5 February 2026 - Leon Thomas - MUTT

Leon Thomas was nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy and was part of the medley.

So yeah.  Of course I am going to.

Because he is making excellent R&B music.  

And also, because he was nominated for six Grammys and WON two of them..... and one of the nominations he didn't win was Best New Artist, but since he WON a Grammy in the Best R&B Song category in 2024, his was possibly the most baffling nomination in the category.  

His two wins were for Best R&B Album - which was for the album for which this was the title song - and Best Traditional R&B Performance.  He absolutely deserved them for Mutt. 

As an aside, he was one of two Victorious alumni to win Grammys this year - Ariana Grande being the other.  Which is kind of a weird statistic.  No other TV show to my knowledge can claim that this year. 

And "Mutt" is a great song.  Thomas wrote the song (there are other cowriters for the music) while microdosing on psychedelics and watching his dog and cat fight. True story. 

Thomas has released several versions of his hit, including a couple of official remixes.  Here is one of them.

One of these versions was the one he recorded he recorded for the NPR Tiny Desk Concert series. 

This VERSION was specifically nominated for a Grammy (that it did not win - but it's pretty great). 

But you're here for the Grammy performance, right?

Well, goody.  But we can't.  It was an R&B/rock fusion, for sure - and starmaking. And we can't show it to you.

We CAN show you the equally good BET Awards performance, though.