Shay Leonia

Recording Artist | Music Career Strategist | Podcast Host

With soulful vocals over gritty, electro-pop beats, Shay Leonia calls her sound, "Industrial R&B". The Jersey-born and bred recording artist hails from a family of musicians with an upbringing that provided a rather bizarre, yet full scope mixture of sonic influences. After a decade-long hiatus, Leonia released “Crumbs” in May of 2021 which garnered a video premiere in Notion Magazine as well as her first published article on Roland.com, recognizing that she taught herself how to record for the first time with the single.

Among her career highlights so far, Leonia has had the honor of performing with Janelle Monáe on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'' as well as singing in the Vh1 commercial for Season 12 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”. These opportunities arrived years after Leonia first began honing her vocal and songwriting skills, albeit right on time. Shortly after graduating from The American Musical and Dramatic Academy, Leonia was collaborating with legends like DJ Marley Marl, Treach (Naughty by Nature), The Pharcyde and more, and eventually became a songwriting instructor for elementary schools and universities in New York. She graced the stages of B.B. King’s (Times Square) and the Blue Note, and headlined at SOB’s in lower Manhattan, using her performance as an opportunity to take a public stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

In the summer of 2021, Leonia received her certificate in Music Industry Essentials from NYU | Tisch, which helped her take her company, 44th Minute Media LLC, to a new level. The business, which is devoted to helping other independent musicians navigate their careers, as well as all of Leonia’s musical achievements, are in dedication to her mother’s memory. Leonia looks forward to one day traveling around the world, meeting the people who’ve felt connected to her music and to also working with some of her musical heroes like Janet Jackson and Stevie Wonder.