Recorded Music
 | Ryan Leslie
Artist-in-Residence |
Biography
Born in 1978, Leslie began making music as a teenager after teaching himself to play the piano. When he was 14, he scored a perfect 1600 on his SAT's and eventually enrolled at Harvard, graduating at the age of 19 with a degree in Government. By 2003, he established a foothold in the music industry and later that year also produced a debut album, entitled Just Right. While never being released, the album did produce two singles: The Way That U Move Girl and Used 2 Be. By the end of 2005, he wrote and/or produced tracks for Beyonce, Britney Spears, and New Edition. In 2006, he wrote and produced the singer Cassie's Me&U album, a number one R&B single that also reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100. Cassie's subsequent album, produced almost entirely by Leslie, narrowly missed the top of both the Billboard 200 and R&B/hip-hop albums charts. Leslie went back to the studio to record another debut album and the lead single, Diamond Girl, was to be released as a single. The successive singles, Addiction and How It Was Supposed to Be also set the stage for his self-titled album, which was finally released in February 2009. Nine months later, Leslie followed up his debut album with the Grammy-nominated album Transition, inspired by a secret summertime fling. Currently preparing his new body of work, a rap album entitled Les is More, he has also found time to produce and guest appear on records with Kanye West, Lloyd Banks, Fabolous and Rick Ross.
