When Post Malone announced his intention to cross over to country earlier this year, he took everyone by surprise, as a guy who began his career as a rapper. But the shift didn’t come entirely out of the blue. The Grapevine artist, whose driver’s license reads “Austin Richard Post,” has long been interested in genre bending and has incorporated country elements into his work as far back as “Go Flex” from his 2016 debut, Stoney. That album also teased Post’s superpower: his ability to work with a wide array of artists from across the spectrum of popular music.
Stoney featured appearances from Justin Bieber, Kehlani, Quavo, and 2 Chainz; on his official country debut, F-1 Trillion (out August 16), fifteen of the eighteen tracks involve guest artists, ranging from current megastars such as Chris Stapleton and Morgan Wallen to country royalty like Dolly Parton and Hank Williams Jr. In the eight years between the two albums, Post has racked up an enormous list of collaborators, whether on his own work or as a featured artist on someone else’s record. Given the ever-changing nature of his musical persona, Post Malone is best understood by looking at who he’s chosen to work with. With that in mind, we present a taxonomy of Post’s most famous collaborators.
Cred Lenders
Blake Shelton
Brad Paisley
Chris Stapleton
DJ Khaled
French Montana
Gucci Mane
Luke Combs
Meek Mill
Morgan Wallen
Nicki Minaj
Ty Dolla Sign
Whether he’s working in hip-hop or country, Post benefits from the credibility that more established artists in a genre bring to his work. As he’s gone from a promising up-and-comer to a superstar in his own right, the cosigns he’s earned have helped create fans who might otherwise question the chameleon-like young man popping up in a genre they love. That was true during Post’s early years establishing himself as a voice within and also outside of hip-hop, and it remains true as he attempts his country crossover.
One of the earliest artists to give Post an endorsement was trap music pioneer Gucci Mane, who gave him a guest spot for a track on a 2015 mixtape (alongside fellow Texan Riff Raff). In the ensuing years, even as Post has become a stadium-filling headliner, he’s continued to make guest appearances and utilize other artists’ voices on his own records. Post sang the hook on a DJ Khaled track, “I Did It,” in 2021, a rite of passage for any rapper (Houston star Megan Thee Stallion also has a verse on the song). He invited Meek Mill, Nicki Minaj, and Ty Dolla Sign to perform on his own records and appeared on tracks from French Montana. In a return-the-favor gesture, he collaborated with Ty again on one of that singer’s albums, in 2020.
With his latest crossover, Post uss a similar formula. Country music has an unusual relationship to outsiders; the Nashville establishment tends to be happy when a star from outside the genre comes to town, but mostly only if they agree to participate on their terms. (It’s part of why Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter didn’t get much airplay on country radio.) Post played the game well—and F-1 Trillion boasts collaborators who are at the height of their popularity, rendering any questions about authenticity irrelevant. If Luke Combs, Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton, Chris Stapleton, and Morgan Wallen can welcome Post, there won’t be many folks who don’t.
Not Like Us
Future
Lil Baby
21 Savage
Young Thug
Quavo
2 Chainz
Here’s a fun fact: Post Malone has collaborated with every rapper Kendrick Lamar name-drops in the third verse of his popular diss track “Not Like Us” to accuse Drake of using other artists to enhance his credibility. Quavo and 2 Chainz both appeared on Stoney, while 21 contributed to Post’s 2018 megahit “Rockstar.” Future, Lil Baby, and Young Thug all worked with Post on his third album, 2019’s Hollywood’s Bleeding.
Pop Stars
Doja Cat
Halsey
Justin Bieber
Kehlani
Lorde
SZA
Taylor Swift
The Weeknd
Post has worked with stars at the top of the pop world. Justin Bieber made a guest appearance on Stoney’s “Deja Vu,” while the same album’s “Feel” featured a verse sung by Kehlani. Hollywood’s Bleeding included appearances by Halsey and SZA, while the 2022 album Twelve Carat Toothache had duets with Doja Cat and the Weeknd.
Back in 2017, Lorde recruited Post (along with SZA and El Paso’s Khalid) for a remix of the song “Homemade Dynamite,” from her sophomore album. And she’s not the only pop star to call him: on this year’s Tortured Poets Department, no less than Taylor Swift collaborated with Post on “Fortnite.”
Creative Collaborators
Big Sean
DaBaby
Gunna
G-Eazy
Jelly Roll
Lainey Wilson
Roddy Rich
Saweetie
Swae Lee
The Kid Laroi
Travis Scott
Youngboy Never Broke Again
Many of Post’s collaborators are his peers. In other words, they’re somewhere near him in terms of their stature within the music industry. When he introduced his North Texas–based Posty Fest in 2018, he included in his lineup Travis Scott as coheadliner; as a tacit acknowledgement that the two occupied similar spaces in the culture, Post served as the same for Scott’s inaugural AstroWorld Festival. Scott, who’s on the Hollywood’s Bleeding track “Take What You Want,” is not the only artist whose collaboration met Post on more or less equal footing—and Post has done much of his best work alongside artists who are roughly his age and at his level of fame. His melodic duet with Swae Lee on “Sunflower,” which appeared on the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack, may be his finest hour.
On F-1 Trillion, Jelly Roll, who like Post straddles the country, rap, and rock worlds, joins him for the track “Losers,” while Lainey Wilson, one of the hottest acts in country and just a hit away from breaking through to the pop world, is featured on “Nosedive,” putting both artists in the same company as a group that stretches from Big Sean to Youngboy Never Broke Again.
Living Legends
50 Cent
Beyoncé
Dolly Parton
Hank Williams Jr.
Lil Wayne
Ozzy Osbourne
Tim McGraw
Trae tha Truth
In addition to working with artists on his own level, Post has an impressive track record of collaborating with musicians whose accomplishments put them above reproach. One of his earliest recordings was a feature spot on rap icon 50 Cent’s 2015 mixtape The Kanan Tape. In 2017, Houston legend Trae tha Truth invited Post for a guest verse on “Too Late.” He was tapped by Lil Wayne for an appearance on his 2018 album The Carter V, and the love from iconic figures ended up going both ways the next year, as metal god Ozzy Osbourne joined Post and Travis Scott for a track on Hollywood’s Bleeding.
This year Post is working with even more legends of diverse styles. He sang with Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter, contributing one of the album’s finer moments on “Levii’s Jeans.” F-1 Trillion gets him three more notches to that particular belt. Country megastar Tim McGraw, country queen Dolly Parton, and the incomparable Hank Williams Jr. all recorded tracks with Post for the album.
True Swerves
Billy Strings
Fleet Foxes
Joe Diffie
Juice Wrld
Mark Morrison
Noah Kahan
One of Post’s charms is that, while certain decisions of his may seem calibrated to score a hit, others are clearly just idiosyncratic choices informed by his own creative passions. It’s unlikely that a single person bought a copy of Twelve Carat Toothache because Pacific Northwest folk crooners Fleet Foxes appear on the song “Love/Hate Letter to Alcohol,” but the group’s harmonies elevate the track.
Last year Post covered nineties country star Joe Diffie’s 1994 hit “Pickup Man,” featuring a vocal track the original artist recorded before his death from COVID in 2020. Diffie isn’t the only late artist with whom Post shared a posthumous recording. He contributed a verse to a 2021 remix of Juice Wrld’s “Life’s a Mess” after the Chicago rapper’s death in 2019.
Not all of those idiosyncratic decisions are tragic. He recorded a new version of the 1996 hit “Return of the Mack” with original singer Mark Morrison and EDM artist Sickick, introducing the British one-hit wonder’s track to a new audience. And last year, he swerved to dabble in bluegrass on the banjo-heavy hit “Dial Drunk” with folk artist Noah Kahan. That vibe lives on with an unlikely collaboration with bluegrass superstar Billy Strings for F-1 Trillion’s “M-E-X-I-C-O.”
Cosigns
Ernest
Hardy
Sierra Ferrell
Post has clearly benefited from the endorsements of musicians from across the musical spectrum throughout his career. But he’s also, from time to time, offered endorsements of his own to artists on the come-up. F-1 Trillion features tracks from several rising stars, including Ernest (best known for his collaborations with Morgan Wallen), country/rock songwriter Hardy, and folk/Americana artist Sierra Ferrell.
Image credits: Parton: Omar Vega/FilmMagic via Getty; Beyoncé: Kevin Mazur/WireImage via Getty; Malone: Gary Miller/Getty; Swift: Andreas Rentz/TAS24/Getty
