Austin Richard Post born July 4, , [ 2 ] known professionally as Post Malone , is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor. His stage name was derived from inputting his birth name into a rap name generator. Malone began his musical career in , and gained recognition with his debut single " White Iverson ", [ 5 ] which peaked at number 14 on the U. Billboard Hot He signed with Republic Records [ 6 ] to release his debut studio album Stoney , which peaked at number four on the Billboard and spawned the diamond -certified single " Congratulations " featuring Quavo.
His third Billboard Hot number one single, " Sunflower " with Swae Lee , was released for the accompanying soundtrack to the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse ; it became the highest-certified song in RIAA history as the first to receive double diamond times platinum certification. The latter served as lead single for his sixth album, F-1 Trillion , which further experimented with the genre and became his third non-consecutive number one album on the Billboard Malone is among the best-selling music artists , with over 80 million records sold.
His father had been a DJ in his youth and introduced Malone to many different genres of music including hip-hop , country , and rock. He credited his initial interest in learning guitar to the video game Guitar Hero. According to Malone, he chose "Post Malone" as his stage name when he was "14 or 15". He worked at a Chicken Express as a teenager. The song reappeared online in Malone later referenced the DeChino alias on his song " Psycho ".
Malone later enrolled in Tarrant County College , but dropped out. The single received praise from Mac Miller and Wiz Khalifa. After hitting one million views within a month of releasing "White Iverson", Malone quickly garnered attention from record labels. On May 12, , he released a full-length project, a mixtape , titled August 26th , [ 56 ] the title of which was a reference to the release date of his debut album. Malone later went on to call the album "mediocre", [ 21 ] despite the success of the single "Congratulations" featuring Quavo , Malone's first top-ten song on the Billboard Hot , peaking at number eight.
The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot and held the spot for eight consecutive weeks [ 66 ] prompting Rolling Stone in to say he is "one of the most popular musicians in the country".
