All posts tagged: persona

‘A broken heart can turn somebody into a bad Casanova’: breakout R&B star Leon Thomas on defiance, D’Angelo and his ‘doggie’ persona | Music

‘A broken heart can turn somebody into a bad Casanova’: breakout R&B star Leon Thomas on defiance, D’Angelo and his ‘doggie’ persona | Music

Forget viral hits or sold-out shows: you know you’ve reached the big time when the godfather of funk gives you custom-made headgear. Last spring, Leon Thomas was backstage at California’s Coachella festival and due to join Ty Dolla $ign, his label boss, for a performance alongside George Clinton. The cosmic crusader said to Thomas: “‘You’re the kid who does the dog song, right? I made something for you,’” Thomas recalls. “He gave me this cool white hat with a foxtail on it.” Thomas wore it to play Mutt, his 2024 breakthrough single, followed by a rendition of Clinton’s 1982 P-funk anthem Atomic Dog. But not before Clinton hot-boxed the trailer. “I don’t really smoke weed any more, but I was in the dressing room with him and Ty,” says Thomas, 32. “They both were smoking so much – when I was on stage, I realised, ‘Ohhh, I’m a little buzzed right now!’” A spiritual baton had been passed. “We went up there and rocked the crowd,” Thomas continues. “It was like 12, 13,000 [people] out …

Mon Laferte on her edgy ‘Femme Fatale’ LP: ‘I went into my past to kill that persona.’

Mon Laferte on her edgy ‘Femme Fatale’ LP: ‘I went into my past to kill that persona.’

The press has often labeled Mon Laferte a “femme fatale” — a seductive woman who inflicts distress upon her love interests. Nearly two decades into her singing career, the Chilean singer-songwriter has learned to embrace the old-fashioned trope of the stone cold seductress in “Femme Fatale,” her ninth studio album, which she released in October. “I came to the conclusion that there’s a perception of me as a woman who is really liberated — that’s why it’s dangerous. [She’s] a person who is sure of herself and that generates a lot of insecurity in other people,” said Laferte in a Zoom call, just after she attended the 2025 Fashion Awards with designer Willy Chavarria in London. (“I went to Camden and took a photo next to [Amy Winehouse’s] statue,” she noted, citing inspiration in the late R&B star.) Laferte reckons with her dangerous womanhood on “Femme Fatale:” a compilation of jazzy, cabaret pop ballads, elevated by the roaring theatrical vocals she made famous in such past hits as “Tu Falta de Querer” and “Mi Buen …