Leon Thomas was sitting on his living room floor in 2022, slightly high, watching his dog and cat scrap.
His untrained dog took a swipe from the cat and pulled this face. Guilty. Confused. Meaning well but messing up anyway. Thomas saw himself.
That moment became “MUTT,” the title track from his second album that dropped in August 2024.
After years ghost-writing hits for Ariana Grande and SZA, he finally stepped front and centre with something that sounds nothing like contemporary R&B radio. And thank god for that.
The Production: Proper Funk, Not Nostalgia
Phelps and Freaky Rob built this track around a Bootsy Collins-style bassline that’s thick, syrupy, and absolutely filthy. The kind of bass you feel in your chest before you properly hear it.
Real live drums throughout. No programmed shortcuts, no trap hi-hats twitching every two seconds. Just proper instrumentation that breathes and moves.
Thomas recorded his vocal in one take. You can hear the spontaneity bleeding through.
His voice sits in this hazy space between stoned confession and genuine vulnerability.
The comparison to D’Angelo’s Voodoo sessions isn’t generous, it’s accurate. That same loose quality, like he’s working through something in real time rather than polishing a final thought.
Jean-Marie Horvat’s mix deserves praise for what it avoids. No over-reverb fog. No compression flattening the drums. Every element has room.
The bass stays where it should. Thomas’ voice remains intimate, conversational. It feels like he’s in your bedroom at 2am, not cutting a radio-ready single.
The Lyrics: Self-Awareness Without Self-Pity
“I can’t smoke on reggie, so pardon my bluntness.”
Bizzy Crook’s contribution, and a great one. The double meaning lands cleanly: Thomas won’t smoke low-grade weed, and he won’t soften the truth. It sets the tone for everything that follows.
Thomas, Phelps, Freaky Rob, and Crook craft lyrics that balance wit with honest self-assessment. The dog metaphor has deep roots in Black music.
Elvis had his mascot dog. Parliament had “Atomic Dog.” Snoop built a mythology out of it. Drake titled a whole album For All the Dogs.
Thomas’ version feels personal. The mutt as someone who means well but keeps messing up. Mixed lineage, figuring it out one mistake at a time.
“I see past pretty faces, so I got trouble trusting” speaks directly to dating in Los Angeles. Face-tuned perfection everywhere. Performance as default. Authenticity buried under layers of curation.
The line isn’t trying to be profound. It’s just true. He’s documenting what dating in Hollywood actually feels like.
Then the pre-chorus: “But I’ll let my guard down for you. Said I’ll be vulnerable. So you can break my heart if you want to.”
This is where “MUTT” lifts itself past the dog imagery. Thomas isn’t clinging to bravado. He’s acknowledging the pull between self-protection and genuine intimacy. The familiar panic of opening up again after being hurt.
The second verse gets specific. He references a real break-in at his Los Angeles home: “Thirty-two, like my pants size ’cause a n***a tried breaking in.”
The detail hits because it’s real. Someone actually broke into his house. His dog barking. Thomas walking into the living room in his underwear and do-rag to find a grown man sitting on his couch. That kind of uncomfortable reality sticks.
“Had to pop a shroom to recreate the feeling, but it’s never the same as the first time we did it” raised his mother’s eyebrows.
Thomas draws a direct line between early relationships and psychedelics. Both alter perception. Both create euphoria you can’t recreate.
He’s not romanticising drug use. He’s describing brain chemistry. The thrill hits hard. The comedown hits harder. Neither lasts.
Why This Matters: Funk’s Return Route
Thomas’ parents performed in wedding bands playing “Atomic Dog,” so his funk connection isn’t borrowed. It’s inherited.
That matters because modern R&B moved away from groove entirely. Trap minimalism took over. The basslines thinned out. The drums got smaller.
“MUTT” shows you can bring funk back into 2024 without turning into a retro costume. Anderson Paak has flirted with it. Bruno Mars dips into it. Silk Sonic made a whole project out of it.
Thomas keeps the groove without the throwback sheen. It sounds current. It moves properly.
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The Strategy: Patience Over Hype
Thomas and his manager Jonathan Azu avoided the usual chase for playlists and radio mass-placement. They let the song grow through touring.
Thomas supported Blxst, then headlined his own shows, watching which moments made the phones fly up. “MUTT” became the moment.
That patience feels almost subversive now. Most artists are told to move on after six weeks if a single doesn’t explode.
Thomas took the slower route. Lizzo built a career on that idea. “Truth Hurts” needed time. Some songs simply need room to breathe.
Then came the NPR Tiny Desk set. Thomas dedicated “Breaking Point” to his late grandfather, opera singer John Anthony, before performing “MUTT” with visible emotion.
It didn’t feel like strategy. It felt like someone processing something real, and audiences responded.
What It Gets Right
“MUTT” works because Thomas avoids shortcuts. The production commits to funk with a modern pulse. The lyrics balance self-awareness with tenderness. The vocal performance stays close and human.
Most importantly, the song sounds different. In a landscape full of minimalist trap templates and whisper-soft bedroom pop, Thomas delivers real drums, fat basslines, and a proper structure that lets the track breathe.
His years behind the scenes matter here. He knows what commercial songwriting looks like, but he isn’t chasing the algorithm.
“MUTT” sounds like Leon Thomas, not Leon Thomas borrowing someone else’s blueprint.
The song captures the messy middle of personal growth. The part where you notice your patterns and realise you haven’t figured out how to fix them yet. That honesty, paired with production that hits with intent, creates something that lingers.
Not perfect. Not polished to oblivion. Just honest and groovy in equal measure.
R&B could use more of this. Less polish. More groove. Real vulnerability instead of performative sensitivity.
Thomas found the idea while watching his pets fight on the living room floor.
Ridiculous moment. Excellent song.