Record label unable to confirm rapper claims
By Kimberly Johnson - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday May 9, 2007 17:56:53 EDT

The record company responsible for promoting a rapper by including prior Marine experience in publicity material is now backing off that claim, after Marine officials were unable to verify whether the hip-hop artist was ever in the Marine Corps.

Dallas-based YMC Records billed Steve Austin as a former Marine in material sent to the press, including Marine Corps Times, in early April, in advance of Austin’s latest album released April 24. In a telephone interview with Marine Corps Times, Austin spoke repeatedly of the impact the Corps has had on his music, but Marine personnel records have no record of him ever serving.

“YMC Records cannot confirm or deny the recent allegations made on behalf of our artist, Steve Austin, regarding his military service with the Marines,” said a statement released Monday by the record label’s publicist, Dior Brown. “As a record label, we recognized Steve’s musical abilities and signed him knowing that he has unlimited potential. However, as a small record label with limited resources, we were unable to confirm the accuracy of his biographical data.”

As of Wednesday, it was unclear whether the record company had changed Austin’s promotional materials. Austin’s personal publicist, Bridgette Cush, said the claim of Marine service would not be made in the future. “Moving forward, no, it won’t be in his promotional material,” she said.

Austin, whose real name is Stephen Hall, according to the New York-based American Society of Composers, Artists and Publishers, told Marine Corps Times in April that he served with 4th Reconnaissance Battalion and got out in 2000.

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.”

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 he got out of the Corps in 2000 as an “E-6.”

A search of Corps personnel records based on his real name, given service dates and ethnicity, turned up dry, according to a Marine official who didn’t want to be identified. “No one matches the Stephen Hall with whom you’ve spoken,” he said.

A representative of the National Personnel Center in St. Louis — the records clearinghouse for all services — also found no record of the singer’s time in the Corps, or in any other service.

After the initial telephone 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, through the publicist, refused to provide information that would substantiate his claim or assist in a military records 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, 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 and said he was concerned at the idea of someone masquerading as a former recon Marine.

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.”

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

Ellie