Spotlight on Leon Thomas: Musicality, Growth, and Creating Stories through Song
Written by: Ephney Tsai
There’s a quiet kind of confidence in Leon Thomas, the kind of self-assuredness that remains humble and comes from countless years of experience. On a chilly Monday evening, the multi-hyphenated star visited The GRAMMY Museum’s Ray Charles Terrace for a candid conversation about his sound, his spirit, and his intentionality when it comes to his music and each move. The conversation was fulfilling, diving into his musical process, inspirations, and more, reaffirming one simple fact: he’s never been one to chase trends, instead always sticking to what’s meaningful for him as a growing artist.
“When I was making Mutt, we had a bunch of records that didn’t make it to the album,” he began. “It was the beginning of a new sound, and I knew that sound deserved a world around it.” Ultimately, that world became his new release, Electric Dusk. This release wasn’t just a simple collection of songs that didn’t make the previous album; it was a statement. For Leon, albums and EPs are meant to be cohesive experiences, or emotional timelines that "should say one particular thing." For Electric Dusk, that one thing was authenticity, as he paid homage to the genres and artists that shaped him, from Jimi Hendrix to D'Angelo, from funk to rock, all combined in a way that was intrinsically Leon Thomas.
Even with as fluid as he is in genre versatility, there’s still an ultimate throughline in his work. “My pen, my lyric, and my instrument—my voice—that’s the food line,” he says, describing how he threads soul and funk energy through even rock-leaning tracks, keeping his music a proper reflection of himself.
After exploring the ways he stays true to who he is as an artist, the discussion shifted towards his origins, and how he became the artist he is today. Leon’s musical journey was anything but typical. At just 10 years old, he was starring on Broadway. While many kids were navigating middle school, Thomas was navigating curtain calls, rehearsals, and balancing eight shows in a seven day week on top of turning in schoolwork remotely. That early stage experience instilled, not only discipline, but also a sense of storytelling that permeates through his music today. “Broadway taught me that preparation is a really good part of art,” he admitted. “Eight shows a week was a lot of work, especially after months of rehearsals even before performances began.”
Off-stage, Leon was also fortunate to gain more experience and education from his family at home. “We had rappers, singers, and rock stars in my living room, and I was able to see what distribution looked like,” he says of growing up in a household where his stepfather ran an indie label. It wasn’t only his stepfather in the music industry, either, as his grandfather was an opera singer and one of his biggest influences. While not directly working in music, his mom was also an avid supporter of his. Having these influences of classical music, jazz, rock, rap, and more, all within the comfort of his home, was the perfect storm to create the versatile artist he is today.
Prior to his solo career taking off and even still in the present day, Leon spent and spends a lot of time writing music for other artists. He began songwriting when he auditioned for August Rush. “For the audition, my mom got me an acoustic guitar, and I learned three chords and put together a little song. The whole cast warmly embraced me as a songwriter, and they were my first audience.” Then, while portraying Andre Harris on Nickelodeon’s hit TV show VicTORious, he was also able to showcase a lot of his self-written tracks. “It was really cool to hear songs I wrote do really well on that show. Especially with tracks like Song 2 You, I remember traveling to Germany and other places, and hearing the song outside… after that, I knew for a fact that I wanted to [write music].” In 2024, Leon won his first ever GRAMMY Award as one of the writers of SZA’s chart-topping single, Snooze. “We actually made that song in a very tiny room, like a closet,” he shared. “We originally brought in a different song, and you can always see in an artist’s eyes if they don’t like it. I saw that look and immediately turned around to work on something different, and thank God we did!”
Though it’s clear Leon Thomas is a multi-hyphenated talent, there’s one thing he admits he cannot do: freestyle. Much of his recent work was co-written with rapper and close friend Busy Crook, and their writing process is playful, competitive, and deeply intuitive, but also incredibly efficient and full of preparation, “We’ll send verses back and forth on a text thread,” he began. “We’re always trying to strive for a concept we haven’t gotten to before, so we have this text thread where we just send completed verses to each other.”
Inarguably, his most successful release of his own was his song Mutt, born from a quiet moment of reflection in his living room during the pandemic. “I bought a painting for inspiration, but one day, I was sitting on the ground with my cat and dog and looking at it, and I was just like, man, that’s kinda ugly,” he started with a laugh. “My dog was fighting my cat, and I’m looking at this new painting and I was like, my dog’s face reminded me of my face. Elvis had hound dog, and I’m like yeah, I can be black Elvis, so I was like Mutt! I felt like people would understand it”
Unfortunately, by the time the album came out, it had already missed the GRAMMY Award eligibility window, however, that didn’t stop Leon. He re-released the tracks with additional ones in a deluxe version album, which became more than just an extension of the project, too. “My grandfather had just passed,” he shared candidly. “He was such a strong source of my creativity, that writing that deluxe album song HEEL was more than just a continuation of that dog theme. It’s spelled with two E’s, but to me, it was a healing process.” For Leon, that album became a canvas for him to paint with his music. “I was getting really creative. The album is blue, red, green… every color.”
It hasn’t been an easy journey, but Leon’s path has been one filled with moments of learning and self-discovery. “Meditation has been huge, and so has affirming my path. Words of affirmation are one of the ways I train my subconscious to believe there’s always a creative idea flowing.” Sharing his thoughts on writing for others, he admits he never hesitates to give a hit song to another artist, believing in his own abilities to write another hit for himself after. It’s that mindset of abundance that also allows him to flow through genres, through disciplines, and even through stages. One of his proudest full-circle moments was recent, despite his decades-long career. Just eight months ago, Leon was invited to perform on The Tonight Show with Stephen Colbert. “My grandfather used to say, ‘You need to get on The Tonight Show because the guys on the show right now can’t sing.’”
In an era where music is often consumed in 15-second bites, Leon Thomas is constructing entire worlds that were inspired and crafted by his childhood lessons, spiritual practices, and authenticity. From a Broadway stage to a bedroom studio, from Nickelodeon scripts to GRAMMY Award-worthy penmanship, he’s already lived a hundred lives in music. And yet, he’s only just getting started.
“Today, I know not to rush. I used to rush too much,” he says in closing. “Now I’m putting the pieces together practically, from funding to the creativity and messaging, and making sure it gets to the people the right way. It sounds corny, but [my biggest lesson] really is to take your time, what’s the rush?”
