Chris Brown: Portrait of the Artist as a Grown A$$ Man
Exclusive interview with Chris Brown talking about his new album, X.
by Barry Michael Cooper
“You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.”
― James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Millennial interpolation of hip hop and R&B is drowning in wack juice.
To say this new music sounds like steel tipped fingers nails scraping against a blackboard is an understatement. My two sons (Millennials in their late 20s) are amused as they watch me cringe, (as they pick me up for our Saturday hangout at CPK in Hunt Valley) listening to Bmore’s 92Q or DC’s WPGC; song after song is an auto-tuned, pro-tooled, E.D.M’d monody of all things mad corny. An E.D.M. flatline of turnt’up and molly’d out white noise that has pulled the soulful plug on black music.
Yeah, I guess Will Smith was right; parents just don’t understand.
So when I say that Millennial hip hop/R&B doesn’t move me, I am not engaging in hyperbole, when I state that Chris Brown’s latest album—title “X”—might be a fifteen. That is, on a scale of one-to-ten. X feels like the ghosts of both Michael Jackson and Tupac Shakur fighting over the fractured soul of a fragile young megastar. If Chris Brown is a living, breathing, perpetual headline, then X is the inside scoop.
The album is that good.
From the title track (executed in a voice that has matured from a bubble-gum teenager up-rocker, to a hauntingly lush Spinto tenor) where Chris almost whispers “If you’re only as good/as the company you keep/then I’ma blame you/for what they say about me,” to “Autumn Leaves,” (where Chris teams up with the Prince of Hip Hop, Kendrick Lamar, and intones “Before I sleep/I talk to GOD/HE must be mad at me/HE’s Coming/I’m confused to whom I’ll spend my forever with,”) X is unflinching insight into Chris’s tenuous relationship with that savagely beautiful and sexy beast, known as Fame. Like The White Album, What’s Going On, Exile on Main Street, Ready To Die, and Reasonable Doubt in the decades proceeding it, Chris Brown’s X is the tortuously psychic narrative of a confounded generation. In a recent phone interview, Chris Brown explained why he feels X marks his spot in pop culture’s shifting firmament.
Barry Michael Cooper:
This is a great album. I would even say this is your grown-a$$ man album. Define what X means to you. What’s the concept about?
Chris Brown:
When I first heard the actual record, I was in the studio with Diplo (the producer), and he was playing this beat. At the time I wanted to find that song to define my album, and to define what I was going through at the time. The lyrics to the title track was my attempt to be completely transparent. I didn’t just want to have a record to feel good and dance to. I wanted to have a message, and X means I am X-ing out all of the negativity, and all of the bullshit that I have been through, and to let everyone I am moving forward. X was my opportunity to address everything from my relationship issues to my legal issues, and to be completely open, honest, and transparent, through my music.
Barry Michael Cooper:
In a relatively short period of time, you have lived more life than folks twice your age. Do you think people sometimes forget that you are just 25 years old?
Chris Brown:
I think people do get sidetracked, and forget that I started in this business when I was fifteen. And yes, some people forget that the trials and tribulations that I have gone through, are the effects of a young man who has the world looking at him at all times. As I have matured, I understand that that kind of scrutiny comes with the territory. I have to accept that, instead of always rebelling, and doing the typical, young, immature kid shit. Now is the time for me to show people that I have matured, but at the same time, still enjoy being 25 years old.
Barry Michael Cooper:
You have legends on this album like R. Kelly and Usher; they paved the way for what you are doing today. It’s almost as if you are using what they have done—in addition to your admiration of icons like Michael Jackson, Tupac and Marvin Gaye—as a template to define the music of this new generation.
Chris Brown:
Yes, with X I was focused on creating a body of work that defined who I was as a person. Everyone has that one particular album that can sometimes define the blueprint of who they are. I feel X displays my growth musically and emotionally. I wanted to maintain the consistency of my previous work, but also show how much I have grown as an artist.
Barry Michael Cooper:
Talk about Autumn Leaves, with Kendrick Lamar. If that was the only song on X, it would still make it a contender for album of the year. When I listen to it, I hear Grammy nomination. How did it come together?
Chris Brown:
I love songs that not only have a strong metaphor, but don’t get lost in translation. I feel Autumn Leaves is that kind of a song. Initially, when I was thinking about the emcee who could really give strength to the verses needed for the song, I thought about Andre 3000. But I went with Kendrick because as a young emcee and a lyricist, he possesses so much potential to lead our hip hop culture forward.
Barry Michael Cooper:
On the track Do Better, it seems as if you are once again, opening the door to public scrutiny. The lyrics are telling and powerful: “I see you startin to hate me/I see it in your face/I won’t lie/I’m startin to hate me/a little more and more each day.” I was asked by your publicist to avoid questions about the shooting during your pre-VMA party at 1OAK on the Sunset Strip last month, but I would be remiss as a journalist if I didn’t ask; what was going through your mind, when you stood up on that table at one 1OAK, when those shots rang out in the club tht night?
Chris Brown:
I have no problem talking about that. In interviews now, I am not ashamed of who I am, and I feel the X album addresses all of those questions through my music, because I’m not a great public speaker, and music is a better avenue for me. As far as what happened at 1OAK, when I am in the club, I like to be aware of my surroundings. I’m from the hood, and been to parties in many different parts of the hood; house parties, parties in the projects, and I have been in situations like that before, when the spot gets shot up. The difference is when something goes down, I want to be fully aware of what’s going on. I know when that happens, people falling down, pulling people down, and running and everything, because you don’t know who’s shooting. I keep my eyes open to everything that’s going on around me, so that I don’t wind up a victim.
Barry Michael Cooper:
When you were locked up, what did that do to you? Did it inspire your creativity, or did it kill it?
Chris Brown:
I think being locked up put a hold on my creativity. When you are in a place like that, Jail is a place that forces a lot of discipline on you, and its not a place to be very creative. For me, I am not a guy to sit down to get a pen and pad and write. Even in the studio, when I come up with these songs, I go right into the booth, I just let the emotion or whatever I’m feeling come out. Being in jail, it wasn’t an opportunity for me to sit around and be creative. I was just trying to do my time, and get my head straight on what I need to be doing with my life—for real, for real—and focus on what’s important. I was focused on trying to change, and maybe that’s why GOD put me in jail. To change my life.
Barry Michael Cooper:
When things like the incident in D.C. happen, do you think people seek you out as a target?
Chris Brown:
Well I think in general, artists are targets, because of celebrity status, and just envy, period. Everybody loves you, but at the same time, people are jealous, too. So you don’t always know who has your best interest, or the ones who are true fans. It’s on me, personally, to make sure I’m in the right scenario, and when I see a situation that is about to escalate into something negative, I need to make the choice separate myself from it, and put myself in a position that stuff like that won’t happen. That’s what I kept in mind while I was in jail, and now while I am out in public, too. That’s not what I am trying to be. I don’t have to be a gangster, but I’m still a man. But at the end of the day, it’s life man. Shit happens all the time. The choices we make to curb all of the bullshit, that is what is most important.
