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Corps questions rapper on alleged Marine past

Budding Dallas-based hip-hop artist and Billboard Music chart topper Steve Austin says a lot of things in his past have shaped his “banging beats,” most notably his time in the Marine Corps.

With the April 24 release of his new album, “800 LB Gorilla,” it’s a subject the former staff sergeant, who now is known as the Bioniq MC, was only too happy to talk about with Marine Corps Times. “My music is a mirror image of my soul and the life experiences I have gone through,” he said in a press release sent to this newspaper, offering to speak “about how being in the Marines influenced” his music.

He said he was inspired to join the Corps by two uncles who were leathernecks — one killed in action, the other wounded — and a need for some grounding in his young adult life, the self-proclaimed high school valedictorian said in a recent telephone interview.

“I had a lot of abilities and succeeded at a lot of things, but when adversity would come, I would often take the easy road out,” said Austin, whose real name is Stephen Hall, according to the New York-based American Society of Composers, Artists and Publishers.

The only problem is, the Marine Corps has never heard of him.

A search of Corps personnel records based on his real name, given service dates and ethnicity, turned up dry, according to one Marine official. “No one matches the Stephen Hall with whom you’ve spoken,” he said. A representative of the National Personnel Center in St. Louis — the clearinghouse of service records for all services — also found no record of the singer’s time in the Corps, or in any other service.

After the initial phone interview, Marine Corps Times made numerous attempts to contact the performer through his publicist for clarification about his claimed prior service — all of which went unanswered. Austin refused to provide any information that would substantiate his claim or assist in a military record search, such as his date of birth, the date he entered service, where he went to boot camp or the last four digits of his Social Security number.

In addition to that, Austin’s story could not be substantiated with the unit he claimed to serve with, 4th Reconnaissance Battalion. First Sgt. Carlos Sepeda, who has been with the unit for more than a decade, could find no record of Austin.

Sepeda added that Austin’s claimed rank would have been difficult to achieve after four years in the active duty, which is what Austin claimed. “It would be hard; I’ve never seen it,” he said. “Most staff sergeants have eight or more years before they’re in the zone.”

During the phone interview, Austin said his tenure as a Marine was “four and four,” referring to four years’ active duty, followed by four years in the Individual Ready Reserve. He said got out of the Corps in 2000 as an “E-6.”

When asked about his prior Corps service, Austin quickly parroted the recon mantra: “swift, silent and deadly.” While he was shy about giving much detail about his duties there, he did say he was a war veteran and served with his unit in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

He said he decided to go recon because of the challenge, he said. “I’m going to go where they need the highest scores, the most fitness. I’ve always been driven to do the best. It gave me fortitude. I knew when I went in and got out that I could do anything.”

In the meantime, his career has been on the rise. His new single, “Bussa Move,” is listed as No. 8 on Billboard’s R&B Hip-Hop Single Sales. The Dallas Observer has dubbed him the city’s Rapper of the Year.

Sepeda, the first sergeant, said he was concerned at the idea of someone masquerading as a former recon Marine.

“We take the Marine Corps very seriously, especially the recon family,” he said. “For someone to say they were there” — and not be — “it’s very disturbing.”

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Corps questions rapper on alleged Marine past