born in Syracuse, New York where he grew up with his father and stepmother. At the age of 9 the family moved to Grapevine, Texas due to his father’s work, where Malone rounded out his childhood and pursued his passion for music.
Read on to learn more about the cities where Malone grew up and rose to fame.
New York Native
Though Post Malone made his breakthrough into the music industry in Los Angeles, he began his life in Syracuse, New York, where he was born on July 4, 1995. He was born Austin Richard Post and was raised primarily by his father, Rich Post, and his stepmother, Jodie, although his mother Nicole remained an active presence in Malone’s childhood.
Rich remained in Syracuse after graduating from the University in 1988 and raised Malone in the presence of a wide range of different music genres. In 2015, Malone told Hot 97 radio station that “he put me on everything… Folk and funk and rap”.
His father told Syracuse.com that he would take Malone to the New York State Fair every summer, and that Malone had a happy childhood in the city.
Although Malone’s more formative music years were spent outside of New York State, his introduction to music began in those earlier years in Syracuse and he would listen to bands like Guns N’ Roses on his father’s ipod.
Texan Teen
Post Malone moved to Grapevine, Texas when he was nine with his father, stepmother and stepbrother, after his Dad managed to land a job with the Dallas Cowboys.
Post Malone’s musical upbringing gained momentum in Texas and he said in an interview, “I moved to Dallas and I started making music. So, that’s really it. And from then on I just started making what I like”.
His entry into music came from an obsession with the game ‘Guitar Hero’, which he told Snoop Dogg he started playing around the age of 12. Once he had mastered the game he knew it was time to move onto the real thing, although Malone said “the transition was awful”.
He attended Grapevine High School where he played “in a metal band and in an indie band”, according to Rolling Stone, and worked on his first mixtape ‘Young and After them Riches’, which he created using Audacity. After passing around the tape at school, his peers voted him ‘Most Likely to Become Famous’ in his senior year.
Malone’s life in Texas wasn’t all about the music, however, and the future star worked at a Chicken Express alongside school. In search of a different lifestyle, Malone moved to LA in 2014 looking for his big break and told Rolling Stone, “it was that or chicken express”.
Breakthrough in LA
LA would ultimately make Malone’s success, though he had to put in the groundwork to ingratiate himself with those who could further his career.
A group named BLCKVRD was formed of aspiring artists and producers, of which Malone was one, and he moved into a shared house in San Fernando Valley where the group worked collaboratively. It was in LA that Malone met his manager Dre London but also where he got his big break with the release of his debut single ‘White Iverson’.
Hitting over 1 millions views just one month after its release on SoundCloud, ‘White Iverson’ launched Malone’s career as a hip hop artist and prompted a recording contract.
Catapulted into the limelight, Malone made a slew of high-profile appearances and has since released three studio albums for which he’s been titled ‘a Hip-Hop Rock Star’.
Though his breakthrough occurred in LA, growing up in New York and Texas laid the foundations.
Listen to the rapper’s breakthrough track ‘White Iverson’ in the YouTube video below.