Post Malone has revealed that he asked Frances Bean Cobain's permission to perform her father Kurt Cobain's songs in his April 2020 Nirvana tribute livestream.
The rapper was speaking to Howard Stern on the broadcaster's SiriusXM show, and shared the story after Stern praised his performance on the livestream, and mentioned hearing that Malone had sought permission from Courtney Love to cover Nirvana's songs for the Covid-19 care fundraiser.
"We went to Kurt's daughter," said Malone, correcting Stern. "It's important to me because I loved Kurt so much, and he's been such an inspiration to me, musically. I could never want to offend anybody by trying to show support, so I just wanted to make sure that everything was ok. And it was ok, and we raised money for a good cause, and we got to play some of the most fucking epic songs ever."
Joined by Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, plus guitarist Nick Mac and bassist Brian Lee (who has co-written songs with Malone, Blackpink, Rita Ora and more), the rapper played 15 Nirvana songs during his April 24, 2020 live stream show, which raised over $500,000 for the United Nations Foundation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
Malone, who has the Nirvana song title Stay Away tattooed on his face in honour of Kurt Cobain, received praise from Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and from Courtney Love during his 80-minute livestream.
Novoselic tweeted: "I don’t think these fellows can play any better. They are on fire!!!! Hello!!!!!! I love you all!!!! I am holding emotions back the whole show."
Love posted a message of support on Instagram, writing "Thank you mighty kc for writing these songs with your elegant and monkeyed hands that the kids still want to sing and play and hear and use to fight and hunt and cure and heal and eradicate this fucking covid19 virus. I approve the usage. Good luck mr malone."
Former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl also later hailed the performance.
"First of all, watching Travis play the drums to those Nirvana songs, I was honoured," he told a US radio station. "I thought that was super cool. They were killing it. So I watched a bunch of it. I was, like, 'That was really cool.' Even the die-hard Nirvana people that I know were, like, 'Dude, he's kind of killing it right now'."
Watch the Howard Stern segment below:
