Fiery Leos are known for their passion and charm, and Jacob Latimore's short and sweet Leo Season is no exception. Over seven songs, the EP traverses a multitude of moods and styles. The Milwaukee-born actor and singer's voice proves chameleonic as he navigates the balance of raw sexual tension with dulcet themes of love and heartbreak and production that accentuates both. Songs like “It's My Birthday” and “Dat Ass” sound modern and are playful in their come-ons, while others like “Be Mine” or “Sleep With Me” dial back the vulgarness in favor of stripped confessionals that sound like love letters. “I know we're in this trap-R&B phase right now, which is cool, but I really wanted to kind of just show off my vocals a lot more with this particular project and be more vulnerable,” Latimore tells Apple Music. “More ballads, more pianos, more guitars. For the most part, I think the tone is real R&B, real singing, real vulnerability.” Be Mine “I thought it got straight to the point. I think sometimes albums have drawn-out intros, and I've kinda done that before. I wanted to come out the gate singing. I wanted to let my vocals and let the vulnerability be known right at the top of the project—that this is an R&B project. You're listening to Jacob, you know what I mean? It just comes right on. As soon as you press play, I just start singing, like before the track even barely starts. It just felt good as we were messing around with the playlist.” It's My Birthday “I'm 24—it's just some grown and sexy vibes. I can't wait for you to see the visualiser I just did, too. It's just a sexy record, and I was just like, 'This is it.' It's just my birthday. It's just setting the tone for the vibe I'm going into as I grow as an artist.” Real Love, Pt. 2 “When I put out C3, my project earlier this year, with the original ‘Real Love’ on it, Trevor [Jackson] texted me and was like, ‘Man, can I do a remix? I really love that song.’ He said, ‘Bro, it don't even have to come out. I just want to record it. Just send me an open verse.’ So I was like, ‘Let's do that, but let's also add another R&B artist too to kind of get that camaraderie back in the R&B field again.’ I feel like a lot of rappers do it, but not enough R&B artists collaborate with each other. We're either trying to reach the rap world because that's what's mainstream, but I feel like in order for us to be mainstream again how we really want to be, it's important that R&B artists link up harder than ever now to make real R&B music again. I just wanted that camaraderie to be there. These are actually my real brothers. I really talk to Rotimi, I really talk to Trevor.” Dat Ass “We just had fun with this one. Honestly, at first we were like, 'Do we even like this song that much?' We just kind of liked the beat. But honestly, it's just so different for me, I wasn't taking it that serious. It's super fun. And then Eric [Bellinger] was actually—I sent Eric a different song, and he was like, 'No, I want to get on this song.' He ended up sending me the verse right away, and we just went to Malibu and got some models, and we just shot a video. We had fun. It kind of felt like I was at the beginning of my career again where I just wasn't really worried about numbers. I wasn't worrying about anything. I was just making music. So that's really how that song came about—we just wanted to have fun, be goofy and just relax for a minute.” Signs “‘Signs’ was just going to originally go on C3, but I felt like that song would've got lost in the shuffle. I wanted 'Signs' to be next to songs that could really support it. So, yeah, it definitely has more instruments—I would say more of that Bruno Mars, Chris Brown feel. I could see myself performing it with a band and guitars and just funky music going on. So I wanted to talk about something real over that, because when you listen to the lyrics, the lyrics are really sad. 'I should've read the signs, but I kept going, I kept coming back, because the sex was good.' And that's a real topic. That's just a real thing that I think people in general go through. They stay for certain reasons, and the reasons are not always good, and it could be toxic. I thought it had great lyrics with just a really happy beat so you'd be grooving, but the song is sad.” Sleep With Me “That was incredible, because I always see Jagged Edge around the city in Atlanta, and they're just really supportive. Like they had an R&B night that they do at a club in Atlanta, and they would play my song 'Don't Wanna Leave' with Mulatto. Or they would really just hit me up out the blue like, 'Man, we really love your music. You're really doing it, you really bringing back the vibes.' I was recording, finishing up the Leo Season project, and I wanted to do some sort of a meditation R&B song. So I had recorded the first verse and the hook, and then we added those Jagged Edge background vocals. So I sent it to them, and they got it back to me the very next day, and, yeah, it was dope. That's just another addition of how serious I am about the R&B wave. Jagged Edge was super R&B, and it was cool to team up with them. They've watched me grow as an artist, so it was some real big-brother moments.” How “That's really where I'm at right now in my life. I'm in a relationship, so it just kind of really speaks to how I feel. How did this happen? I've only been with you this long, but I feel this way, and I'm just lucky. I think that's a good feeling. I feel like most young men don't really want to get to that feeling, because obviously when you're vulnerable, you're open to get hurt or you're open to feel pain. That's a guard we all sort of put up to avoid feeling that part of it. So I just really wanted to bask in the energy of just being vulnerable, and being happy about the situation.”