He began to play professionally at the age of 15 and moved to New York after accepting a place at the Juilliard School.
[2] He is featured on two of Cécile McLorin Salvant's recordings, “For One to Love” (2015) and Dreams and Daggers (2017), both of which won Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album.
[3] Leathers is best known to a global jazz audience for his affiliations with pianist Aaron Diehl.
[4] Featured by Capsulocity in 2012,[5] he talks about what influences his music before he became a drummer for jazz musicians such as Mulgrew Miller, Wynton Marsalis,[6] Wycliffe Gordon,[7] Cyrus Chestnut and Rodney Whitaker.
Leathers was killed during a domestic dispute with his girlfriend Lisa Harris on June 3, 2019, at his home in New York.