Austin Mahone

Austin Harris Mahone (born April 4, 1996) is an American singer.

Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, he gained initial recognition performing covers of pop songs on YouTube.

Mahone began his career by posting videos on YouTube in June 2010.

More music videos followed, and by January 2011 he began to build an online following.

In October 2011, Mahone posted a video covering Justin Bieber's "Mistletoe".

Mahone has cited Bieber as his inspiration.

He was discovered by record producers Rocco Did It Again! and Mike Blumstein in 2012, and subsequently signed with their label Chase Records in a joint venture with Republic Records in June of that year.

His 2012 debut commercial singles—"Say Somethin'" and "Say You're Just a Friend" (featuring Flo Rida)—both received gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), while his 2013 single, "What About Love" did so and marked his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100.

On February 14, 2012, Mahone independently released his first single, "11:11", to iTunes.

On June 5, 2012, he released his second single worldwide, "Say Somethin".

On August 28, 2012, Mahone announced that he had been officially signed to Chase/Republic Records.

In November 2012, Mahone signed a deal to become the new "Teen Ambassador" for Lil Wayne's Trukfit fashion clothing line.

He has filmed commercials for McDonald's and Hot Nuts, a Mexican snack.

On December 3, 2012, Mahone released a song titled "Say You're Just a Friend" featuring rapper Flo Rida as a digital download.

He later dropped the piano version of the song and revealed why he released the piano rendition of the song, explaining "I knew my fans love the original version, but I saw a lot of comments saying that they couldn't really hear my voice, so I wanted to reassure them that I can sing the song. I thought it'd be cool to not only have the original version but also the piano version and change it up."

All three were included on his debut titularly-titled extended play (2013), which was released only in Japan.

In September of that year, his recording contract entered a triple joint venture with Birdman's Cash Money Records, an imprint of Republic.

On May 29, 2013, he released his debut EP, Extended Play, in Japan only.

In June 2013, Mahone released a song called "What About Love".

The music video won MTV's Artists to Watch at MTV Video Music Awards, and he was chosen as one of the opening acts of Taylor Swift's Red Tour.

In July 2013, Mahone featured in "Magik 2.0", a song by Becky G for The Smurfs 2 soundtrack.

It was a rendition of B.o.B's "Magic".

In December 2013, Mahone was named a "Digital and Brand Strategist" for Aquafina's FlavorSplash, a new line of flavored sparkling water targeted towards teens.

On October 17, 2013, he kicked off his first ever headlining tour, MTV's Artist to Watch Tour.

On November 13, Mahone released a song "Banga Banga" as a promotional single.

His 2014 single, "Mmm Yeah" (featuring Pitbull) received platinum certification by the RIAA and became his highest charting song on the Billboard Hot 100—at number 49.

It preceded the release of his second extended play (EP) The Secret (2014), which peaked at number five on the Billboard 200.

"Mmm Yeah" was released as the lead single from The Secret, his second EP, on January 27, 2014.

The Secret was later released on May 27, 2014.

On July 25, 2014, Mahone kicked off his second headlining tour, Austin Mahone: Live on Tour.

After the release of his 2015 single "Dirty Work", he parted ways with the labels in favor of Pitbull's Mr. 305 Inc. The song entered the Billboard Japan Hot 100 and received platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ), and led his debut studio album, Dirty Work – The Album (2017) to be released solely in the country, in which it entered the Oricon Albums Chart.

Preceded by a number of follow-up mixtapes and EP's, his second album, A Lone Star Story (2023) marked a full departure from pop in favor of country music, and failed to chart in any known territory.

Austin Harris Mahone was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Michele Lee (née Demyanovich) and Charles Edgar Mahone.

His father died when he was a year and a half old, and he was raised as a Catholic by his single mother.

Mahone is of English, French, German, and Slovak descent.

He attended Lady Bird Johnson High School in San Antonio but left after his freshman year and was homeschooled at his grandmother's house.

During 2015, he continued to independently release music.

Five new songs titled "Say My Name", "Places", "Waiting For This Love", "Someone Like You" and "Torture" were released for free download through his official SoundCloud page.

Mahone starred in Becky G's music video for her song "Lovin' So Hard", whom he dated that time for five months.

The video was released on May 6, 2015.