R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players

“I f–king hate talking, bro,” Leon Thomas tells his audio engineer. The Grammy Award-winning songwriter and R&B singer is rehearsing for his July set at the Hollywood Bowl, where he’s opening for SiR; just days earlier, he was on the other side of the Atlantic performing at London’s Wireless Festival, where his longtime collaborator and friend Ty Dolla $ign crowned him “the king of this s–t.”
Thomas’ résumé includes Broadway stints and a childhood Nickelodeon breakthrough, and he moves through rehearsals with the methodical meticulousness of someone who has been performing his entire life. With his black and red ombré dreads pulled back in a black wrap to complement his plain white T-shirt and black sweatpants, he floats through the Burbank, Calif., rehearsal space with prodigious finesse and childlike wonder. In quick succession, he translates his drum solo to a new kit, perfects how the slack delays land during “Blue Hundreds” and adjusts reverb levels to differentiate between his R&B and rock tracks. Thomas hates talking because he would rather his multifaceted stage show, as well as his strikingly singular approach to contemporary R&B, speak for itself.

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After several years when hip-hop threatened to cannibalize R&B’s presence in the marketplace, Thomas, 32, has emerged as a leader of its next class of superstars — and recently landed his highest-peaking Billboard Hot 100 hit as a lead performer with the slick-talking smash “Mutt,” which reached No. 12 on the chart in June. He’s recentering the genre’s focus, at least for male performers, on live instrumentation and dizzying riffs, and away from falsetto and emulating MCs — so it’s something of a surprise that he attacks the verses of “Mutt” with the nimble cadence of a melodic rapper. “We’re veering away from the bad-boy types,” he says over a latte in West Hollywood, fresh off a flight from the United Kingdom. “But there’s still that toxic energy, slowly but surely becoming a little bit more buttoned up.”

Just as it took R&B some time to find its footing in the streaming era, it took nearly two decades for Thomas to break through as an artist in his own right. Having spent years working within the system of kids’ entertainment monoliths, studying under several Grammy winners, crafting multiplatinum radio hits for R&B’s and pop’s brightest stars and learning the ins and outs of the indie scene, the present version of Thomas is the culmination of almost 20 years of relentless devotion to his biggest goals and dreams. And it’s clear, as he leaves the rehearsal space to study a recording of the hourlong run-through, that discipline underscores his devotion.

“Even though I really consider myself to be a talented all-around artist, I want to be seen at the level that I know I can be seen in music,” he says. “It’s been cool to knock down certain pillars when a lot of people thought I was done for.”

Tom Ford jacket, Uniqlo T-shirt.

Austin Hargrave

For Leon Thomas, musicianship is intensely personal. He inherited a genre-agnostic approach to music and fashion from his parents: a singer mother and a stepfather who played guitar for B.B. King, who were both part of New York’s Black Rock Coalition and frequented the East Village’s storied CBGB club. Thomas’ grandfather — the late opera singer and jazz devotee John Anthony, who starred in the original Broadway production of Porgy & Bess — laid the family’s entire foundation.

Born and raised in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, Thomas first fell in love with the drums. At just 3 years old, he developed such an affinity for the kit that his parents continued putting instruments in front of him. By age 9, a family friend noted Thomas had the same hairstyle as the actor playing young Simba in The Lion King and eventually convinced his parents to have him audition for the Broadway show. Thomas snagged the role (which he shared with two other young actors), leading to appearances in Broadway productions of The Color Purple and Caroline, or Change.

Backstage during those shows, Thomas wrote his first songs on the guitar, which he frequently played for cast mates. The Color Purple’s success, and that of 2007’s August Rush, brought him to the West Coast, where at 13 he signed a development deal with Nickelodeon that came with a Columbia Records recording contract. While at the network, he provided the singing voice for Tyrone on The Backyardigans for a season-and-a-half before bringing the character André Harris, a high school music producer, to life on Victorious, even penning original songs for the show.

Alongside star-in-the-making Keke Palmer, Thomas became the primary source of representation for young Black Nick viewers in the 2010s. Victorious, which aired in over 80 countries, also helped launch the career of Ariana Grande, who later brought Thomas on as producer/co-writer for her Yours Truly and Positions albums. But while plenty of other Disney and Nickelodeon alumni of the late ’00s and early ’10s had notably rocky transitions to adulthood in the limelight, Thomas consciously steered clear of any actions that might have alienated the Victorious audience who looked up to him.

“I probably would have benefited from [a rebellious break], but I knew I had kids following me,” he explains. “I decided to stay behind the scenes. I wasn’t trying to edit myself online, but I made sure I was paying homage to the role model I used to be. Nickelodeon can still collaborate with me and it’s not awkward. I never took steps to separate myself in ways that were toxic.”

Saint Laurent top, Komeh Club pants, Jimmy Choo shoes.

Austin Hargrave

After Victorious ended production in 2012, Thomas turned down the chance to attend Morehouse College, opting instead to hone his songwriting under Babyface’s mentorship. That same year, he joined forces with Khris Riddick-Tynes to form The Rascals, a production duo that crafted cuts for the likes of Grande, Toni Braxton and Zendaya, as well as Thomas’ own debut mixtape, Metro Hearts, released in August 2012. The Rascals’ work eventually brought them to Grammy-winning producer Boi-1da, whom Riddick-Tynes ran into while on a double date at Nobu. Alongside Boi-1da, Thomas earned his first best rap song Grammy nod for his work on “Gold Roses,” a 2019 collaboration between Rick Ross and Drake that foreshadowed Thomas’ contributions to the latter’s Certified Lover Boy in 2021.

“I spent my 20s becoming the best version of myself,” he says. “I studied under amazing artists and watched how they built their teams and communities around themselves. It was like a nine-to-five, just banging out songs every day and sharpening my pen. I learned that being truthful to myself was the risk — that’s the cool factor.”

In 2019, Thomas met his manager, Jonathan Azu, through veteran music industry executive Marc Byers, making him one of the first artists signed to Azu’s newly launched artist management firm, Culture Collective. In the following years, Thomas continued writing and producing, starting his own Eclectic Collective publishing company and eventually striking Grammy gold with SZA’s “Snooze,” which he co-produced alongside Babyface in 2021. That track later appeared on SOS, SZA’s blockbuster 2022 album, and soared to No. 2 on the Hot 100. With a win for best R&B song, “Snooze” earned Thomas his first Grammy and helped his publishing company “get into the green.”

Meanwhile, Azu had spent the pandemic helping Thomas track down the right partners who would ensure his “freedom and flexibility” to sign a new deal. And by 2023, Thomas found the perfect match in EZMNY, a Motown imprint Ty Dolla $ign had launched alongside veteran A&R executive Shawn Barron the previous year.

“I really looked up to how pgLang was moving with Kendrick [Lamar] and Baby Keem,” Thomas explains. “I thought it was cool to have that big-brother moment in an industry that’s a little bit ‘every man for himself.’ I could ask Ty questions that most up-and-coming artists don’t get to ask their executives.”

That year, Thomas released his debut album, Electric Dusk, and scored a minor street hit with its song “Breaking Point.” When Barron heard an early version of Electric Dusk, it showed him that Thomas was “making musical decisions that nobody else was” — but the timing wasn’t ideal. Electric Dusk arrived as Motown was reincorporated into Capitol Music Group, creating instability that somewhat stunted the record’s potential. EZMNY and Culture Collective did “the bulk of the work” to promote the record, Barron says. “We didn’t have the resources we needed to make Electric Dusk what it could have been.”

A little under a year later, things were very different: Motown’s personnel changes straightened out, and Thomas, having apprenticed for his debut, was ready to own his big moment — a campaign for Mutt that fired on all cylinders.

Thomas wrote “Mutt” on his living room floor while he microdosed psychedelics and watched his dog and cat tussle. A portrait of warring romantic intentions and their unintentional impact, its brooding funk and rock-infused R&B bleeds across his 2024 album of the same name, which Thomas created alongside close collaborators Freaky Rob and David Phelps.

“Nobody knew they were going to like the single with live drums and a funk groove and a live bassline,” Thomas says. “I decided that if I’m going to lead with anything, I want to lead with myself.” And with “Mutt,” Thomas bet on his intuition: He chose it as the album’s lead single over “Far Fetched,” a Ty Dolla $ign-assisted midtempo originally written for Drake.

Released in August 2024, the song’s ascent was a slow burn. “Mutt” had crept into the top 10 of Hot R&B Songs by the top of 2025, but it didn’t enter the Hot 100 until Feb. 8, several months after Mutt’s September 2024 release.

An anomaly in a post-pandemic world, “Mutt” blew up through word-of-mouth, not off the back of an easily identifiable and reproducible trend or a specific viral moment. Buzzy shoutouts from the likes of his old Nick-mate Palmer, SZA and Tems brought the song to new audiences, but listeners gradually gravitated to “Mutt” on the merits of its craft and content. “There was never a clear trend with it,” Motown head of digital Dante Smith says. “We saw people living with the song in a lifestyle setting, using the lyrics to tell stories about their relationships and soundtracking their day-to-day.”

Austin Hargrave

Through many of those lifestyle videos, “Mutt” became a sonic signifier for an aesthetic and personal brand defined by the appreciation of excellence and virtuosity. If someone wanted to show their followers their good taste and ear for quality contemporary music, they more than likely selected “Mutt” for their TikTok or Instagram Reel.

A pair of key promotional spots in early 2025 exposed Thomas to more mature audiences and further propelled “Mutt.” With his Late Show With Stephen Colbert debut landing just two weeks before his first NPR Tiny Desk concert on Feb. 20, Thomas’ early-2025 performances also helped the “Mutt” radio campaign shift into a higher gear. The week his Tiny Desk set hit YouTube, the song was milling around outside the top 10 of Adult R&B Airplay, missing in action on Rhythmic and just sneaking into the top 30 of Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay. (Thomas dropped his full Tiny Desk set as a live EP on Aug. 15.)

“We went to R&B [radio] first [in October 2024], and it took us 27 weeks to get that No. 1,” Capitol executive vp of urban promotion Bill Evans says. “[The song] had a couple of hiccups where research was not working in our favor, and a lot of stations were on the fence. As a team, we believed the song could be a No. 1 record, so we kept working it and eventually research started turning around.”

The radio success of “Mutt,” which now includes No. 1 stints across three separate radio charts and a No. 5 peak on the all-genre Radio Songs chart, also owes to Thomas’ unwavering tenacity. In between promoting Mutt, opening for Blxst’s I’ll Always Come Find You Tour and playing his first set of Mutt tour dates in late 2024, he made sure to personally visit radio stations in each city and connect with DJs, a few of whom had grown up watching him on Victorious.

“It’s tough, sometimes, as an artist when you go to a meeting and all the ideas are TikToks,” Thomas says. “You have to build the machine around your music and make friends with the power players in traditional media. I still agree with this being a people’s industry. Shaking hands is important; not being a d–k is important.”

Now, according to Luminate, “Mutt” has earned 295.6 million official on-demand U.S. streams through July 24, spending 20 weeks atop Hot R&B Songs and reaching No. 28 on the Billboard Global 200.

“I feel like [Thomas is] showing that the younger generation still cares,” Ty Dolla $ign says. “You can make a smash hit and really be good at music [again]. There was an era when you didn’t have to know what you were doing; you could make a beat on FruityLoops with the most minimal sounds and as long as it banged, your song is a smash. That started to dumb people down… Leon brought us back to hits with real guitar, real bass, a string section, Rhodes piano, synthesizers and stacked vocals.”

On Dec. 4, 2024, just two weeks after a rousing hometown show at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg, Thomas took to Instagram to share that his grandfather had passed. Less than two months later — and immediately after filming his instantly viral Tiny Desk set — Thomas attended the funeral.

“The juxtaposition of those highs and lows is really, really challenging, man,” he says, his eyes piercing through his orange-tinted sunglasses. “It’s different now being in this chapter without his physical support, but the lessons that he taught me are lingering in my heart and mind. Last year, we spent a lot more time together than we had for the past decade. It was good to have those last couple lessons because there were things he noticed about the system I’ve built for myself that needed to be tightened up. I’m carrying him with me to this day… I pushed through a lot of grief to keep the train rolling this year.”

Keeping that train hurtling forward, on June 9, Thomas enraptured the BET Awards audience with a scorching rendition of “Mutt” — complete with a melodic nod to English prog-rockers King Crimson — that cemented his star power. From his head-banging guitar solo to his crisp, impressively precise vocals, Thomas delivered male R&B showmanship reminiscent of Maxwell or D’Angelo. “I got tired of people trying to tell me who I was or what I needed to be successful,” Thomas says, straightening up in his chair. “My inner rock star started peeking its head.” Later that night, BET crowned him best new artist, a moment shared on live TV with his entire team and family. Well, almost: His mother was in the restroom when actors Deon Cole and Dominique Thorne called his name.

“I always tell people I’m my mom’s startup,” Thomas says with a toothy smile beaming with pride. “We started this journey when I was 10 and I’m 31 now. She understands how hard I’ve worked and how alone I felt sometimes. I’m thankful for whatever they want to call me. I want to make sure that people really understand that I’m a student of the game and I have what it takes to be remembered. I never really played sports, so these awards are the tangible assets I have to show for my hard work.”

Austin Hargrave

Two weeks later, Thomas found himself at a very different awards ceremony (and a homecoming of sorts) as he presented an orange blimp at the Kids’ Choice Awards alongside “Ordinary” singer Alex Warren. He may be over a decade removed from his Nickelodeon days — and recently snagged more adult roles in Issa Rae’s Emmy-winning HBO series Insecure and Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit — but Thomas still plans to collaborate with the network “in the next couple of years,” underscoring his desire to return to acting. “I want to bring back that rom-com, Love Jones, Love & Basketball feeling to the game,” he muses.

But before returning to the small and silver screens — he’s rumored to appear in the upcoming Owen Wilson-led comedy Rolling Loud — Thomas will have to wrap the Mutt cycle, which will likely last through the 2026 Grammys in February. Thanks to “Mutt” and its parent album, he’s poised to dominate the R&B categories — and potentially break into the general field.

“I hope he’s the guy with the Lauryn Hill photo [holding multiple trophies],” Azu says. “Every year, there’s somebody and I hope it’s him. He is a man of his peers, and I think over the past year he has proven to them that he’s here to stay.”

As he keeps relentlessly working Mutt, Thomas has also flooded the marketplace with collaborations, maximizing his reach as his star grows. This year alone, he has linked up with peers such as Coco Jones, YG, Giveon, Sasha Keable, Odeal, Venna and Annie Tracy, cementing his status as a contemporary R&B touchstone. A deluxe edition of Mutt called Heel arrived on May 30 with collaborations from Halle, Big Sean and Kehlani. The expanded version of the album also launched his nascent radio hit, “Not Fair,” which he co-wrote with James Fauntleroy; it has already reached No. 11 on Hot R&B Songs while garnering over 13 million official on-demand U.S. streams.

“Leon’s disrupting this easy, poppy R&B that we had going on,” says fellow R&B star and longtime friend Kehlani. “Something like ‘Mutt’ being so successful shows that you don’t have to compromise. You really can stay true to the genre. It’s made me proud to look at my friend, who I’ve seen play the back seat in so many sessions, be the star.”

Austin Hargrave

But as the Mutt campaign has unexpectedly stretched out, Thomas does admit that “in a perfect world, I would be in a different album cycle.” In October, he will release a seven-track EP — a notably funkier, and at times more psychedelic, collection of tracks that carries the torch that Parliament-Funkadelic pioneer George Clinton passed to him at Coachella in April. In a hot-boxed trailer before his own Coachella performance, Clinton gifted him an all-white hat decked out with rhinestones, a dog face and a fox tail. “You the kid with the dog song, right? I like that joint. I made you this hat,” Clinton told Thomas. “Before I come out and perform ‘Atomic Dog,’ I’m going to give you the crown.”

The new EP also comes as Thomas doubles down on recording and rides “the tail end of packing up” writing and producing for other people. Who’s still on the list of artists he has “gotta cook up for”? “Me and [Justin] Bieber have been talking a lot,” Thomas reveals. “He’s a cool guy; I like him a lot. He just seems so free now and that is a beautiful thing.”

There’s also “an iconic female artist” — one who may have recently wrapped a globe-trotting rodeo — whom Barron notes Thomas has been cutting some songs for. “I never know what the f–k is going on,” Thomas says, both earnestly and evasively. “You work for a long time and these projects are so secretive, you just never know what’s happening. I obviously want to work with a certain lady from Houston, though. That would be amazing.”

With his biggest headlining tour yet on the horizon — he’s graduating to 2,500-capacity venues with nearly 50 dates across North America, Europe and Australia — Thomas is exiting 2025 very differently from how he entered it. Though legendary soul singer Sam Cooke was his inspiration for starting his own publishing company, his career blueprint may be more in line with that of rock stars. “I’m thinking Jack White and The White Stripes,” Azu says. “When I walk into his dressing room, he’s playing Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne. Leon is a trend innovator.”

As I watch Thomas whirl across the Hollywood Bowl stage just days after channeling Jimi Hendrix at his Billboard cover photo shoot, Azu’s assessment reads accurately. When he picks up each instrument and intertwines its energy with his, the innate rebelliousness of the most iconic rockers flows out of him. Here’s an artist who, across a two-decade period, has become intimately acquainted with the entertainment industry’s countless mutations, finally abiding by his own rules. In his quest to challenge R&B’s status quo of “safe lyrics, early-2000s melodies, simple chord progressions, hypnotic loops and no bridges,” Thomas has crafted a collection of soulful, rock’n’roll-steeped songs that have simultaneously invigorated multiple generations of R&B lovers and put the top 40 zeitgeist on notice.

“I don’t really mind being in this position where we push Mutt for so long because it deserves to be heard by the world,” he says, swirling around the last drops of his latte. “I’m excited to be one of the trailblazers who brings back those old feelings without having to steal their chords or melodies.”

This story appears in the Aug. 30, 2025, issue of Billboard.