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Forget viral hits or sold-out shows: you know you’ve reached the big time when the godfather of funk gives you custom-made headgear. Last spring, Leon Thomas was backstage at California’s Coachella festival and due to join Ty Dolla $ign, his label boss, for a performance alongside George Clinton. The cosmic crusader said to Thomas: “‘You’re the kid who does the dog song, right? I made something for you,’” Thomas recalls. “He gave me this cool white hat with a foxtail on it.”
Thomas wore it to play Mutt, his 2024 breakthrough single, followed by a rendition of Clinton’s 1982 P-funk anthem Atomic Dog. But not before Clinton hot-boxed the trailer. “I don’t really smoke weed any more, but I was in the dressing room with him and Ty,” says Thomas, 32. “They both were smoking so much – when I was on stage, I realised, ‘Ohhh, I’m a little buzzed right now!’” A spiritual baton had been passed. “We went up there and rocked the crowd,” Thomas continues. “It was like 12, 13,000 [people] out there, the energy was crazy. I don’t know if you can tell, I’m still buzzing.”
Surreal moments like these are par for the course when you’re the next big thing in R&B. Since the release of an album also called Mutt two years ago, Thomas has gone from working behind the scenes with some of music’s biggest names – Ariana Grande, Drake, Post Malone – to striking out as an award-winning solo artist and in-demand collaborator with a Prince-like appreciation for the sacred and the profane. He’s also bridging generations. At the personal request of Stevie Wonder, Thomas performed in a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tribute to the late Sly Stone, and he has written with legends such as Mariah Carey: “She’s a real nice lady.”
In a hotel suite in Copenhagen at the outset of his European tour, it’s impossible to miss the most obvious mark of the Brooklyn-born artist’s achievements: a diamond-studded Cartier watch glinting from his wrist. “I bought this right after the big Grammy wins,” says Thomas. “I don’t really do a lot of things for myself. No fancy cars. House is still very humble.” His awards cabinet, however, is running out of space. Last month, he took home Grammys for best R&B album and best traditional R&B performance (out of six nominations). They join the first Grammy he won in 2024 for co-writing SZA’s chart smash Snooze.
What’s his secret? “The secret is that there isn’t a formula,” says Thomas, always thoughtful and perfectly polite. “Cultural moments usually happen by accident.” He has had a lot of sessions with artists asking for another Snooze, but says “there’s no way to align the stars like that again in that exact way”.
Thomas’s songs have hooks that linger for days. Mutt was a Top 10 US single and became the kind of viral earworm that people use to soundtrack their new kitchen reveal videos on TikTok. Thomas learned the power of “taglines, good post-choruses” and publishing from Babyface, his mentor and creator of the OG soundtrack to romantic nights in, with whom he (and others) co-wrote Snooze. “He was big on the importance of a concept,” says Thomas. He was also inspired by Bernie Taupin to work with co-writers on his solo material after watching the Elton John biopic. “I’m just playing Tetris with potent lyrics until I find something,” he adds.
Memorable phrasing is one thing; how you deliver it is another. Thomas is aiming to reinstate the “live musicianship” of his guitar heroes, Prince and Jimi Hendrix. “I want to give that R&B rock star energy,” he says. D’Angelo, who died last year, was a particular influence for how he blended rock and funk, says Thomas. “He’s a trailblazer. It’s an important thing to keep alive.”
With his latest EP, Pholks, Thomas could have aimed for big-name features, but instead dialled up the psychedelic rock. The vocal phrasing of Baccarat recalls Destiny’s Child, with a delirious lead guitar line. “I want younger kids to hear a guitar solo on an R&B record for the first time,” says Thomas. “Because in the age of AI, in the next two to three years, there’s going to be so much that can be easily replicated about modern R&B, from the trap programmed drums to the melodic choices. If there aren’t artists who challenge the status quo of what R&B is, it’ll be replicated by people who can’t play or sing a note.”
Thomas’s love of big riffs came from his mother and stepfather, gigging musicians who played at New York punk club CBGBs. She also set up the club Lola’s, and he played guitar with BB King. His late grandfather was an opera singer and jazz musician who appeared on Broadway. At home in Brooklyn, “hearing Led Zeppelin, the Stones, a lot of classic rock, Living Colour was as normal to me as Marvin Gaye or Alicia Keys,” says Thomas. His parents were part of the Black Rock Coalition, which formed in the mid-80s to challenge the industry-wide belief that there was no audience for Black rock music. Thomas says he didn’t have the same struggles as their generation; he moves more freely between genres. “Their power came from demanding inclusion, right? But my power came from always feeling included. I’m not gonna let anybody tell me I can’t play a distorted guitar on stage because I sing R&B.” (Or UK garage. Among his many recent features is a collaboration with Disclosure on the two-step track Deeper. “The guy works at the speed of light,” the duo’s Guy Lawrence said).
Initially, Thomas was best known as a child actor. Following in his grandad’s footsteps, from the age of 10, he joined several major Broadway shows (The Lion King, The Color Purple) and graduated to film. He learned to play guitar for a role in 2007’s August Rush opposite Robin Williams, priming him for a leading role in Nickelodeon’s huge kids’ series Victorious, starring opposite Ariana Grande. He wrote and performed songs for the show, and signed with Columbia Records.
When Victorious ended in 2013, Thomas found it challenging to shake off his teen-y image and discover his sound. “Being a Black male in an all-white world, which was Nickelodeon at that time, was tough,” he says. The network had “a very pop perspective” and it was “hard to transition from that huge platform right into things that felt left of centre”. He was able to refine his skills under the tutelage of Babyface after his label set them up (“that was my college”) and started production duo the Rascals with Khris Riddick-Tynes, working with everyone from Toni Braxton to Grande.
Thomas still dreamed of being a solo artist. Having gone back to acting in his 20s to earn money – “a tough time in my career,” he reflects – he took his shot after playing a love interest in Issa Rae’s TV smash Insecure in 2017. The following year he released his debut EP, Genesis, but it would take another five until his first full-length, 2023’s Electric Dusk. “My journey took a lot of hard work and patience,” says Thomas. “I hope that I can be an example of what it looks like to not give up.”
The rap mogul Ty Dolla $ign had been taking notes. Thomas was the first signing to his new imprint, EZMNY, an offshoot of Motown. He was impressed not only by Thomas’s musical output but by his PowerPoint presentation outlining his album rollout, from stage design to videos. He declared Thomas “the new king of R&B” and flew him to Florence to work on his Vultures project with Kanye West. “I don’t always agree with everything that every artist I work with says politically or does as a human being, but I respect the music,” Thomas says of working with West.
R&B has traditionally specialised in heart-on-sleeve devotion, or the anguish of the end of the road. It has a sincerity that some argue has gotten lost. Male R&B stars Brent Faiyaz, Dvsn and Drake have been called “toxic kings” because of songs that are upfront about their flaws. Thomas, who contributed to three tracks to Drake’s 2021’s Certified Lover Boy, and sees his peers as Frank Ocean and Miguel, has found a way to bridge the two with his self-coined “doggie” persona: the softie trying to be a player after a breakup. “Mutt was a great example of me explaining how a broken heart can turn somebody into a bad Casanova – a Casanova that’s not good at it,” he says.
His music also has enough braggadocio to give him an edge. On Mutt’s opening track, he declares, “Oh Lord, I’m a visionary!”
“I was hanging around a lot of rappers, started talking a little crazy,” says Thomas. “We would have parties and Ty would always want me to play my music. At a certain point, I was like: I need some stuff that I can play. But I think you need both bravado and vulnerability. I think those polar opposites living on the same project are really powerful.”
Despite evidently striking a successful balance, “R&B can be tough sometimes. It’s revered. A lot of pop and rock artists are able to throw things around,” he says, but “the public, especially the community that supports R&B – they’re extremely critical. You have to live up to what the greats have done before you.”
He attempts to channel those greats into his live show. Tonight, Copenhagen’s Vega venue is sold out and Thomas, in leather trousers and beret, is soloing on his knees, blasting out metallic funk and jamming with his band. The first half is all megawatt Prince-coded classic rock, with Thomas flanked by a drummer and bassist, who he swaps instruments with at various points. Then it’s into the ballads in the second half, with Thomas joined by Baby Rose to croon some classy nostalgic soul. It’s a brave artist who can get a chic Danish crowd, most of them barely into their 20s, to bark, doggie-style, but when Thomas encourages it, they roar “hoo-hoo”! At the end, he bows out with the simple admission: “My name’s Leon Thomas. It’s my time, peace.”
Whenever the pressure is mounting, Thomas remembers the encouragement he got from Stevie Wonder. The soul superstar, who has a knack for impressions, called him one day to do Mutt down the phone. “He started singing, ‘She said take your tiiiime / What’s the rush?’ in a Russian accent,” says Thomas. It was another surreal moment, “listening to my hero having fun with my song”.
In November 2025, Thomas flew to Los Angeles to perform in Wonder’s Sly Stone tribute alongside renowned artists Questlove, Flea, Beck, Jennifer Hudson and Maxwell. Wonder “pulled me to the side and was talking to me about the importance of R&B, and what I’m doing,” says Thomas. “He was saying his younger son needs something to listen to – ‘Man, keep going.’”
Having played in the Stone tribute and being such a D’Angelo disciple, Thomas is conscious of being the bearer of the brilliant but sometimes lonely burden of Black genius, as Questlove put it in the title of his Stone documentary. “Man, it’s a hard road,” he says. “I feel like I’m ready for it though.” He’s helped, he says, by his “spiritual connection, praying, meditating and having no bad bones in my body”.
“I have good will and intention for everybody I meet,” he continues. “I know that it’s not an easy path to walk on, and I may not always be understood, but over time good art will prevail. Sometimes being understood is a little overrated. Take chances. Have fun.”
