Chartbreaker: How Leon Thomas Fetched a Mainstream Hit With ‘Mutt’

“It was an uncomfortable song to play my mom,” Leon Thomas admits of “Mutt,” a flirtatious track that mentions the urge to “pop a shroom to re-create the feeling.” “Mutt” marked the Grammy-winning songwriter’s first Billboard Hot 100 entry as a recording artist, following years of behind-the-scenes work that includes hits for Ariana Grande, SZA and more. And his mother loved it, too. “She told me this is going to be one of my biggest records. She spoke into existence.”

For Thomas, 31 — the Brooklyn-bred son of Black Rock Coalition parents, and the grandson of the late opera singer John Anthony — music and family have always been intertwined. His parents, who frequented CBGB, laid the musical foundation for the rock-infused soul he explores on Mutt, his sophomore album released last September.

Since then, he supported Blxst on tour and embarked on his own headlining trek — but February in particular solidified Thomas’ turn from songwriting savant to front-facing R&B star. “Mutt” entered the Hot 100 on the Feb. 8 chart (and reaches a new No. 67 peak on the March 8-dated list); he made his live-TV debut with the song on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert the same week; and then performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk later that month, where he dedicated 2022 single “Breaking Point” to his recently deceased grandfather (Thomas attended his funeral directly after the taping). “He was the anchor to my journey,” says Thomas. “I can tell he was with me musically.”

While his past month looks like a whirlwind of success, Thomas’ breakthrough has been nearly two decades in the making. At 13, with Broadway runs in The Lion King, The Color Purple and Caroline, Or Change under his belt, Thomas signed his first deal with Columbia Records. “I was walking into the boardroom playing Stevie Wonder covers and in-depth love songs,” he reflects with a laugh. “They were like, ‘What we gon’ do with this? Did you even hit puberty?’” Around that time, he made his theatrical debut in the 2007 film August Rush, which led to a Nickelodeon development deal that landed him roles on shows from The Backyardigans to Victorious.

As the deal was nearing its end and Victorious approached its 2013 series finale, Thomas explored his options, and received advice from Republic Records’ Wendy Goldstein, who was the label’s senior vp of A&R at the time. “Journeying through your twenties is you becoming everything that you need from everybody else,” she told him. “Those words stuck with me on some Spider-Man s–t,” he says today.

He spent the better part of the next decade learning the independent scene, studying under Babyface and Boi-1da (and by extension, Drake’s camp), and was briefly signed to Alex da Kid’s KIDinaKORNER. He met manager Jonathan Azu in 2019 and became the first act on his Culture Collective roster. Two years later, he landed a record deal with Ty Dolla $ign and Motown Records’ joint venture, EZMNY, after running into A&R Shawn Barron on a grocery run.

“I was kind of scared because signing under an artist can be either heaven or hell,” says Thomas. “Luckily, I’m stomping around in heaven right now.”

During his time at Motown, Thomas has experienced several different leadership regimes following restructurings by parent company Universal Music Group. Now under Capitol Music Group chairman/CEO Tom March — who Thomas says “gets my vision and is down to support real music” — he was able to execute his ideal album rollout for Mutt.

The campaign kicked off last August — a year after his debut full-length, Electric Dusk — with the release of the album’s title track. A funky R&B midtempo tune that nods to Enchantment’s “Silly Love Song” by way of a Bootsy Collins-esque bassline, “Mutt” was the product of Thomas’ desire to “have a record that shows what I’m about: live music, funk and vulnerability.” Written in 2022, Thomas crafted “Mutt” on his living room floor while microdosing psychedelics and watching his dog and cat fight. “I saw the similarities between us and how we have good intentions but don’t always do the right thing,” he told Billboard last year.

The single’s steady chart climb is largely due to Thomas and Azu’s “all ships rise” business approach. Instead of exhausting resources on one song, they banked on word-of-mouth from his live performances to help people discover “Mutt” along with the rest of the album.

“We [noticed] the crowd’s reaction when ‘Mutt’ would play: the phones were always up, but they would really come out for ‘Mutt,’” says Azu. The song continued naturally gaining traction in R&B circles with those familiar with Thomas’ songwriting and production work. “Everybody knows how dangerous he is in the studio with other people’s work,” Azu adds.

Thomas launched a 13-date headlining tour in October at intimate venues across the U.S., and the trek doubled as a way to promote himself at radio. “A lot of program directors are just outside the Victorious demographic, but the people in the studios and offices are within that demographic, and so are [their] children,” says Azu. “Doing [that] work is so important for the foundation to go for adds.”

As “Mutt” climbs at three different Billboard airplay rankings (R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and Adult R&B Airplay, where it hits a No. 7 best on the March 8 chart), Thomas is playing the long game. “I loved seeing how Lizzo kept promoting her hits and didn’t stop believing in them,” he says. A deluxe edition of Mutt is also in the works, and Thomas mentions potential collaborations with Kehlani, Big Sean and Halle Bailey in the hopper, in addition to a previously teased team-up with Stormzy. Plus, there’s a song on which Thomas plays every instrument.

“There [are] sides to me that I haven’t shown the world yet, so I’m spoon-feeding them,” Thomas says. “You need to hide the medicine in the candy. This deluxe is me stepping deeper into my purpose.”

A version of this story appears in the March 8, 2025, issue of Billboard.

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