Austin Richard Post (born July 4, 1995), known by his stage name Post Malone, is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, record producer and guitarist. He first gained major recognition in February 2015, after the release of his debut single "White Iverson". In August 2015, Malone landed a record deal with Republic Records. Post Malone was born Austin Richard Post on July 4, 1995, in Syracuse, New York. When he was 10 years old, he and his family moved to Dallas, Texas. He enjoyed playing basketball and watching sports. His father was the Dallas Cowboys' assistant director of food and beverage, and this meant that he was able to get free food and tickets to Dallas Cowboy games. Post began to play the guitar and audition for the band Crown the Empire in 2010, but was rejected after his guitar strings broke during the audition. He credited his initial interest in learning guitar to the popular video game Guitar Hero. He first began learning how to produce music through FL Studio. When he was 16 years old, he started working on his first independent mixtape. He showed it to some of his classmates and it garnered him notoriety at his high school. He credited his love for music to his father, who exposed him to music making for all genres, including country music. Post attended and graduated from Grapevine High School. He then enrolled in Tarrant County College, attending for only a few months. After leaving college, Malone moved from Dallas, Texas to Los Angeles, California, with his longtime friend, named Jason Stokes. He met 1st and Rich from FKi Music, who did some of the production work on several of Malone's tracks, one of which was titled "White Iverson". Malone recorded the song two days after he wrote it. "White Iverson" is in part, a reference to the professional basketball player Allen Iverson. In February 2015, upon completion, it was uploaded to Post's SoundCloud account. On July 19, 2015, Malone released a music video for "White Iverson", which has received over 205 million views since its release. After the initial hype of "White Iverson", Post released several other popular singles through his SoundCloud, including "Too Young", "What's Up" and "Tear$". All of which experienced similar levels of popularity. After hitting one million views within a month of releasing "White Iverson", Post quickly garnered attention from record labels. In August 2015, he signed a recording contract with Republic Records. Since his breakthrough hit song, Malone has worked with a number of prominent rappers such as 50 Cent, Young Thug and Kanye West, among others. Malone began his friendship with Canadian singer and songwriter Justin Bieber, which led to Malone to be a opening act for Bieber's Purpose World Tour. On April 20, 2016, Malone premiered his new single, "Go Flex" on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 show. On May 12, 2016, he released his first full-length project, a mixtape, titled August 26th. On June 9, 2016, Malone made his national television debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, performing "Go Flex". In June 2016, XXL editor-in chief Vanessa Satten, revealed Post Malone was considered for XXL's "2016 Freshmen Class" magazine cover, however she was "told by his camp that he wasn't paying attention to hip hop so much. He was going in more of a rock/pop/country direction." However, Malone denied these claims, saying: "My love of music should never be questioned... I shouldn't be chastised in whichever way I see fit." He then went on to explain that his latest mixtape as well as his upcoming album are both hip-hop: "I have a hip-hop album coming out in August... I made a HIP HOP mixtape promoting my HIP HOP album." The title of his debut mixtape August 26th was a reference to the scheduled release date of his debut studio album Stoney. On August 27, 2016, Post Malone issued an apology for the album being late. It was available for pre-order on November 4.