Leondre Antonio Devries

Leondre Devries first met Charlie Lenehan in September 2013 over Facebook. Little did they know that just five months later they would end up auditioning for ‘Britain’s Got Talent 2014!’ Moreover, during their audition they were automatically sent into the semi-finals of the competition after the head judge, Simon Cowell pressed the Golden Buzzer. They performed a version of ‘Hope’ by Twista and Faith Evans with their own lyrics, which was inspired by Leondre's personal experiences of being bullied in school. After that, there was no looking back for them. Devries openly admitted that he never expected to get the Golden Buzzer from Simon Cowell and that it was absolutely crazy! In the semi- finals of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, they performed Puff Daddy and Faith Evans’‘I’ll Be Missing You’, coupled with new verses about someone who had recently lost a friend. Their heartfelt performance had the audience in tears and fortunately they won the semi-finals and progressed to the finals. In the finals, they performed their audition song and came third after Lucy Kay and Collabro. Despite not winning, it was reported that Devries and his friend were on the verge of signing a 500,000 pounds record deal. They eventually signed an initial one single deal with Simon Cowell’s record label, Syco, in June 2014. When their debut single, ‘Hopeful’ was released, it went straight to number 5 on the UK Singles Chart and they went to uber popular shows like ‘This Morning’ and ‘Good Morning Britain’ as well as ‘The Official Chart’ on BBC Radio 1 to promote their single. Their next single ‘Keep Smiling’ peaked at number 52 in the Official Charts Company. Devries and Lenehan then went on their debut headline tour, ‘Stay Strong Tour’ to preview songs from their upcoming album. They also released two other singles called ‘Stay Strong’ and ‘Beautiful.’In 2015, they released their very first album called ‘143’ which peaked at number 4 on the UK Albums Chart and preceding the album was their Summer 2015 Tour which was a United Kingdom only tour to preview songs from ‘143.’ This was followed by the 143 Album Tour which was their first world tour, featuring dates in Poland and the Netherlands. Apart from singing, Devries and Lenehan also appeared as main presenters on CBBC show ‘Friday Download.’ They also appeared in the ‘Friday Download’ movie called ‘Up All Night.’

The biggest reason which makes Devries popular is his maturity. Even though he is just 16 years old, he speaks with a lot of maturity about a lot of things. When he spoke out about experiencing bullying first hand, he struck a chord with his fans and audience. Motivated by him, lots of people started opening up about bad experiences in their own lives. In short, he brought forth a very sensitive and serious issue to the limelight. Devries maybe a rapper but that does not mean his songs don’t have meaning. Every song he writes and performs is based on his own life experiences, especially bullying, and this makes people listen to him again and again with tears in their eyes.

Since Leondre Devries was a victim of horrible and rampant bullying, he wants to work towards making people aware as much as possible about it. He is also a lovely human being whichbecame apparent when in an interview, he openly said that he would never ever attack any of his bullies and even though it would be very difficult, he would choose to forgive them because forgiveness makes a person better.