Emmy Award-winning Spoken Word Artist and America’s Got Talent Champion Brandon Leake Announces ‘Intimacy’
“Your words are so poetic, so in the moment… the message is so clear. Thank you for moving us.” — Howie Mandel
“I never, in my mind, would have thought that someone with an act like yours could have won AGT… You are brilliant.” — Simon Cowell
“His poems featuring themes of grief, parenthood, race, and more were raw and unfiltered.”
— NBC
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Every parent has imagined the phone call they hope never comes. Every believer has wrestled with the silent question they’re almost afraid to ask: God, where are You? It’s the question that surfaces in hospital rooms, sleepless nights, unexpected diagnoses, financial uncertainty, and the moments when faith feels less like confidence and more like a choice to keep believing despite what stands in front of you. Those questions became the foundation of Intimacy, the powerful new album from Emmy Award-winning spoken word artist, educator, and America’s Got Talent Season 15 champion Brandon Leake.
For Leake, those moments weren’t hypothetical, they became his reality. An unexpected panic attack, his daughter’s autoimmune diagnosis, financial instability, and months of spiritual wrestling forced him to confront questions he never expected to ask about trust and God’s presence.
Instead of keeping his struggle private, Leake gave it a voice. The result is Intimacy, his most honest project to date. Blending spoken word, music, and raw testimony, the album explores anxiety, grief, fatherhood, and the unseen battles that shape everyday life, offering an honest portrait of what faith looks like when life doesn’t unfold the way we planned.
The release follows Leake’s acclaimed single, “I’ve Got,” a declaration of God’s faithfulness through every season. While that song celebrated hope, Intimacy explores what it takes to keep trusting God when life doesn’t make sense. Together, the two releases tell a larger story—not just about God’s faithfulness in life’s victories, but about trusting Him through seasons where the answers don’t come easily.
The emotional centerpiece of Intimacy is its focus track, “Fear,” a spoken word piece born from one of the most challenging chapters of Leake’s life. “During a sermon, my pastor said there is no such thing as true intimacy without fear being a part of the equation. The name of my album was already Intimacy at the time that I heard this. So for me, I began to really rummage through my mind to explore how I felt about that. To be honest with you, the things that I’ve cared for most I’ve also most deeply feared losing, so I came to the conclusion that he was right, that there is no such thing as intimacy without fear. This also came during the season in which fear was a very prevalent part of my life with my daughter’s illness, financial instability, and so many other things,” says Leake.
That realization reshaped the album. Instead of treating fear as faith’s opposite, Leake explores how faith is often forged in the very moments we feel least certain. “For me, this poem is a line in the sand. For too long I think I lived under the assumption that fear is the opposite of faith. But in all actuality, faith in spite of fear is one of the most powerful things that we can have as people and I had to be the one who was brave enough to take a leap of faith in the midst of my fear. So this poem to me is a sign of healing. It’s a sign of growth and development and spiritual maturity.”
Drawing inspiration from Proverbs 9:10—“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”—Intimacy asks listeners to reconsider what fear really means. From fatherhood and grief to healing and redemption, each piece points beyond life’s circumstances toward a deeper trust in God’s presence.
“The overall message of this album is that intimacy is costly, but the cost is worth being paid—that God is not giving up on us and that if we continue to persevere the intimacy that we develop with God will be our greatest reward. The inspiration to this album was three years of trial, difficulty, heartache, pain, frustration, and so much joy, despite circumstance.”
Leake wrote every poem, hook, bridge, and spoken word piece on the album, while featured artists contributed their own sections. The project is produced by longtime collaborator Fariss Ryan, whom Leake has worked with since 2014, alongside Stockton producer Teak Underdue and Emmy Award-winning composer John Wineglass. Mixing was handled by acclaimed Christian hip-hop artist Derek Minor, helping bring the album’s emotional and sonic vision to life.
Since making history as the first spoken word poet to win NBC’s America’s Got Talent, Leake has become one of the defining voices in contemporary spoken word. An Emmy Award-winning artist, educator, and motivational speaker, his performances challenge audiences to embrace vulnerability, healing, and authentic faith while finding hope through honest storytelling.
“If you listen to this from beginning to end, you will feel the reward of your time. It will not be a wasted minute. It will not be a wasted second. All of it was intentionally crafted to tell this story of redemption, of healing, of trial, of difficulty, of overcoming, and how intimacy with God is truly worth it.”
Intimacy
Track Listing:
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About Brandon Leake
Brandon Leake is an Emmy Award–winning spoken word artist, keynote speaker, educator, and the Season 15 winner of America’s Got Talent. He is also a 7x Telly Award winner and SOVAS Award winner, recognized for his ability to transform spoken word into a powerful medium of storytelling, healing, and human connection.
Over the past decade, Brandon has built a dynamic international career as a performer and speaker, appearing across 42 U.S. states and globally in New Zealand, Canada, and Mexico. His work spans a wide range of stages, from intimate community spaces and educational institutions to major corporate, cultural, and media platforms.
Brandon has collaborated with some of the world’s most influential organizations, including Meta, CBS, Good Morning America, the Golden State Warriors, and the Sacramento Kings, where his work is often used to bridge creativity, leadership, emotional intelligence, and community engagement.
At the heart of Brandon’s artistry is a belief that storytelling is both an art form and a form of connection. Through spoken word, he blends personal narrative with poetic expression to explore themes of identity, grief, love, resilience, and purpose—inviting audiences into a shared emotional experience that is both deeply personal and universally human.
Beyond performance, Brandon is a dedicated educator and facilitator who works with students, creatives, and organizations to develop voice, clarity, and confidence in storytelling. His workshops and talks emphasize the power of narrative as a tool for transformation, self-awareness, and cultural understanding.
Brandon’s work is rooted in authenticity, faith, and service. Whether on stage or in the classroom, he uses language not only to perform, but to challenge, uplift, and reconnect people to themselves, their stories, and each other.
About Dead Horse Branding
Dead Horse Branding is an award-winning branding, PR, and marketing firm based in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 2015 by Melissa Core-Caballo and Rick Caballo, the company has built a reputation for shaping brands, elevating careers, and launching artists with impact.
Dead Horse Branding’s diverse portfolio includes projects like Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out,” Steven Tyler’s solo band LOVING MARY, Cyndi Lauper’s Detour album, the Bo Diddley Estate, Stone Country Records, Quartz Hill Records, Brown Sellers Brown, legendary Country Music Hall of Fame producer Tony Brown, multi-Grammy Award-winning songwriter/producer Keith Thomas (Whitney Houston, Amy Grant, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson), Grammy Award-winning songwriter/producer Aaron Pearce (Justin Bieber, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion), Michael Jay (over 75 million records sold worldwide; Celine Dion, Martika, Eminem, Kylie Minogue), Buck Johnson (Aerosmith,
Hollywood Vampires), NBC’s The Voice Team Adam Levine artist Bay Simpson, and Robert’s Western World. Dead Horse Branding also helped launch Velvet Stone Management in 2016, contributing to the O’Connor Band’s Grammy win for Best Bluegrass Album.
Additionally, Dead Horse Branding developed the DH7 Educational Program, an accredited and recognized initiative, with 25% of its curriculum certified for U.S. schools. The program partners with acclaimed entertainment attorney Joel A. Katz (Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, George Jones) through his Music and Entertainment Business Program at Kennesaw State University—ranked by Billboard as a Top 5 Music Business Program in the USA, as well as Middle Tennessee State University, and Belmont University. Designed to bridge the gap between classroom education and real-world careers, the program empowers students with the skills to build and manage brands before they graduate.
