"I can't touch you, so I had to wheel it out," joked singer and host Kelly Clarkson at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards, while pushing a cart towards Post Malone that carried eight trophies in Covid style. Post Malone was the big winner at the awards, taking home nine trophies including Top Artist.  

The three-hour ceremony, which was originally scheduled for April, was held at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. While many artists performed in person, there was no live audience.  “I’m honestly blown away by the love everyone’s shown to me”, said Malone, who also won Top Rap Artist, Top Male Artist and Top Rap Album. He added, “It’s kind of a big deal to me and everybody involved because we worked really hard” Malone beat out Elish for the top prize, but she was still a winner, taking home the top Billboard 200 album, Top Female Artist and Top New Artist.  

So we have all heard about him, his fabulous music, umpteen collaborations, and of course his great dance mixes. Post Malone has a lovely story to tell, for someone who started out listening to music played by his dad who introduced him to various genres of music.

The hip hop star was born Austin Richard Post on 4th July, 1995 and started playing guitar at the age of 14 because of the popular video game "Guitar Hero". Malone was raised by his father, Rich Post, and his stepmother, Jodie. His father had been a DJ in his youth and introduced Malone to many different genres of music When Malone was nine years old the family moved from Syracuse, New York and to Grapevine, Texas at the age of 10. He later auditioned for the band Crowd the Empire in 2010, but was rejected after his guitar string broke during the audition. But a misfortune for him was not a distressing moment for him. His first foray into professional music began when he was in a heavy metal band, later transitioning to soft rock as well as hip-hop, remembering the music his father had played to him as a youngster. Around this time, Malone decided to drop his long name and adopt a shorter more expressive name that many would remember. The name Post Malone was rumored to be a reference to the professional basketball player Karl Malone while the word Post, his last name, was used as a "rap name generator" to get "Malone", and thus you had Post Malone.

Malone cites American folk musician Bob Dylan as one of his musical influences in whom he became interested around the age of 15. Though what Malone raps and sings is totally different from what Dylan actually does. But Malone could be a Dylan fan as he has a tattoo of Dylan on his body. His other influences include Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and country legend Johnny Cash.

While at Grapevine High School, he created his mixtape Young and After Them Riches,  which was well received by his peers who voted him the "Most Likely to Become Famous", a tag he initially dismissed, not knowing that a few years later, this would come true. Malone also worked at a restaurant Chicken Express to earn a few bucks to pay out his daily expenses that included his Tarrant County College education, which he sadly did not complete. With music on his mind, he moved over to Los Angeles, California with longtime friend Jason Probst, a professional game streamer.

After moving to LA, Post, Probst, and several other producers and artists formed the music group BLCKVRD and recorded music together. With expenses mounting, the duo moved in with a few others to a small house in San Fernando Valley. Learning the ropes, Malone began to produce music through FL Studio. He started recording his own mixtape on Audacity when he was 16 years old and earned positive feedback from his classmates. After leaving college, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he met the duo FK 1st (Trocon Markous Roberts, Jr., better known by his stage name 1st) and Raye Rich from FKi Music. Malone changed his look and sported braids in his hair.

With his new team he recorded the song White Iverson. The song's name was inspired by professional basketball player Allen Iverson, upon its completion, the song was uploaded to Malone's SoundCloud account in February 2015. Within six months, he released the song's accompanying music video, which received over 240 million views since its release. The song has been certified triple platinum by the RIAA. The single received praise from Mac Miller and rapper Wiz Khalifa.

After the song hit one million views within a month of its release, Malone garnered attention from record labels. In August 2015, he signed a deal with Republic Major, which simultaneously led to a re - release of the song that went on to debut at No. 84 on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at No. 14. White Iverson created a much needed promotion for him, a newcomer who was waiting for an opportunity to strike. Soon Malone released several other popular songs through SoundCloud, including Holyfield and What's Up.

With name and fame, Malone got the break he was waiting for. He subsequently worked with a number of prominent rappers such as 50 Cent, Young Thug and the daddy of all of them Kanye West. West liked what he heard and took Malone to record a new song Fade from West’s album ‘The Life of Pablo’. Around the same time, Malone also made good friends with Canadian singer and songwriter Justin Bieber and though still years junior to Malone, gave the rising hip hop star a big break when he opened for Bieber on his Purpose World Tour.

A year later Malone premiered his new single Go Flex, that received rave reviews, just a few months before his highly anticipated debut album ‘Stoney’ (2016) that boasted of the singles Congratulations featuring Quavo, which also was his first top-ten song on the Billboard Hot 100 peaking at number eight. The album also had other tracks like I Fall Apart and Déjà Vu featuring Bieber, with the album later being certified double platinum by the RIAA in October 2017

Malone had been getting a good fan following everywhere he went and his view ship increased with each passing day. The albums too were rolling with hits all over the place. His October 2017 album release of ‘Beerbongs & Bentleys’ was pushed back to 2018 and produced the fab single RockStar featuring 21 Savage which peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and held the spot for eight consecutive weeks, later prompting Rolling Stone magazine, to call Malone "one of the most popular musicians in the country" in 2017.

The album also produced the single Psycho with Ty Dolla Sign. The song debuted at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Malone's third entry in the top 10. The album was also certified platinum by the RIAA after four days.

In August 2018, Malone broke the King of Pop Michael Jackson’s 34-year-old record for most weeks on Billboard's Top R&B and Hip-Hop Albums chart with the album ‘Stoney’ reaching its 77th week compared to the 76 weeks that his album ‘Thriller’ spent on the chart. This was a milestone for the star who worked through his way to achieve something no one else had ever done.

In 2019, Malone reported that he would be releasing new material soon, bringing out singles and then a brand new album, his third. He released the melodious Sunflower collaboration with Swan Lee, the song from the soundtrack to the film ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider - Verse’.

When it comes to awards, Malone has lots of them; his haul of nine at the recently held Billboard Music Awards is a fine example, along with three American Music Awards, a Billboard award and an MTV Video Music Award. Malone however has never won any Grammy awards even though he had been nominated for 4 awards at the 61st Grammy awards for his album ‘Beerbongs & Bentleys’. However he did perform at the show which was held on 10th February 2019 with rock icons Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

During the rest of the year, Malone released two singles, Goodbye featuring Young Thug, and Circles. He released his third studio album on 6th September, 2019 called ‘Hollywood’s Bleeding’. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 489,000 album copies in just the first week.

Just before the pandemic struck the US in a big way, Malone's concert at Denver’s Pepsi Center proceeded as scheduled, drawing a sellout-crowd of 20,000, likely the largest enclosed gathering in the U.S. before the COVID 19 closure.

During the pandemic Malone raised funds for World Health Organization’s COVID 19’s relief when in April 2020 he performed a live-streamed set consisting entirely of rock band Nirvana covers from his home. Malone gave a new take on the songs with styles from R &B, pop and a bit of rock as he sang lead vocals and provided rhythm guitar for the set, along with backup musicians. The performance raised over US$5 million and also received praise from surviving members of the band namely Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl, as well as Kurt Cobain’s widow Courtney Love.

By Verus Ferreira