Can We Please Give CB his Flowers?

Is it just me, or did we just completely forget about Chris Brown? I know that his “Under the Influence” tour made him a lot of money and he is still well known to an abundance of people, but he hasn’t had a big hit or a radio presence in a while (last big song he had on the radio was “Go Crazy” with Young Thug four years ago. Yes, 2020 was four years ago). So, let’s talk about Chris Brown for this month’s article, his grip on pop music for a while, then his sudden decline.

The Start of Breezy’s career

When you bring up early Chris Brown to most random people, the first song that they think about is “Run It!”, which was his debut single (he had a song called “Whose Girl is That?” under the name C.Sizzle before), and an amazing one at that, as it secured the 16-year old Virginia prodigy’s first number one hit. Not to mention, it is also a good song. With an infectious synth line provided by Scott Storch, a High School Musical-esque music video, some iconic dance moves, and a great vocal performance from Breezy, it instantly became a 2000s classic. The only downside is Juelz Santana’s verse (he spends his time on the song ether rapping terrible P. Diddy lines, “I know what girls want, I know what they like”, “You tell your friends to get with my fiends, we can be friends” or talking about his shlong “Wait ‘till you see my (what?)”) which can be easily avoided with the “Main Mix” (There truly is a G-d). Later in ‘05, Brown’s first album, “(self titled)” released, with a few more hits, including “Yo (Excuse Me Miss)” the remix for “Gimme That” with Lil Wayne (That beat is fire) and the absolute classic “Say Goodbye” (rest in peace to any dude who chose this song in karaoke and tried to hit THAT high note at 3:20)

Exclusive Era

The period in between self titled and 2007’s “Exclusive” came with one major change, puberty. Breezy’s voice went dramatically from sounding like a whiny 5-year-old (especially live), to a little bit more like Maxwell without the smoothness, but we weren’t fully there yet, as the 5-year old voice still comes out in some tracks. The voice wasn’t the only change in Brown’s career at the time. He got a couple tattoos, won best new artist at the Soul Train Awards, and did a tribute to Michael Jackson at the World Music Awards (That wouldn’t be his last homage to the king of pop). This new era started off with “Wall to Wall”, which is a solid song, but not really first-single worthy, as it wasn’t as successful as “Run It!”. It peaked only at 79 on the Billboard Hot 100 (I love how I’m saying only like any artist wouldn’t kill to have their song in the hot 100, let alone #79). Then, months later, on November 7th, 2007, “Exclusive” was released to the public. (Sidenote: The album was supposed to be called “Graduation”, but CB switched after he heard Kanye was naming his album that too). And, because this was Brezzy’s so-called best album, I listened to it in full (I will only do it for this album though). I thought it was okay.

Ok, hear me out before I get crucified, there are some high-quality slappers. The opener  “Throwed” sets the tone for an album filled with club bangers, “Picture Perfect” has a great will.i.am beat, Big Boi rides the beat to perfection on “Hold Up”, and “Gimme Whatcha Got” is just late 2000s pop-rap played to perfection. But, the rest of the album suffers the same fate as The Weeknd’s “Starboy”, where much of the solo tracks during the second half sound exactly the same. But, I can’t deny the power of Brown’s second-biggest hit “Kiss Kiss” with T-Pain, which is so great in its datedness; it’s a song that could only be made in 2007. But, after a number one album and a bunch of top 40 smashes, the worst of the worst happened to Breezy. 

The Rihanna Incident

Before anyone gets mad at me, I (obviously) am not involved in this incident at all, I am just reporting the facts here and using them to base my opinion. 

Allegedly, when Breezy and Rihanna were in a relationship, he hit her, a lot. I’m talking Ike Turner bad. Of course, Brown has owned up to this, but is still salty when people criticize him for the thing he did when he was 19 and continue to harp on it even though he’s now ins his late-30s. My take on it is this: if you want to punish Breezy for what he did, then Dr. Dre should be canceled too. 

Dre did the same thing to his girlfriend, Michele, 25 years earlier, but no one has ever brought it up unless it’s either a one-time joke by a standup comedian, or when the media did the press rollout for Michele’s biopic “Surviving Compton” where there are literal scenes in the movie that reenact what Dre did. After the movie was released, he dropped the album “Compton” and performed at the goddamn Superbowl, but he never got any bad press or got canceled for it like Brown did. And I somewhat get it, Breezy didn’t create “The Chronic” and “2001”,  but Dr. Dre wasn’t 19 when he did it, he was 28, about a decade older. That’s pretty bad  considering that 19 is an age where you’re expected to make mistakes, while 28 is about 1/3rd of an average human’s lifespan.

Post Rihanna 

Those few years right after the incident were the worst in Brown’s life as a celebrity, but one of the best musically, as he released three projects that went top ten first week in “Graffiti” “F.A.M.E.”, and  “Fortune”, with the latter two hitting number one. It seems even with his bad-boy persona, Brown still could sell records. This reminds me of 2 Live Crew, and how their controversy helped them sell a bunch of records. The best performing of the bunch was definitely “F.A.M.E”, and a contributing factor to that success had to do with the song “Look at Me Now”, which has nothing to do with Chris Brown. To be fair, he has 1 and a half verses, but the song really starts at 1:30, when you hear “Ayo Breezy, let me show you how to keep the dice rolling when you doin’ that thing over there homie.” Then Busta Rhymes spits the best feature verse he’s had since “Ante Up”, maybe even “Scenario”, rapping at an astonishing 9.9 syllables per second. Then, if it couldn’t get any better, Lil Wayne comes in and tries to one up Busta. He puts up a valiant effort; his verse was full of classic early 2010s Tunechi energy, but can you really one-up the king of one-upping?

The Redemption Arc 

2014 was the era when Breezy became Chris Brown. His voice finally became the rough-Maxwell archetype that I foreshadowed earlier, meaning his songs were in a lower key than before, and his tracks were about more adult topics (he also did some features for Pusha T and Nicki Minaj). There are classics like “Loyal” (still relevant today), “New Flame” (crazy how long it took for an Usher and Breezy collab), and “Autumn Leaves”, but also underrated deep cuts like “They Don’t Think They Know” with Aaliyah. But, the honor for best song on the album undoubtedly goes to “Fine China”, the best song of 2014, and Brown’s career. There aren’t that many songs that leave me physically distraught trying to describe it, but “Fine China” is one of them. Because of this, I will use “Fine China” as a way to describe Chris’s dancing, as he posted a one-take freestyle dance on his YouTube channel. And, it’s also immaculate. There are small glimpses in the video where you see the king of pop randomly possess Brown’s body, and when the backup dancers come in, they collectively never miss a beat. For all people who discredit Breezy for all he’s done and call him overrated, I encourage you to listen to this song. If it doesn’t change your perception, nothing will.
 

Post 2014

Sadly, Breezy’s career was another rollercoaster after 2014. He had some solid hits in 2015 (the biggest of which being “Ayo” with Tyga), fell off from 2016-18, but came back in 2019 and 2020 with collaborations with Drake (“No Guidance”) and Young Thug (“Go Crazy”). But, CB  is still a legend in the R&B world, as there is a campaign to get him to co-headline the 2025 superbowl in NOLA with Lil Wayne. 

So, to answer the question I posted in the beginning: what happened? I think it was a mix of controversy, age, and his evolution away from smooth R&B. The 2010s and forward were an age of controversy for some R&B/Hip-Hop legends. KanYe West, R. Kelly, Rick Ross, Will Smith, and more have been universally shunned because of things that they had done. Here’s a fun game: can you remember the last time you either heard one of the artist’s I mentioned on the radio— OR, if you did hear their music on the radio, how long did it take for you to think about their controversy? 

The other reason for his disappearance is Chris’s distance from the smooth R&B/Scott Storch-produced sound that made him famous. I think his fans want him to do that instead of his more melodic R&B sound that he’s been doing for the past few years. But, I think they should let him do what he wants. If you want an artist who listens to his fans mostly instead of doing what he wants, you’ve got him. His name is Drake, who hasn’t had a cohesive project with a theme since the Obama administration. It’s sad, yes, but we can appreciate the great music that the old CB gave us without pressuring the current one to try and replicate something he did almost 20 years ago.