Louis York

For the past 15 years, multi-Grammy nominated musicians Chuck Harmony and Claude Kelly have defined the sound of pop and R&B. Both together and apart, they’ve written and produced hits for artists spanning Miley Cyrus and Rihanna to Christina Aguilera and Bruno Mars, challenging the conventions of what listeners have come to expect and guiding the direction it should take. But it wasn’t until years after they met while working on a Chrisette Michele album in 2009, and officially joined forces in 2015 as Louis York, that their vision crystallized: two ingenious musicians stepping out of the studio and into the spotlight to share stories from their own perspectives, and forge a new path of what sort of spaces contemporary music can inhabit. Since the duo began writing and recording music, Louis York—named after a combination of their respective hometowns (Harmony from East St. Louis, Kelly from New York City)—has released an EP trilogy entitled Masterpiece Theater: Act I, Act II, Act III. The projects earned praise from publications including Billboard and Los Angeles Times for their genre-bending sensibilities and creative aesthetic. In a relatively short amount of time, the pair has amassed more than one million cumulative streams on Spotify; given a talk as part of the esteemed TEDx Nashville program; and performed sold-out shows, most recently on its “Love Takeover” tour since the start of the year.