Leon Thomas is More Than a ‘MUTT’

It’s become somewhat of a running joke in recent years how loose the definition of “new” is when it comes to the Grammy’s “Best New Artist” category, but even then, it’s still rare for an artist who’s already won a Grammy to snag a nomination. At the 2026 Grammy Awards on Sunday, Leon Thomas, who took home the distinction for Best R&B Song in 2024 for co-writing SZA’s “Snooze,” will find himself in this unlikely position. It’s one of six awards he’ll be up for on the evening, most notably Album of the Year for his breakthrough release, MUTT. He’ll also take the stage as a performer, capping off his transformation from behind-the-scenes collaborator to a star in his own right. But unlike a lot of songwriters who find themselves in this position, being the center of the spotlight won’t feel so foreign to him. He’s been around for a while, but lately he’s been ubiquitous.

Thomas was born in Brooklyn in a musical family and got his start in entertainment at just 10 years old, playing the role of Young Simba in The Lion King on Broadway. After continuing to find success on Broadway in productions of Caroline or Change and The Color Purple, he found his way into the Nickelodeon ecosystem, where he starred as Andre Harris in Victorious alongside another little known talented actor-musician named Ariana Grande. (It’s safe to say there’ll be a few Nickelodeon-heads who will be pretty shocked when they see him pop up onstage Sunday.) Working together on the show led to Thomas and Grande working together on music, with Thomas helping to write four songs on Grande’s debut album, Yours Truly. In the years following, Thomas went on to write and produce songs for Zendaya (another child-star alum), Post Malone, Kehlani, Drake, and Jack Harlow, contracting out his ear for sticky melodies and accessible lyricism all while quietly releasing mixtapes under his own name in obscurity. In 2017, he got another pop of public recognition when he was cast in a small but notable role as Eddie in Insecure, but any buzz he amassed for the music he released as a solo artist — including his promising 2018 EP, Genesis — remained modest at best.

Thomas continued at this pace for the next few years until he signed a record deal with Ty Dolla $ign’s imprint EZMNY and Motown in 2022, which led to the release of his debut 2023 album, Electric Dusk. That release, with its classic R&B ballads like “Breaking Point” and “Treasure in the Hill,” won him a passionate fan base and set the stage for his breakthrough with the release of the indelible earworm “MUTT” the next year. The song, a showcase for Thomas’s warm vocal tone and supple vocal runs, picked up traction online and was supercharged by the release of a remix featuring Chris Brown. The song and its remix have been streamed over 492 million times, and the original has become a hit on the radio, charing as high as six on the “Billboard Hot 100.”

In interviews, Thomas has spoken about how “MUTT,” released in August 2024, was inspired by a breakup he went through and the dog he was given by his ex-partner. One day, while microdosing psychedelics, he found himself staring at this dog and thinking about the nature of push and pull in relationships. “Even though my dog may sometimes make a mess in the house or bark loudly at the neighbors, I know he means well. This became a metaphor for not being a perfect partner but having good intentions,” he told RatedRnB. The song, despite its playful bounce, is deeply personal, and it plays better thanks to Thomas’s wrenching delivery of the word “vulnerable” as he sings, “Said I’ll put my guard down for you / Said I’ll be vulnerable, so you can break my heart if you want to.” As infectious as its hook is, it wouldn’t have been as effective had it been sung by just any other artist.

The same goes for the material Thomas included on the Grammy-nominated album of the same name. Across it, Thomas embraces maximalism, weaving together R&B, funk, and psychedelic rock to showcase his wide array of influences (everyone from D’Angelo to Jimi Hendrix) and talents as a multi-instrumentalist. It feels like an artist finally getting a chance to stretch his legs after years of being boxed in as a songwriter by a need to rein in experimental impulses in favor of marketability. It’s an opportunity Thomas has been dreaming of for a long time. “Writing these records and working with these big artists is such a blessing, but I want to hit stages and see the world through my music,” he said in a 2024 interview about pivoting away from songwriting to his solo career. “This is me putting my music and my dreams first.”

If Grammy nominations are any indication, Thomas’s decision to fully embrace his own artistry has paid off. It didn’t happen overnight, as his category title “Best New Artist” suggests. But being nominated in this category that many of the artists he’s written for have been nominated in is a valuable stamp of approval, because it certifies he’s no longer just their collaborator, he’s their peer.