Early life During a 2019 interview with
DJ Vlad, Joyce was the "way out" Dallas had been looking for. She enlisted as an exclusive producer for her company Diva One Productions. When he was starting out as a producer, he would frequent a local skating rink and records that he produced would be played over the sound system;
T-Boz, his future collaborator of
TLC fame, was also a frequent patron. He used to take his keyboard to school with him, but his mother expressed annoyance at this, telling his school guidance counselor that she did not feel his production career would work out, but the counselor told her that because Austin had kept at his hobby for so long (it was his eleventh grade year), then perhaps it would indeed work out, and suggested that Austin's mother back him. His mother, upon hearing this from a third party, agreed to support Austin. Austin, who was nearly finished with his compulsory education, expressed his wish to cease going to school. His mother, though not pleased with this, allowed him to do so. He spent a large amount of his time at the aforementioned skating rink, where the owners had built a studio for an Atlanta production collective,
Organized Noize. All of this was around 1986. When he telephoned Joyce Irby to say that he was to work with Boyz II Men, she told him that she was going to "[sue] everybody" and immediately thereafter hung up the phone. Austin initially did not understand why she said this, but would later find out that it was because he was considered a "work for hire" employee of Irby. He consulted a lawyer and the lawyer said that although the employment contracts to which he was a party were not favorable to him, they were fair enough so he advised Austin to keep working under them. Irby did not sue anybody and everything worked out as Austin was, as aforementioned, able to produce on the debut Boyz II Men record. In 2025, Austin was announced as one of the remixers for the
2026 FIFA World Cup theme, representing
Atlanta. == Personal life ==