Music

Leon Thomas’ breakthrough hit “Mutt” hits a new peak of No. 15 on this week’s Billboard Hot 100 – over nine months since Grammy-winning multihyphenate first unleashed the hazy, bass-driven tune. As he approaches the second summer of the Mutt album cycle at a new career peak, Thomas has meticulously readied a 10-song deluxe edition of his acclaimed record.

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Out on May 30 via EZMNY/Motown Records and subtitled Heel, the deluxe edition of Mutt will include collaborations with several hip-hop and R&B heavyweights, including Marsha Ambrosius, Big Sean, Kehlani and Chris Brown – the latter of whom appeared on March’s “Mutt” remix. Last month (April 18), Halle Bailey lent Thomas an assist on “Rather Be Alone,” a psychedelic rock-tinged soul ballad that served as the first taste of Heel. Featuring reimagined versions of select Mutt deep cuts (“Yes It Is” and “Vibes Don’t Lie” both get updates), Heel also revives songs from studio sessions dating back to Electric Dusk, Thomas’ 2023 debut studio album (“Party Favors,” which now includes a Big Sean guest verse).

Inspired by the juxtaposition of his current career momentum and the space needed to truly experience life — as well as by Michael McDonald’s insights from 2024’s Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary — Heel finds Thomas stepping into his healing era, to better understand his emotional state in the original world of Mutt.

“I think music should reflect life,” he explains to Billboard. “Personally, I’m in a place of being really single right now. I was emotionally in that place while making [“Rather Be Alone”], I wasn’t really in a party mood, yet. Summer’s on the way, but I had a little bit of emotional spring cleaning to do first.”

The announcement of Mutt Deluxe: Heal comes the same week that Thomas earned his first two career BET Awards nominations, as he will vie in the best new artist and best male R&B/pop artist categories at the June 9 ceremony. With viral NPR Tiny Desk and Late Show performances and a headlining tour already under his belt, Leon Thomas’ Mutt era is only picking up steam as its one-year anniversary draws nearer.

In a revelatory conversation with Billboard, Leon Thomas breaks down several new Heel tracks, details funk icon George Clinton essentially knighting him during Coachella and explains why Halle clearly “graduated from the Beyoncé school of vocal production.”

When did you know that you wanted to turn Mutt into a deluxe album?

While I was on my headlining tour for Mutt, I started talking to my manager about everything that’s going on with the Grammys [eligibility cycle], not being able to be nominated [last year] because of the timeline. We were trying to figure out healthy ways to breathe life back into [the record]. We ended up discussing different features, and by the end of that conversation, we were like, “Well, it sounds like it’s deluxe season.”

I was really inspired by [SZA’s] Lana and how she gave us a whole new energy. I even saw a resurgence of “Snooze” right after that drop, on the production and songwriting side, which was really good. It all made sense.

I started digging back in at the top of the year. I went out to the same Atlanta studio that OutKast used to do a lot of records in and linked with [“Mutt” co-writers] Robert Gueringer and David Phelps. We set up hella instruments, wrote a bunch of songs, and none of them made it to the deluxe. But it was a good bonding experience. We were all really excited about the success of “Mutt” and where things were headed.

Did any songs from the original Mutt sessions make it to the deluxe?

Yeah, there was actually a song I wrote the same day I wrote the first track for Electric Dusk, actually. It was a song I always loved called “Party Favors.” I played it for my boy, Big Sean, and he loved it, so I had him hop on that. There were a couple of old gems like that.

Big Sean is on two deluxe tracks. What is it about your relationship with him that makes y’all such fruitful collaborators?

I always do that with artists, if I’m trying to collaborate with them — because sometimes, artists send me just one joint, and I may or may not be into it, even if I’m down to work with the artist. I try to give every artist an opportunity to shoot different things. You never know what they’ll end up getting attached to.

[Sean] ended up writing [verses] to both [“Party Favors” and “Vibes Don’t Lie”], and then he was like, “Well, if you don’t put [“Party Favors”] on the deluxe, I’m gonna drop it tomorrow.” I was like, “Well, no, sir!” [Laughs.] That’s how it is dealing with rappers, man. They’re just like, “Let’s drop tomorrow!” And I’m like, “Let me get a marketing budget first, my boy!”

Marsha Ambrosius is also on the deluxe — which is fitting, since you’ve interpolated Floetry’s “Say Yes” into a few live performances of “Yes It Is.” How did that one come together?

She doesn’t remember, but we wrote a whole song together like seven years ago — but I wasn’t tripping on that when I met her officially at the BET Awards. She was showing so much love to Electric Dusk, and her husband gave me her information, and we stayed in touch. A good friend of mine named Ali [Prawl] — who played keys on “Yes It Is” and produced it with me – used to play in her band, and is a Philly legend, so he reached out to her. Next thing I knew, I had a Dropbox full of vocals from Marsha Ambrosius.

It was really fun to mess around within the mix and try to protect the integrity of “Say Yes.” A lot of it was me playing off the success of the Tiny Desk and how much people loved that mashup. I wanted to give people something on wax that was a bit more polished.

How do you go about maintaining the integrity of the original record while giving audiences something new and fresh?

I think it’s a matter of not adding any extra overproduction to anything, and really staying true to my creative process. I’m known to overthink — in class, I would get a 92% on a test and could have had a 100%, but you could see me erase the right answer because I was overthinking. In music, I put myself in a position to literally just go with my first mind. “Safe Place” was a first take, “I Used To” was a first take with few edits, “Mutt” was a first take, and I just punched in certain things.

I wasn’t overthinking on this record. Even with the way we added features…  I didn’t want to have them do a bunch of takes or versions. Just give me your first mind.

What was the “Rather Be Alone” studio session like?

D. Phelps was in the studio with us, and I actually stole him from Halle’s session – I’m real selfish with my guy! [Laughs.] We had no plans of doing a record that day. So, Halle pulls up to the studio, telling everybody to put the blunts out, and we started listening to records. We weren’t frustrated around that time, but we were definitely at a creative wall. I was like, “Okay, we got a label that wants us to do features, but I’m kinda anti-social, so who do I lock in with without it being awkward?”

Then, I had a little light bulb moment, and asked Halle to hop on the song. She really liked the song, but I had to kinda pressure her to get in the booth. She got in there, felt comfortable, wrote her verse very quickly, and really did her thing. You can hear that she came from the Beyoncé school of vocal production in the way she attacks things and enunciates and emotes. That put me in a great headspace as a producer as well.

When it comes to bringing in new voices, like Halle and Kehlani, how do you ensure that the chemistry feels natural and not forced?

Me and Kehlani have been writing together for years. For Ariana [Grande’s] Yours Truly album, we had Kehlani do the demos for some of the songs Ariana ended up cutting. Because we were so tight, we would write all the time. She’s my real friend. Writing with her isn’t even a session, it’s just talking.

She told me she was really feeling [Mutt] and wanted to make something for her own record. I wasn’t even sure if “Dirt on My Shoes” would be for my deluxe; I was just writing from the standpoint of either of us singing it. It was a very open-ended session. My boy, Khris Riddick-Tynes, also added some things to make it fit the sonic space of the Mutt album. Me and Kehlani are always gonna be super tight and supportive of one another.

Did you pull from your whirlwind past six months while writing these deluxe tracks? Or did you have to put yourself back in the mental space of the original Mutt sessions?

It’s funny, life is moving really fast, but I haven’t been living a lot of life. It’s been very: wake up, get to work, go to sleep, repeat. I’m not really pulling from too much emotionally. If anything, the absence of real emotional growth has been something that I can pull from. Also, the longing for something real – not that I haven’t had it, but I’m trying to figure out how to take care of it in the midst of a very busy schedule. I’m looking forward to looking back at these records because it’s a time stamp of my mental space.

Would you say this deluxe is a general expansion of the world of Mutt, a specific extension of the story the original tracklist tells, or something else entirely?

I almost feel like Heel is a bit of a meditation. I’m looking back at a lot of things and seeing where I was in my life during the Mutt era. It was pretty chaotic. The title of the deluxe has multiple meanings. From the “heel” command of learning to follow to healing in real life – that’s why a lot of the records aren’t bop-y, straight Power 106 vibes. Right now, I’m in a space of healing and learning… how to be a good boy. [Laughs.]

“Mutt” is right outside the Hot 100’s top 10 (No. 15). Did you expect to be here in April 2025 when you dropped this song in August 2024?

I don’t want to sound cocky or anything, but like when I made the record, it was the first time I’ve ever been like, “I’m making a single today.” I didn’t let anyone talk me out of rolling with it as the first single. And there was a moment where everybody thought I should lead with “Far Fetched,” and I was like, “I love Ty, I love the song, but I really feel like we should lead with ‘Mutt.’” There was this feeling I had about it.

Did I think we would still be seeing it on the charts right now? N—a, to be real, no, I didn’t know that! We were pretty hyped when it got to 15 million streams; we were like “Oh s–t, we’re not failures.”

I was at Coachella, and when I finished performing, my homie told me that Tyla was singing my song word for word. I know what we have is definitely contagious and good for the culture. I’m glad that people are supporting that because it doesn’t always happen.

Tell me more about your Coachella experience this year.

It was awesome. My big bro, Ty Dolla $ign, brought me out there to perform on his stage. He’s a gracious artist who’s always chosen to support me and put me on a pedestal. Shoutout to Muni Long, who also gave me an opportunity to share her stage. She had no incentive to do that, outside of just really enjoying the music and being an awesome human.

On Sunday, I performed with George Clinton, and it was this whole moment… It’s 4/20, and I get a knock on my trailer and it’s Ty. He’s like, “George wants to talk with you.” We get into the trailer, and it’s literally a cloud of weed smoke, fam. Mind you, I don’t really smoke weed like that no more! So, I’m just in there, hotboxed to hell as George Clinton does this whole speech.

He’s like, “I’ve got a present for you, man. You the kid with the dog song, right? Yeah, I like that joint. I made you this hat.” And it’s an all-white hat with rhinestones, a dog face on it and a fox tail at the end of it. I’m like, “Wow, this is really elaborate and amazing.” He said, “Before I come out and perform ‘Atomic Dog,’ I’m going to give you the crown.” My parents were in a wedding band playing “Atomic Dog,” so I know it. I’m really tapped in!

That was an amazing moment for me, because I feel that funk can find its way back into popular culture right now. “Mutt” isn’t a super-Ohio-Players, funk-driven record, but it’s got those notes with the Bootsy Collins bass and real live drums. I really respect George Clinton, and I’m thankful that he even thought of me in this way.