“White Iverson” led to Post’s 2016 debut, Stoney beerbongs & bentleys burrowed further into Post’s luxurious, messy melancholy, while 2019’s Hollywood’s Burning found him buttoning up and moving closer to the conventions of mainstream pop, all while retaining his peculiar touch. At live shows, there were no dancers, no pyrotechnics, just Post, in a baggy football jersey with a cigarette in his hand, bringing 60,000 people into his bedroom: The pop star as moody teen.īorn in 1995 in Syracuse, New York, and raised in the suburbs of Dallas, Post grew up on a mix of country, classic rock, and rap: in one well-circulated anecdote, young Post would get called into the living room to entertain dad and friends with the dance to Terror Squad’s “Lean Back.” He turned a love for the video game Guitar Hero into a love of actual guitar, playing in a metal band during high school while also starting to explore hip-hop.
The bass boomed, the melodies soared, and there was Post in the middle, rap-singing his woes like a lonely prince self-exiled in the castle.
His signature tracks-“rockstar,” “Sunflower,” “Congratulations”-were both bleak and beautiful, spaced-out and mainstream, hip-hop but not quite. Post didn’t just look past genre, he broke it down, mixing the dark grandeur of trap with the anthemic release of classic rock and country. Within five years of his debut, American rapper and singer/songwriter Post Malone went from genre novelty to certified superstar, amassing a string of Top Ten singles with a hybrid style that joined his unique vocal delivery, pained lyrics, and hip-hop production inspired as much by Tim McGraw as Kanye West.
No matter how platinum the records go, he still has the air of an ordinary guy, a Crocs-and-Bud-Light kid from the suburbs who stumbled backward into fame just by strumming what was in his heart. Plenty has changed, but Post’s appeal is more or less the same. When Austin Post uploaded “White Iverson” to social media in early 2015, he was 19, scrounging for ramen and sleeping in a friend’s closet.
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