With ‘Mutt,' Leon Thomas Becomes A Top Dog In R&B

At the end of the summer, Leon Thomas realized he had a minor dilemma on his hands. After months of writing, recording and fine-tuning his lofty sophomore album, “Mutt,” the 31-year-old singer-producer was finally ready to unveil what he’d cooked up in the studio.

But he had only a month to promote it.

“I didn’t have a lot of time,” Thomas told HuffPost.

With the clock ticking, Thomas came up with a simple yet effective solution to spread the word about “Mutt”: He released the album’s titular track as its lead single, so anyone who heard it would know where to find more.

It was a “smart marketing play,” he said. “It just happened to be a song that people really resonated with, as well.”

People also resonated with the rest of “Mutt,” after the album arrived in late September. Upon release, the loosely curated LP — which featured collaborations with Wale, Ty Dolla $ign, Freddie Gibbs, Masego and more — shot to the top of Apple Music’s R&B albums chart and became an almost immediate hit with fans. Within weeks, fans dubbed it one of, if not the, best R&B projects of the year.

That success is something Thomas wasn’t expecting. But it feels par for the course, considering the upward trajectory he’s been on the past couple of years.

After his 2010s acting stint on Nickelodeon’s teen smash “Victorious,” Thomas began making a name for himself in the music industry as a promising young hip-hop and R&B producer. He earned co-signs from legends and collaborators like Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds and Ty Dolla $ign (whose Motown imprint, EZMNY Records, Thomas is signed to); produced for the likes of Drake, Kanye West, Ariana Grande and SZA (whose hit, “Snooze” earned him a Grammy earlier this year); and released his long-awaited 2023 debut album, “Electric Dusk.” 

“Mutt,” however, is the opus that’s brought on a new wave of success for the solo artist, and it’s slowly but surely turning him into a bona fide star.

Releasing his second studio album during such a hectic year in music was no easy feat for Thomas. “Mutt,” a contemporary project filled with rock, jazz and neo-soul influences, was risky enough for a singer still finding his place in R&B. And dropping a record the same year that music’s biggest stars unleashed some of their most defining work to date — Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter,” Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” —presented an even bigger challenge. 

“I was nervous when we dropped [‘Mutt’] because, first off, a lot of the music wasn’t necessarily TikTok-coded,” Thomas said. “Some of the [songs] were pretty long and it was kind of fighting against the microwave generation culture of music that we’re in. But I knew for a fact that there were gonna be millions of people with my same taste buds, and I was hoping that the marketing would help find them.”

And it did. Just as Thomas hoped, his new music broke through the mainstream industry noise, and “it feels amazing.”

“Mutt,” much like Thomas’ previous offerings, is a testament to his life’s journey and how he’s constantly growing and evolving. His only goal with the album was to continue to share his story in hopes that it connects with listeners. To him, everything achieved afterward is simply a bonus.

“I’m just happy to be here, to be honest with you,” he said. For once, “it’s nice to be invited to the party.” 

Thomas phoned in for our early December Zoom call during a quick trip to Miami’s annual Art Basel event, where he had just performed. He was one week removed from the conclusion of his sold-out “Mutt” tour and still reveling in the experience.

“It’s kind of like a new world for me because the first tour I ever went on, I was about 19 years old, and I was an opener,” the singer-songwriter recalled. “This was my first headlining tour that was this long, and there were so many creative aspects that had to come from my brain to put this show together. So it was a real experience of world-building, and I’m just glad we could give my fans a great experience. People have really shown a lot of love to what we created.”

Among those saluting Thomas’ work are some of his album partners, Wale, Gibbs and Ty Dolla $ign, who popped out to perform their collabs with the singer at his final November show in Los Angeles. 

“I didn’t have to ask them to come up and perform. They wanted to support me, and that’s a big thing,” Thomas said. “This industry can be filled with a lot of fake love, and I’m just really blessed to have friends who are unbelievably talented, who care about my journey and who want to support and show the world that I have something to give this industry.”

That’s a mission Thomas has taken to heart since he embarked on his musical career. The Brooklyn native was by raised a vocalist mom, an opera-singing grandfather and a stepfather who played guitar for blues legend B.B. King.

At a very early age, Thomas, a former Broadway performer, was surrounded by the music of old-school R&B, soul, rock and funk artists — from Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder to Prince and D’Angelo — all of whom would inspire his solo pursuits. But breaking into R&B, after his pop-centric days on “Victorious,” posed more obstacles than Thomas anticipated.

“It was horrible,” Thomas remembered. “When I first started producing, I was going under my name, and people were Googling me and being like, ‘Nah.’ So I changed [it].”

That’s when he became half of a now-Grammy-nominated production duo with songwriter Khris Riddick-Tynes.

“We called it The Rascals so I could hide behind the music we were making,” Thomas continued. “Even when I dropped [my first project,] ‘Genesis,’ I knew some people would’ve seen me from Nickelodeon, so I didn’t even put my face on the cover so that they could just actually listen to the music.”

It took a while for Thomas to get comfortable being a solo music act, but another acting role helped the former child star embrace this new chapter. He had a brief recurring part on Issa Rae’s “Insecure,” playing one of her romantic flings, Eddie, aka “Neighbor Bae.”

“It was my first time that I had a sex scene with Issa Rae, and I was going viral, and the girls were showing love. It felt like, alright, we have finally graduated from that one thing — from the Nickelodeon phase — and I started feeling more comfortable being a little bit more outside,” Thomas said. 

Still, it’d be a few more years before the singer’s internal confidence matched his career’s progress. “I’m still doing that work now,” Thomas added, but he’s beginning to see his investment pay off with the success of “Mutt.”

The story behind “Mutt” is a peculiar yet oddly relatable one. It begins with Thomas’ dog, a German Shepherd and Husky mix named Terry. The dog was “a product of my last real long-term relationship,” the singer noted — also a prime source of inspiration for his most recent projects.

“My dog is a trip,” Thomas laughed. “He’s a good guy, but he’s definitely mischievous, and I was inspired by how he has great intentions but sometimes may do the wrong thing.”

That observation became the concept for “Mutt,” which, at its core, is a record about Thomas’ outlook on dating and how it’s shifted since his last breakup.

“It’s really just a metaphor for control in relationships,” he explained of the album’s theme and title. “I think there are a lot of women out there who date high-powered men, and they spend most of their time just trying to get their significant other to ‘sit down.’ I thought that was a cool way to explain some of what I was going through — ’cause trying to journey into my evolution into, hopefully, finding my long-term partner, I’m still figuring it out.”

“Mutt” is a survey of where Thomas is at in life right now, both musically and personally. It’s part of an accidental series chronicling different phases of his adult love life.

“If you look at my last three projects, it’s kind of like a trilogy,” Thomas said. “You go through ‘Genesis,’ which is a young man finding himself and just a super gentleman. Then you go through ‘Electric Dusk’; I’m a little broody, I’m going through it, and then I fall in love and go through a crazy breakup. ‘Mutt’ is the aftermath of that, thinking you found your person and then having to build from scratch again.”

Having “Lucid Dreams,” about an ex, wondering about the “Far-Fetched” notion of love and marriage, putting “Feelings on Silent” just to turn around and say “Answer Your Phone” — Thomas’ 14-track album is a candid portrait every ex or current lover can relate to.

“I definitely wanted [‘Mutt’] to be the soundtrack to not just the lows, but also the highs that we go through trying to find your person in this time period,” Thomas said.

He used his new LP to push his artistry even further, too, experimenting with a soundscape that blends his R&B roots with jazz and rock influences — acts like Miles Davis, Art Blakey, the Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.

“I’m constantly searching for new ingredients, new chemicals to put together to make something special,” the self-described “musical scientist” said.

Though many fans now regard Thomas as one of modern R&B’s latest ambassadors, the singer doesn’t want his musical strides to stop there. He has dreams of stretching the genre to new heights.

“I’m excited that people are still associating and vibing out with what I’m cooking up because it is experimental in certain respects,” Thomas said. “I’m a big fan of R&B from all generations, and I just hope that whatever I’m cooking up next can still be revered as an evolution of what was done before.”

Thomas is always in the lab cooking. Now that the hitmaker’s latest album — which he plans to submit for Grammys consideration next year — has had a chance to sit with fans for a bit, he’s gearing up for his next phase, which includes dropping a reloaded version of “Mutt.”

“I really want to drop a deluxe that helps breathe new life into some of these other songs,” Thomas said, adding that some will be remixes with yet-to-be-named collaborators. “I’m definitely looking to do that pretty soon.”

The multihyphenate is also working on his next body of work, where he’ll be “going back to writing how I started in the beginning: on the acoustic guitar and piano.” He’s remaining tight-lipped on other details, but said the project will feature “good songs that can live with the accompaniment of one instrument, then we’ll build the worlds around [them].” 

In the meantime, Thomas hopes to strengthen his burgeoning fanbase with another tour, this time overseas. “I want to break ground in Europe, the Asian countries, all throughout South America,” he said. “I gotta hit the road and promote as much as possible to get to where I’m trying to go. I just really want to touch the ground and do whatever I have to do to help support that. But I know [the fans] are out there.”

Since entering his 30s, Thomas has done some soul-searching about his future and where he’s headed next. On the music side, he’s building out his tour plans and drawing up plays for his next releases; that’s where he’s “super focused” right now. But he said he’s also trying to put “some more pots on the stove,” from merch and real estate to maybe even acting again.

“It’s all about the script,” Thomas said. “It’s all about time and preparation. Acting, to me, is an important part of my journey, and I work hard at what I do. I’m not going to give myself the title of a perfectionist, but I’m obsessive over the things I love, and my creativity is really important to me.”

If Thomas’ career thus far has taught him anything, it’s that playing the long game can yield rewards. That’s why trusting the process has become his guiding principle — it made “Mutt” a hit and will be key to propelling him to the next level.

“Patience is a virtue, and I always heard [that] statement,” the singer said. “But when I had to wait this long to get to where I am now, I see how God had a master plan.”