Christopher Maurice Brown was born May 5, 1989 in the small town of Tappahannock, Virginia, to Joyce Hawkins, a former day care center director, and Clinton Brown, a corrections officer at a local prison. He has an older sister, Lytrell Bundy, who works in a bank. Music was always present in Brown’s life beginning in his childhood. He would listen to soul albums that his parents owned, and eventually began to show interest in the hip-hop scene. Is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, dancer, and actor. One of the most successful R&B singers of his generation, he has often been referred to by many contemporaries as the “King of R&B”. His musical style has been defined as polyhedric, with his R&B being characterized by several influences from other genres, mainly hip hop and pop music. His lyrics develop predominantly over themes of lovesickness, romance, sex, fast life, desire, regret, emotional conflict and loneliness. Brown has gained a cult following and wide comparisons to Michael Jackson for his stage presence.
Career beginnings, 2002 At age 13, Brown was discovered by Hitmission Records, a local production team that visited his father’s gas station while searching for new talent. Hitmission’s Lamont Fleming provided voice coaching for Brown, and the team helped to arrange a demo package, under the name of “C. Sizzle”, and approached contacts in New York, where Brown started to sojourn, to seek a record deal. Brown attended Essex High School in Virginia until late 2004, when he moved to New York to pursue his music career. Tina Davis, senior A&R executive at Def Jam Recordings, was impressed when Brown auditioned 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. “I knew that Chris had real talent,” says Davis. “I just knew I wanted to be part of it.”
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. 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. “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.” Brown said 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 he said that “it wasn’t acceptable yet” for an R&B singer to also rap on records.
In 2007, he received twelve nominations but did not win any awards. In 2008, Brown has received forty-one nominations and won sixteen, including Favorite Male Pop/Rock Artist, Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist and Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards; Best Male R&B Artist at the BET Awards; Best Heartbreak Video for “No Air” at the BET Pre-Awards; Best International Act and Best R&B/Soul at the MOBO Awards; Best Male Video for “With You” at the MTV Video Music Awards; Best Male Artist at the NAACP Image Awards; Favorite Male Singer at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards; Best R&B Artist at the Ozone Awards; Choice Music Hookup for “No Air”, Choice Music: Male Artist, Choice Music: R&B Artist, Choice Music: R&B Track for “Forever” and Choice Music: Rap/Hip Hop Track for “Shawty Get Loose” at the Teen Choice Awards. In 2010, he won the AOL Fandemonium Award at the BET Awards.
On July 11, 2012, Brown’s community service was evaluated and he was ordered to meet a judge. The evaluation was ordered by Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg on July 10, 2012. He was scheduled to appear in court with regard to the evaluation on August 21, 2012 While conducting his community service in Virginia, however, Brown was tested positive for cannabis and appeared in court on September 25, 2012, at which time his hearing date was changed to November, to determine whether or not he had violated the terms of his court order. On March 20, 2015, Brown’s probation ended, formally closing the felony case emanating from the Rihanna assault which happened over six years prior.
In a 2017 self-documentary, Welcome to My Life, Brown goes into detail about the abusive relationship, saying he intended to marry Rihanna, but that she lost trust in him after finding out that he lied about a prior relationship someone who worked with him. Brown also provided a detailed description on how the known fight went down.
Brown has stated he owns fourteen Burger King restaurants. In 2012, he launched a streetwear clothing line called Black Pyramid, in collaboration with the founders of the Pink + Dolphin clothing line. In 2016 the clothing label was set for larger release, partnering with streetwear clothing lines such as Snipes for a worldwide distribution, also being distributed through its own Black Pyramid boutiques.
On November 11, 2021, the singer launched his own cereal, “Breezy’s Cosmic Crunch”, partnering with SoFlo Snacks for this limited edition of collectible breakfast cereal.
In January 2022, a woman filed a civil suit accusing Brown of raping her on a yacht in Miami in December 2020. The woman attempted to sue Brown for $20 million. Brown denied the allegations and later submitted text messages to the Miami police department which indicated a consensual relationship with the accuser. According to TMZ, Brown plans to counter sue the accuser for defamation for making false accusations, and the accuser’s lawyer dropped the case against him citing that she was unaware of the messages. The lawsuit against Brown was dropped in August 2022 due to lack of prosecution.
On September 4, 2022, Brown won international artiste of the year at the 15th annual Headies awards. The category is designed for non-African artists or groups with outstanding achievements and impact on Afrobeats. Also in September, the single release of “Under the Influence”, Brown became the first R&B singer in history to chart over fifty top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. On October 14, 2022, Brown appeared as a special guest at Usher’s Las Vegas Residency to perform a few songs, including Back to Sleep (Remix), Under the Influence and Heat.
During the show Usher took a moment to give Brown his flowers. “I love you. You a great. You’re a legend. We love you and we gon’ continue to keep lifting you up,” said Usher. On November 16, 2022, Brown released two Christmas themed standalone singles titled “No Time Like Christmas” and “It’s Giving Christmas” and later dropped visuals for the singles in December. On November 18, 2022, Brown took to his Instagram page to announce that the American Music Awards had canceled his scheduled tribute performance to Michael Jackson in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the later singer’s 1982 Thriller album. Brown also shared rehearsal footage of the cancelled tribute and stated the performance was cancelled for unknown reasons.
The cancelled tribute prompted backlash against the AMAs from fans and industry peers alike. Jermaine Dupri stated the decision to pull the tribute signals something grave for celebration of Black Music stating that “If the American Music Awards canceled the Chris Brown performance, then that means they canceled the 40th anniversary of Thriller. Which means they canceled the Michael Jackson tribute. Black Music, we in trouble.” Similarly John Branca, the co-executor of the Michael Jackson Estate stated that the AMAs should be ashamed of themselves and that the cancellation is an attack on Black Music.
On December 9, 2022, Brown announced a European tour for 2023 titled the “Under The Infuence” tour with artist Skillibeng as a special guest. Within minutes, the entire 19-show tour sold out, including four nights at London’s renowned O2 Arena, two nights at Accor Arena in Paris, two nights at Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam and more. Prior to the start of the Under The Influence tour, the original opening act Skillibeng withdrew from the tour and was replaced by South African Amapiano artist Tyla Seethal.
In January 2023, Brown surpassed Elvis Presley for the most RIAA Gold Certified Singles among all male vocalists in history, after previously passing Presley for the most Billboard Hot 100 entries among all male vocalists. In March 2023, Brown became only the fifth artist in Billboard history to reach 10 No. 1s on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart with his hit record Under the Influence. Additionally, Brown earned his 18th No. 1 on the Billboard’s Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart with Under the Influence. Making him the artist with the third most No. 1s on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart behind Drake and Lil Wayne in first and second, respectively.