For four whole years, Leondre Devries, 13, was scared to walk home from school. Every day, the young boy was beaten up by a merciless gang of bullies.
“I’d be walking home and there’d be a group of five or six boys who’d come over and beat me up and then run off,” he revealed in an interview with Wales Online.
“They’d watch my every move, and if I did something that was a bit silly they’d pick up on it and make fun of me for it.”
Leondre’s mother would ask him about his bruises but he’d lie and say they were from football.
“I’ve never thought I’d harm myself because of the bullying,” the boy added. “I just saw myself as a fighter, fighting through.”
“I wasn’t the best time for me. It wasn’t nice. I was too scared to bring it up in front of my parents because I didn’t want people to say I was an attention-seeker.”
The bullies made each day a living Hell for Leondre, but there was one thing that helped him cope— writing raps.
“Writing it all down and that was my escape, and I don’t know what I would’ve done without it.”
Leondre eventually changed schools and stopped getting bullied. He also met a 15-year-old singer named Charlie Lenehan who became his music partner and best friend.
“Leondre’s got an old-school style of rap with a bit of an American twang which I really liked,” Charlie explained.
Charlie, from Bristol, is a wonderful singer. His teachers would rave about his talents, and the first time his mother saw him perform at a school function, she was completely blown away. “I couldn’t believe how good he was,” she told Wales Online.
Together, Leondre and Charlie became Bars and Melody, a rap-pop duo who promote anti-bullying messages in their songs.
When Britain’s Got Talent held its 8th season auditions in Manchester back in 2014, the pair decided to give it a go.
In the audition video, which has been viewed more than 187 MILLION times, Bars and Melody perform a song based on Twista and Faith Evans’ “Hope”.
Leondre has replaced Twista’s rapping with his own verses discussing the bullying that he’s experienced.
“The opening line is ‘Please help me God, I feel so alone’, and it also says ‘I’ve cried so many tears writing this song’ because that’s what I did. That’s what I was going through at the time,” Leondre told Wales Online.
When Charlie reveals his angelic voice with the first note, the crowd begins to cheer— but it’s Leondre’s talent and poignant story that really gets their emotions going.
“The names they call me, they hurt real bad, I wanna tell my Momma, but she’s having trouble with my Dad.”
“Just be hopeful, hopeful, ready for today,” Charlie sings during the chorus.
With each moment, the crowd grows louder. By the time, Leondre starts rapping the third verse, they’re all on their feet.
Meanwhile, judge Alesha Dixon is clearly touched by the song.
When the boys finish, the crowd begins to chant, ordering the judges to “PUSH THE GOLD!”
After a few seconds of suspense, Simon Cowell smashes the buzzer— sending Bars and Melody straight to the semi-finals.
Bars and Melody went on to win third place in the competition, later being signed to Cowell’s label, Sysco. In an interview with ITV, Cowell said:
“I like the fact that they wrote their own song based on life experiences.”
“People are going to root for them and they’ve got this great friendship that is so obvious when you watch them together.”
“I think they’re going to do well.”
See the audition below!
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