Dallas Austin Siblings: Meet Claude Austin

Dallas L. Austin is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and film producer. Since the late 1980s, Grammy-winning Dallas Austin has written multiple Billboard number-one hits, including “The Boy is Mine” from Brandy and Monica, and TLC’s “Creep.” Over 50 of his songs have been hit singles, and he has worked with the likes of TLC, Pink, Gwen Stefani, Aretha Franklin, George Clinton, and Michael.

Dallas Austin Siblings: Meet Claude Austin

Dallas has a brother called Claude Austin. As young men, Austin’s two brothers were frequently in prison for crimes such as drug trafficking and robbery. When he was a teenager, one of his brothers threw a keyboard across his bedroom.

This upset Austin greatly, as he felt music was his way out of the environment in which his family lived, and ended up as a defining moment in Austin’s life. He felt that he could no longer continue living in Columbus and boarded a bus to Atlanta with the intention of living with his aunt.

In order to keep their family together, his mother decided to move as well, although it took several months before she and Austin’s brothers could join. After she saved money and began working in an Atlanta restaurant, the family was able to reunite; however, the Ku Klux Klan was a persistent presence in the neighborhoods in which the family lived.