Chris Brown
Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, dancer and actor. He is regarded as one of the most prominent artists in R&B music,[note 1] being credited as an evolver of the genre,[8] and often being referred to by contemporaries as the "King of R&B".[note 2] His R&B has been characterized by several influences from other genres, mainly pop music and hip hop. His lyrics develop predominantly over emotional and hedonistic themes.[note 3] Brown has had wide comparisons to Michael Jackson for his singing and dancing abilities.[note 4]
For the album, see Chris Brown (album). For other people with similar names, see Chris Brown (disambiguation).
Chris Brown
In 2004, Brown signed with Jive Records and released his eponymous debut studio album the following year, which was later certified triple Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[27][28] With his debut single "Run It!" (featuring Juelz Santana) peaking atop the Billboard Hot 100, Brown became the first male artist since 1995 to have his debut single top the chart. His second album, Exclusive (2007), was met with further commercial success worldwide, and spawned his second Billboard Hot 100 number one "Kiss Kiss" (featuring T-Pain).[29] In 2009, Brown received much media attention after pleading guilty to felony assault of his then-girlfriend, singer Rihanna; he was sentenced to five years of probation and six months of community service, with his personal life and legal issues being highly publicized by media outlets in the following years.[30] This foresaw the release of his third album, Graffiti which was considered to be a commercial failure compared to his previous works.[31] Following Graffiti, Brown released his fourth album F.A.M.E. (2011), which became his first album to top the Billboard 200. The album contained the commercially successful singles: "Yeah 3x", "Look at Me Now" (featuring Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes) and "Beautiful People" (featuring Benny Benassi), and earned him the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album.[32][33] His fifth album, Fortune, released in 2012, also topped the Billboard 200.
Following the releases of X (2014) and Royalty (2015), both peaking in the top three of the Billboard 200, his eighth album, Heartbreak on a Full Moon, a double-disc LP consisting of 45 tracks, was certified Gold by the RIAA for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 after one week, and was later certified double Platinum. Brown's ninth studio album, Indigo (2019) found similar success, debuting atop the Billboard 200.[34] It included the single "No Guidance" (featuring Drake) which broke the record for the longest-running number one on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart.[35][36] Its chart success was outdone with the single "Go Crazy" (with Young Thug) released the following year, which broke Brown's own record for the longest-running number one on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart set previously by "No Guidance".[37][38][39] In 2022, his Indigo album spawned a sleeper hit with its song "Under the Influence", which was re-released as a single.[38][40]
Brown has sold over 140 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists.[41][42][43] He has gained a cult following,[44][45][46][47] and is one of the highest-grossing African American touring artists of all time.[48] In terms of charts and certifications, Brown holds the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 entries of any male singer in history,[2] the most top 40 hits of any R&B singer in history,[3] the most RIAA Gold-certified singles of any male singer in history,[49][50] and the most RIAA multi-Platinum singles of any male singer in history.[51] At the end of 2019, Billboard named Brown the third most successful artist of the 2010s decade in R&B and hip-hop music, behind Drake and Rihanna in first and second, respectively.[52] Additionally, Brown has won a total of 199 awards from 513 nominations over the course of his career. Brown has also pursued an acting career. In 2007, he made his on-screen feature film debut in Stomp the Yard, and appeared as a guest on the television series The O.C. Other films Brown has appeared in include This Christmas (2007), Takers (2010), Think Like a Man (2012), Battle of the Year (2013) and She Ball (2021).
Early life
Christopher Maurice Brown was born on May 5, 1989,[53] in the small town of Tappahannock, Virginia,[54] to Joyce Hawkins, a former day care center director, and Clinton Brown, a corrections officer at a local prison.[55][56] He has an older sister, Lytrell Bundy,[57] who works in a bank.[55] Music was always present in Brown's life beginning in his childhood. He would listen to soul albums that his parents owned,[56] and eventually began to show interest in the hip-hop scene.[53]
Brown taught himself to sing and dance at a young age and often cites Michael Jackson as his inspiration.[55] He began to perform in his church choir and in several local talent shows.[58] Brown said, during a 2023 interview with Shannon Sharpe, that he started to take in consideration music as his job after winning a talent show during a summer camp when he was 11 years old, performing Sisqó’s "Thong Song": "The camp leaders, they laughed, but everybody kinda went crazy in there and I was like 'I think I can do this'."[59] When he mimicked an Usher performance of "My Way", his mother recognized his vocal talent, and they began to look for the opportunity of a record deal.[28] At the same time, Brown was going through personal issues. His parents had divorced, and his mother's boyfriend terrified him by subjecting her to domestic violence.[60] In a 2017 self-documentary, Welcome to My Life, Brown goes into detail about the abusive relationship. Brown said that when he was six, his mother's partner shot himself in the head, but did not die. The gunshot blinded him, the physical impairment only adding to his rage. His mother's partner took his anger and frustration out on Hawkins: "I had to hear my mom get beat up every night. I’d pee on myself, just scared to even walk out into the hallway, because I didn’t want to see nothing".[61]
Career
2002–2004: Career beginnings
At age 13, Brown was discovered by Hitmission Records, a local production team that visited the gas station where his father worked, while searching for new talent.[62] Around the same time, he performed with one of his production managers’ son, named TJ, for hip hop artist Puff Daddy, but the rapper refused to sign him to his record label Bad Boy Records.[63] Hitmission's Lamont Fleming provided voice coaching for Brown. The team helped to arrange a demo package, under the name of "C. Sizzle", and approached contacts in New York. Tina Davis, senior A&R executive at Def Jam Recordings, heard the demo package that Brown's local team had sent to Def Jam, and among the artists contained in the CD she was impressed by Brown with his track "Whose Girl Is That".[64] Davis later had Brown auditioning in her New York office, and she immediately took him to meet the former president of the Island Def Jam Music Group, Antonio "L.A." Reid, who offered to sign him that day, but Brown refused his proposal because Reid wouldn't talk to his mother.[65] Brown then started to sojourn in Harlem, New York, to seek a record deal.[66] The negotiations with Def Jam continued for two months, and ended when Davis lost her job due to a corporate merger. Brown asked her to be his manager, and once Davis accepted, she promoted the singer to other labels such as Jive Records, J-Records and Warner Bros. Records. "I knew that Chris had real talent," says Davis. "I just knew I wanted to be part of it."[67] Brown attended Essex High School in Virginia until late 2004, when he moved to New York to pursue his music career.[68]
According to Mark Pitts, in an interview with HitQuarters, Davis presented Brown with a video recording, and Pitts' reaction was: "I saw huge potential ... I didn't love all the records, but I loved his voice. It wasn't a problem because I knew that he could sing, and I knew how to make records."[69] Brown ultimately chose Jive due to its successful work with then-young acts such as Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Brown stated, "I picked Jive because they had the best success with younger artists in the pop market, [...] I knew I was going to capture my African American audience, but Jive had a lot of strength in the pop area as well as longevity in careers."[67] Brown said in a 2013 interview, that during his permanence in Harlem, when he was trying to get his music heard by major labels, his artistic intention was to both rap and sing on his records, but Jive convinced him to stick to just singing, because according to him "it wasn't acceptable yet" for an R&B singer to also rap on records.[70]
Personal life
Relationships
From 2007 to 2009, Brown dated singer Rihanna until their highly publicized domestic violence case.[359] In 2011, Brown briefly dated model Draya Michele.[360] Later during the same year, Brown began dating Karrueche Tran, whom he had met while she was working as a personal assistant to a stylist.[361] In February 2012, Rihanna and Brown released remixes to their singles "Turn Up The Music" and "Birthday Cake", leading observers to speculate about their relationship.[362] In October 2012, Brown announced that he ended his relationship with Tran because he did not "want to see her hurt over my friendship with Rihanna."[363] The day after the announcement, Brown released a video entitled "The Real Chris Brown", which features images of himself, Tran, and Rihanna, as Brown wonders, "Is there such thing as loving two people? I don't know if it's possible, but I feel like that."[364]
In January 2013, Rihanna confirmed that she and Brown had resumed their romantic relationship, stating, "It's different now. We don't have those types of arguments anymore. We talk about shit. We value each other. We know exactly what we have now, and we don't want to lose that."[365][366] Speaking of Brown, Rihanna also said, "He's not the monster everybody thinks. He's a good person. He has a fantastic heart. He's giving and loving. And he's fun to be around. That's what I love about him – he always makes me laugh. All I want to do is laugh, really – and I do that with him".[367] Rihanna and Brown collaborated again on a duet song off Rihanna's Unapologetic album titled "Nobody's Business".[368] The song was noted by critics as a public response by the couple towards the public perception of their intimacy.[369] In a May 2013 interview, Brown stated that he and Rihanna had broken up again.[370] He subsequently reunited with Tran, but they parted ways following confirmation of Brown's first-born daughter in 2015, unwittingly conceived with another woman during a break from his releationship with Tran.[371][372] Brown also welcomed a son and a second daughter in 2019 and 2022, respectively, each with a different woman.[373][374][375]
Religion
When discussing his upbringing, Brown stated: "We were used to two pairs of shoes for a school year. We used to go to church every day. I was one of those kids that had more church clothes than school clothes."[376] He has also discussed his second work of grace, saying that "he experienced the Holy Ghost while performing 'His Eye Is on the Sparrow' in church".[376] After being released from jail on June 2, 2014, Brown wrote that he was "Humbled and Blessed" and tweeted the words "Thank you GOD."[377]
In 2015, he said during an interview for Vibe, that God is the only thing that he's afraid of. Speaking about prayers he said "I pray everyday, I think we pray unconsciously too. Personally I don't pray for success. I pray for knowledge for understanding and peace of mind. I really try to pray for that because it's a big world, and you can get wrapped up in it trying to please every city. So I just try to get a peace of mind and me understanding that being at peace with my flaws and my talents. I'm cool with that. That's why I think once He shows me certain things, or even the choices that I make, and decisions that I make that are healthy for me. He shows me the right path. When I bless other people, He always blesses me. It's not even about a self-serving journey; it's about just learning. I want to learn people's experiences. I want to give them experiences too."[378]
Mental health
Despite his commercial success and stardom, Brown has long struggled with mental health issues and addiction.[379] In his Welcome to My Life documentary, Brown revealed that he had contemplated suicide following the Rihanna incident.[380] The singer unveiled, during a 2013 interview with The Guardian, that he lost his virginity at the age of 8 to a girl who was 14 or 15 at the time, justifying the episode with the countryside context in which he grew up.[381] In 2013, Brown was sentenced to 90 days in rehab by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to fullfill the terms of his probation for the Rihanna incident.[382] While at the rehab facility, Brown was formally diagnosed with bipolar II disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.[383] The rehab facility stated that Brown will require close supervision by a physician "to ensure his bipolar mental health condition remains stable. It is not uncommon for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II to use substances to self-medicate their biochemical mood swings and trauma triggers".[384] The clinical team at the rehab facility also attributed Brown's aggression to his untreated mental health disorder, severe sleep deprivation, inappropriate self-medicating and untreated PTSD.[384][385]
In a 2014 interview with radio personality Ebro Darden, Brown revealed that prior to his 2013 incarceration, he used “the syrup, the Xanax,” and added that while marijuana offset his hyperactive tendencies, "once I started doing the lean, the other stuff … I'd be sitting in the [recording] booth sleeping."[379] In 2017, Billboard wrote an investigative article about Brown's mental health issues and addiction.[379] According to what ex-members of his team told Billboard, around April 2015 he had broken a 15-month stretch of sobriety, going out on Xanax and lean, spiraling into a more frequent drug use in the first months of 2016.[379] Former members of Brown's team also told Billboard that he was using cocaine, Xanax, marijuana, molly and lean.[379] Additionally, his former security guards revealed that certain nights they had to check Brown's pulse through the night while he slept to ensure he had not overdosed.[379]
