Leon Thomas's 'Mutt' up for album of the year and best new artist

Leon Thomas, a 32-year-old singer-songwriter, will compete on Sunday at the Grammy Awards in two top categories — album of the year and best new artist — for his second album, Mutt, and carries six nominations this year. Released in late 2024, Mutt is described in the article as one of several projects reviving a sense of possibility for R&B fans; its title track, buoyed by a groovy hook inspired by Thomas’s dog, peaked at No.

6 on the Billboard Hot 100. Thomas has said the album was made under pressure, when he feared he might be dropped by his label, and he has hoped the Grammy spotlight could “give ‘Mutt’ its flowers.” Thomas’s career began as a child actor — at 11 he played Young Simba in The Lion King on Broadway and later appeared on television — and he comes from a multigenerational entertainment family: his grandfather, John D.

Anthony, performed in Porgy and Bess on Broadway, and his mother, Jayon Anthony, is a vocal coach. He moved to Los Angeles at 16 for a role on Victorious and later wrote songs for artists including Drake, Ariana Grande and Rick Ross while apprenticing for Babyface. After signing with Ty Dolla Sign’s EZMNY Records in 2022, Thomas released his debut album Electric Dusk in 2023 and has since leaned into a noirish, genre‑slippery R&B that mixes blues, Minneapolis funk and off‑kilter vocal techniques.

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