John Anthony began his music career in 2012 under the stage name 1 Dolla, where he released his first mixtape 1 Dolla later that same year. A year later, John Anthony changed his name to Exstazic and released two new mixtapes Homecoming EP (2013) and Live Evil EP (2014) under the new identity. After a year off, he finally restructured his identity again, going by the name John Anthonyand releasing his final mixtape, Double Standards EP (2016), before the foundation of Villainous Records in 2019. After two years, John Anthony created his own label Villainous Records and released his first two studio projects that same year, Four Forty Four EP (2018-2019) and The Therapy LP (2019), along with Villainology, Vol. 1 (2019), which is a compilation of mixtapes by John Anthony sorted into yearly volumes featuring unreleased songs and remixes that were cut from pervious albums.

John Anthony would go on dropping six projects a year later. His second studio album The Bad Guy Chronicles and his third studio album Unexplored, along with the Ride or Die mixtape and Stereo EP, all releasing in 2020. He also released The Therapy LP (Deluxe Version) to begin the year and the commercial mixtape series Villainology, Vol. 2 to close out the 2020 year. The more successful album out of the bunch came with The Bad Guy Chronicles, achieving higher streaming numbers and sales than any other John Anthony project, with the latter containing the hit single "Ballin". He also released the single "Sincerely Yours (Freestyle)" that same year. The song contains five beats produced by rapper Logic.

John Anthony's fourth studio album, Words Are Weapons + Words Are Weapons (Deluxe Version) (2021) and his fifth studio album Villaination! (2022) both achieved commercial success. He received a commemorative gold record plaque for Words Are Weapons in 2021 and another for Villaination! in 2022 for reaching over 100,000 streams worldwide. He also released his most streamed and popular song Hustlin' later that year. John Anthony also continued with the release of his annual mixtape series, Villainology, Vol. 3 (2021) and Villainology, Vol. 4(2022). His sixth studio album Success Story (2023) released on March 24 and featured hit songs "Montana" and "IDFWY". The album has reach over 87,000 streams on Spotify and over 115,000 streams on all platforms. Six months later, John Anthony and rapper J Mont together released "Give It To Ya" on September 15 as the first single from their collaboration album. The song samples "Sugar" (2009) by rapper Flo Rida. On October 13, John Anthony would release Heroes 2 Villains (2023), which is a collaborative album with fellow Villainous Records rapper J Mont. The fifteen-track album featured guest appearances from independent rappers Frizz, Tony Lonl3y and Phoenixx Rose.

Anthony Grandinetti was born on August 5th, 1999 in Dallas, Pennsylvania and was raised as an only child. He attended catholic schools throughout his whole childhood and graduated at Holy Redeemer High School. After, he attended Luzerne County Community College for two and a half years before dropping out. Currently, he moved to Winter Park, Florida, near Orlando, where he attends Full Sail University. His love for hip hop started when he was eleven years old and first heard rapper Andre 3000 and Big Boi from OutKast on the radio. He started rapping a year later at the age of twelve after being inspired when he received a copy of Get Rich or Die Tryin', an album by 50 Cent. The album helped shape John Anthony’s early career as it’s said, 50 Cent was the reason Anthony pursued a career is rap. He spent years releasing music under various stage names and took his hobby more serious in 2016 when he stuck with the name John Anthony.

John Anthony began early in his career recording mixtapes yearly and selling physical copies to his friends at school. His debut mixtape was under the stage name 1 Dolla and was released on October 30, 2012, featuring six tracks. He stated the idea of the stagename in a 2023 podcast interview: "I don't know the [exact] reason... I wanna believe it was because I was such a huge 50 Cent fan and I thought 'well I'm just gonna up him 50 cents'..." he mentioned. John Anthony recorded his debut mixtape with no microphone or music software, but instead used an old iPod where he would record both the instrumental and vocals on a recording mobile app. The production wasn't well put, leaving about ten copies made but none were ever reported sold. One particular song from the mixtape showed a rap group featuring John Anthony and four of his childhood friends releasing a track entitled Ready For War. The song got John Anthony and the rest of the group suspended from middle school. John Anthony would use Rap Rivals, an mobile app that showcased rappers from around the world, releasing their music and going head-to-head in virtual rap battles. This app would help enhance his career and gain confidence in releasing music publicly over the next few years. 

A year later, he released another mixtape under a different name called Exstazic. The mixtape was released on July 29, 2013 and was entitled Homecoming EP, featuring eight tracks. There was roughly around twenty copies made and estimated only six mixtapes sold. This mixtape was also ultimately scrapped two months later, after suffering the same results as his first mixtape. On June 28, 2014, John Anthony released his third mixtape, Live Evil EP, also featuring eight tracks. Similar to his first two mixtapes, the EP failed to gain any attention. Once again, around twenty copies were made but only a handful were sold, leaving the mixtape scrapped just a few weeks later as well. To this day, all three mixtapes are removed and were never released officially into stores or music streaming services.

2015-2016: Inspirations and Pyramid Records

After the commercial failure to gain any attention with the release of his first three mixtapes, John Anthony took a year long hiatus and presumedly quit rap. He mentioned this later in a 2022 inteview saying: "Once 2016 happened, or '15 it might've been... I quit rap." he stated. A year later during the summer of 2015, he was inspired to return back to music after his childhood friend showed him songs off the album Under Pressure, by rapper Logic. Continuing on in the 2022 interview, he mentioned: "And that's when a buddy of mine came over my house and showed me a dude named Logic... and when I heard him, I was like 'I gotta start taking this shit seriously...". Discovering Logic helped John Anthony not only return to writing, but start learning the craft by going back and listening to classic hip hop. Debut albums such as Radio (1985) by LL Cool J and Illmatic (1994) by Nas were a few inspirations. He spent the rest of the 2015 year studying the art of hip hip from it’s origins and learning different flows, rhyme schemes and sounds that he can transport to his style, in helps on improving areas of his music. John restructured his career yet again after finally settling on the name John Anthony in 2016. The name takes his middle name, Giovanni, which is the Italian equivalent of John, as his first name and Anthony as his last. 

On February 26, 2016, John Anthony released "Moving Fast", the first single from his fourth mixtape, Double Standards EP, which released a month later on March 26, 2016. The mixtape featured seven tracks and was recorded and distributed locally by Pyramid Records in Avoca, Pennsylvania. The mixtape gained better attention upon its release, improving in streaming numbers from his first three mixtapes. However, the mixtape never steered in the right direction as it failed with only nine copies sold out of twenty-five manufactured. The production of the album was subpar, leading to a back and forth dispute between John Anthony and Pyramid Records, which ultimately had the EP taken down from all free music streaming services. John Anthony spent the next few years working on his production as he started buying his own professional recording equipment. In the summer of 2016, he formed his own in-home studio called "RYG Records" and installed FL Studios(previously known as FruityLoops before 2003) on his computer.

2017-2018: Battle rapping, Hell on Earth (Freestyle) and Scrapped mixtapes

In 2017, John Anthony would participate in a small, underground rap battle tournament in Scranton, Pennsylvania. That same year, he joined his childhood friend's rap tournament, which was called "The Bunker", where local rappers were able to freestyle, preform live or battle rap every Friday night. The tournament held around ten or more local talents. John Anthony discontinued joining the events after many didn't take it serious and continued back working on his own music. In early 2018, John Anthony recorded a freestyle entitled "Hell on Earth (Freestyle)", which is a remix to "Front Lines (Hell on Earth)" (1996) by hip hop duo Mobb Deep. The remix was released on March 4, 2018 as a stand alone single, along with a three-track mixtape originally entitled The Four Forty Four Demo. The mixtape only featured three songs and the mixing and mastering on the project was subpar. The single and mixtape failed to gain any attention upon its release and was taken down two months later. In the summer of 2018, John Anthony recorded a six-song extended play mixtape called The Therapy EP. This was set to be John Anthony's sixth mixtape and was scheduled for release in November of 2018 but was ultimately scrapped two weeks before its initial release date of November 28, 2018 due to lack of confidence in the project.

2019-2020: Villainous Records, The Bad Guy Chronicles and more

On March 8, 2019, John Anthony rebranded "RYG Records" to his newer record label, Villainous Records. At the time, the label was considered the promotional and distributional platform for his music. Four months later on July 21, he re-released the single "Hell on Earth (Freestyle)" under his newly founded record label. Over sixty percent of the songs lyrics were changed, as more bars were added to the new freestyle, which ended up gaining some attention that the previous 2018 release failed at. The songs re-release showcased the lyrical penmanship, subliminal disses and puns which helped gained both positive and negative feedback. A few musical artists and producers gave their takes on the track, such as DJ and music producer Louis Flores, rapper Bizarre from the hip hop group D12, and two time Grammy songwriter winner Tommy Coster, who was a co-songwriter for The Slim Shady LP by Eminem. John Anthony would re-release the The Four Forty Four Demo, entitling the mixtape as Four Forty Four EP, on March 4, 2019, along with the newly restructured single "Hell on Earth (Freestyle)". Upon its re-release, many people compared John Anthony's flow and sound to Eminem, or "Slim Shady". A few months later, he would go on to release two new singles, "Jump-In (Freestyle)" on August 29, 2019 and the more success hit single "Time Will Heal" on October 20, 2019. John Anthony would release his debut album, The Therapy LP, on October 30, 2019. Unlike the EP, the LP featured four additional songs and enhanced the productional errors and several of the original songs lyrics. The Therapy LP, or "TLP", would be considered as the first studio album under John Anthony's newly founded record label Villainous Records. The album reached just under 10,000 total streams on SoundCloud its first few months. A month later, John Anthony released "Backstab", a diss track towards former childhood friend and local independent rapper Lil Cyko. On November 15, 2019, a song titled "Pressure" was released on free streaming services by Villainous Records. On December 1, Villainous Records announced on their Twitter the release of an annual mixtape series. Villainology, Vol. 1 is the first edition of the Villainology Series, which is a series of mixtapes compiled of unreleased John Anthony songs and remixes throughout the span of a full year. On December 6, 2019, Villainous Records released Villainology, Vol. 1, featuring six unreleased songs available on free music streaming services. The mixtape assembles scrapped music from late 2019, specifically from The Therapy LP. On February 1, 2020, John Anthony released a deluxe version of The Therapy LP, featuring nine new songs.

John Anthony quietly built off the momentum, as he would unexpectedly release his second Villainous Records mixtape Ride or Die, which released on March 19, 2020 and featuring seven songs. The mixtape was released with no prior announcement on John Anthony's YouTube page and was dedicated to a former friend at the time. The mixtape has over 8,000 total streams, with the two more popular tracks being "Rock With You" and "Somebody Else". John Anthony's "Rock With You" contains samples of the song "Rock With You" (1979) by Michael Jackson. A sample of Michael Jackson singing is used as the chorus for this song. "Rocketship", which is a song from the The Therapy LP, was also featured on the mixtape. John Anthony's style would change to mainstream or trapstyle hip hop with singles "Run It Back", which released on January 1, 2020, and "Slaughter Day", which released on February 29. Nothing compared to the unexpected release of John Anthony's summer hit single "Ballin", which released on May 29, 2020. The song was the first track John Anthony released to be available on all major music streaming platforms worldwide and became an immediate success and fan favorite. The song has over 15,000 streams on Spotify and over 50,000 worldwide. An NBA highlight hype video featuring the song was released on June 4, 2020.

On June 11, John Anthony announced a new album on Instagram with a trailer video. June 26, 2020 marked the release date of his second studio album The Bad Guy Chronicles. It features two sides and twenty tracks, with "Side A" ranging in boom bap and "Side B" in trap music. The album received mixed reviews by fans, journalists, music critics and A&R reps in the independent music scene. Weeks after its release, the album quickly became a battering piece as critics would both praise and admire the album's grittiness, along with ridicule and downgrade the album due to its derogatory and controversial content. Certain songs such as "Sharpening The Saw" and "Crazy" were viewed to some as homophobic and sexist in some cases. The album captured the attention of independent records labels such as Tommy Boy Records and NoFace Records but were ultimately turned down. John Anthony's style and sound was heavily compared again to Eminem, considering the artwork for the The Bad Guy Chronicles was inspired from Eminem's debut album artwork The Slim Shady LP. The Bad Guy Chronicles sold thirty-five copies in its first month. John Anthony signed a partnership contract with Chaos Music Distribution (Know today as Chaos Music Group or "CMG") in July 2020. They acted as the parental label to Villainous Records. 

On August 7, 2020, John Anthony released a surprise album to digital music stores and streaming services without any promotion or pre-announcement, unlike the extensive marketing done for The Bad Guy Chronicles. His third studio album, Unexplored, released just six weeks after The Bad Guy Chronicles and featured twelve songs. The album's unexpected release was due to mixed critical reception the The Bad Guy Chronicles received. John Anthony mentioned, "It just sucked that all that work I put in [The Bad Guy Chronicles] just got shit on by the comparisons and personal opinions I stated." he stated in a 2023 Instagram Live interview with The Force. "Really [Unexplored] was just a way to cover up all that negative shit as quick as possible and give the fans what they want." he continued. The album featured a wide range of different rap sub-genres, ranging from trap music, boom-bap, alternative rap and conscious hip hop. One of the more popular tracks from Unexplored featured the song "33 Ways", which shows John Anthony rap 257 words in thirty-six seconds, or a grand total of 375 syllables. The album also reached over 3,000 worldwide streams within its first two weeks. A month later on Septemebr 19, John Anthony released the single "Sincerely Yours (Freestyle)", a seven minute freestyle song featuring five switch-up beats and samples, produced by rapper Logic. Amelia Vandergast of A&R Factory gave a positive review on the song, stating: "John Anthony used the seven minute duration to create an exposition of the grittiest and most frustrating factors in our warped 21st-century society; every line delivers introspective gold. From the corrupt nature of the music industry to the danger of anti-mask stupidity to fucked up abortion laws, John Anthony poetically goes for the jugular on many contemporary aggravators in the song." The single has over 25,000 streams worldwide.

Nearing the end of the 2020 year, John Anthony released his second extended play project, Stereo EP. The project is considered an EP and not a mixtape or studio album. Stereo celebrates the 35th anniversary of Radio (1985), the debut album of LL Cool J. The EP features five throwback-style hip hop tracks, including the song "Stereo", which he tributes LL Cool J's hit single "I Can't Live Without My Radio". The artwork for Stereo showcases an up-close view of a portable stereo boom box, which is a a direct resemblance to the old school boom box radio used in LL Cool J’s album cover. The track listing artwork on the Stereo EP also duplicates Radio with its bright, yellow background and full-body portrait of each artist, along with similar font styles and graphics. To end the year, John Anthony would release his third mixtape, Villainology, Vol. 2 from the Villainology Series, featuring nine unreleased songs by John Anthony. This mixtape assembles scrapped music from 2020, specifically from albums such as The Bad Guy Chronicles and Unexplored.

2021-2022: Words Are Weapons, Villaination!, Success Story and more

On February 19, 2021, John Anthony kicked off the year with a thirteen and a half minute-long cypher entitled "400 Bar (Freestyle)", which features John Anthony rapping over seventeen classic hip hop instrumentals. On March 5, John Anthony released "That Boy Different", the lead single to his forthcoming album. On April 9, 2021, John Anthony released his fourth studio album Words Are Weapons, along with Words Are Weapons (Deluxe Edition). The album later received a gold record commemorative plaque for achieving over 10,000 worldwide streams in its first two weeks. A month later, John Anthony would preform live in Orlando, Florida at Concert Crave Artist Showcase. Later in the year, John Anthony originally planned to release fifth studio album entitled Project 4:44, but ultimately never released. The album was scheduled to release on August 6, 2021 but was later scrapped and replaced with the hit single "My Life", which is a remix and sample to “It’s My Life” (2000), a song by rock band Bon Jovi. The song featured Jon Bon Jovi in the hook and was produced, sampled and engineered by John Anthony. The song has over 60,000 streams worldwide, with over 30,000 on Spotify alone. On December 3, John Anthony released his fourth overall mixtape Villainology, Vol. 3, the third mixtape of the Villainology Series. It features fourteen unreleased songs and remixes by John Anthony and assembles scrapped music from 2021, specifically from the albums Words Are Weapons and multiple unreleased projects.

On January 3, 2022, John Anthony announced his fifth studio album, Villaination!. The news of his fifth album was shared and revealed publicly on John Anthony and Villainous Record's social media accounts. The album was released on February 11 and featured twenty-two songs, along with guest appearances from local talents J Mont, BROSBY, Katrina and BIG 50, along with well-known features from Yukmouth, who is a member of hip hop duo Luniz, and Bronze Nazareth, who is a member of rap group Wu-Tang Clan. The artwork for Villaination! was inspired by and pays homage to West Coast rapper Kurupt’s debut album Kuruption! (1998). The album has sold 320 copies in stores and online, and has over 110,000 worldwide streams. On October 22, John Anthony received a gold record commemorative plaque for Villaination! by tallying over 100,000 worldwide streams and 250 sales. This being the second commemorative plaque he’s received, with earning his first in 2021 for his studio album Words Are Weapons. 

On March 4, 2022, John Anthony announced that he signed independent local rapper J Mont to his label Villainous Records. This would be the first outside musician to sign with the record label. J Mont was featured in three songs on Villaination!: "Midnight Cypher", "Been That Real" and "Look At My Life". On January 14, J Mont released his first single "The Kickoff (Freestyle)", a song engineered and produced by John Anthony. J Mont later would release his debut studio album Premonition on May 27, 2022, with John Anthony executive producing and engineering the album. He also was featured on "Squad Shit" and "Come Around", which features singer and songwriter SoundingBlue. 

On July 15, 2022, John Anthony released his hit single Hustlin’, which is a hard-hitting, heavy trap anthem. It has over 50,000 streams on Spotify and 145,000 worldwide and is widely considered his most popular song. It has been featured on several hip hop radio stations, such as HipHopNation on Sirius XM and Hot 97. It charted at number 233 on Upcoming100's Emerging 300 charts, while also peaking at 79 on the Indie Hip Hop Radar's Top 100. The beat was produced by record producer Timber, along with executive produced by John Anthony. In September, John Anthony hinted at a possible new album in an Instagram post. The post showed a brand new photoshoot featuring John Anthony, with the caption reading "Can I take you back for a minute? #twinflame". This speculated the idea of The Therapy LP 2, as the caption in the Instagram post was lyrics from "Time Will Heal", a song from his 2019 debut album The Therapy LP, but later resulted to be an unreleased studio album entitled Twin Flame that was confirmed on John Anthony's Discogs. The album was a direct sequel to the 2020 mixtape Ride or Die and was scrapped for unknown reasons. John Anthony would finish 2022 with his annual end-of-the-year mixtape; Villainology, Vol. 4. This would be the fourth installment in the series and fifth overall mixtape. It would feature remixes to and from artists such as 50 Cent, Logic and Destiny's Child.

On March 24, 2023, John Anthony's sixth studio album, Success Story was released. It was supported by two singles prior to release, "IDFWY" and "Montana". The album compiles multiple songs that were sampled and produced by John Anthony, with features from J Mont and Larry Bellyfatè. In a 2023 interview, John Anthony stated: "This is my first album were I really did all boom bap...this one I really kinda wanted to do a lot of sampling" he told Hip Hop Radar Underground. The album's creativity consisted of a retro, 1950's theme and was heavily inspired from classic gangster films such as The Godfather, Scarface and Goodfellas. The album released on the same day as the anniversary of the American film The Godfather (1972).

Six months later, John Anthony and fellow rapper J Mont together released "Give It To Ya" on September 15 as the first single from their forthcoming duo album. The song samples "Sugar" (2009) by rapper Flo Rida. The song has over 20,000 streams on Spotify. Three days later, they released the music video for "Give It To Ya", which currently has nearly 10,000 views on YouTube. On October 1, John Anthony announced Heroes 2 Villains, a collaborative album with Villainous Records rapper J Mont. The album was announced via John Anthony's Instagram, however, a duo album between the two was surfaced around for the better part of 2023. John Anthony and J Mont's duo album Heroes 2 Villains released on October 13, 2023, and featured independent rappers such as Frizz, Tony Lonl3y and Phoenixx Rose, while a majority of the production was handled by several different producers. The album marked as the final album released under Chaos Music Group, the parental music management agency for Villainous Records. On December 8, John Anthony and J Mont performed at the Sherman Showcase at The Sherman Theater in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania for their "Heroes 2 Villains Concert". The event also featured independent rapper Frizz as the shows opener. 

On December 10, John Anthony and Villainous Records parted ways with their management team Chaos Music Group, making John Anthony and all Villainous Records artists and members officially independent. He ended the year with his annual mixtape series Villainology, Vol. 5, which released on December 15. Originally, the mixtape was set to release on December 1 but was delayed due to John Anthony and J Mont's "Heroes 2 Villains" concert that was be promoted heavily. He explained on X (Twitter): "#Villainology Volume 5 is still coming. Usually it would release today but due to the anticipation surrounding the [Heroes 2 Villains] concert next Friday, I decided to put the mixtape on hold." The new mixtape features ten songs, with multiple remix tracks to unreleased songs from John Anthony’s 2023 album Success Story. Some songs feature classic remixes to well-known artists such as Eminem’s “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” (2002), where throughout the remix he subsequently disses his ex-girlfriend from his 2020 mixtape Ride or Die, along with a remix to Jay-Z and Eminem's hit single “Renegade” (2002), where he and fellow rapper J Mont share a similar flow and style to the original song, to 50 Cent's “Wanksta” (2002), which is the third song John Anthony has remixed from 50 Cent’s popular debut album Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2003), previously remixing to "Life's on the Line" in Villainology, Vol. 3 (2021) and "Don't Push Me" in Villainology, Vol. 4 (2022).

To begin the 2024 year, John Anthony had a featured performance at an independent artist showcase festival hosted by Concert Crave in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.