Ryan Leslie

In his application essays he explained his interest in matriculating from his junior year in high school without having earned a diploma. He was accepted to all except for Stanford. He ultimately decided to attend Harvard College. At the age of 19, Leslie graduated from Harvard with a degree in Government, concentrating in Political Science and Macroeconomics. During his commencement ceremonies, Ryan delivered the prestigious Harvard Oration.

Leslie grew up around music, playing cornet as a child in the Salvation Army band. Ryan later switched to piano because his overbite made it difficult to get proper embouchure on a brass instrument. At Harvard, he quickly joins the Krokodiloes, an a cappella group. Leslie suddenly saw a new future for himself when a friend played him a Stevie Wonder CD freshman year. “I became obsessed with him,” says Leslie http://nymag.com/news/features/24094/. “I wanted to chase that man’s career.” Thus began the transition from premed Poindexter to R&B Romeo. Leslie became a constant presence at the on-campus recording studio. Fellow student Chiqui Matthew remembers Leslie making beats at every free moment. “He was on a different level of intensity. Most of us were pretty realistic—we’re Harvard students; this music stuff is fun, but this isn’t the future,” says Matthew, who now works with credit derivatives at Goldman Sachs. “But Ryan always had a ten-year plan about how he was going to take over the music industry.” While still a college student, Leslie began producing tracks for local Boston artists. Read Less