Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. An R&B musician who works in a variety of genres,
he has been called the "King of R&B" by some contemporaries.
His lyrics often address emotional and hedonistic themes.
In 2004, Brown signed with Jive Records. The following year, he released his first album, Chris Brown, which reached double Platinum certification by the end of 2006. Brown topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart with his debut single, "Run It!", making him the first male artist since 1995 to do so. His second album, Exclusive (2007), was commercially successful worldwide and spawned his second Billboard Hot 100 number-one single, "Kiss Kiss".
In 2009, Brown faced significant controversy and media attention when he pleaded guilty to felony assault of his then girlfriend, the singer Rihanna. He was sentenced to five years probation with six months community service.
The same year, he released his third album, Graffiti, which underperformed commercially. He released his fourth album F.A.M.E. (2011), which was his first album to top the Billboard 200. The album contained the commercially successful singles "Yeah 3x", Diamond certified "Look at Me Now" and "Beautiful People", and earned him the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. 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 3 of the Billboard 200, his eighth album, Heartbreak on a Full Moon (2017), a double-disc LP consisting of 45 tracks, was certified Gold for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 after one week, and later certified double Platinum. Brown's ninth album, Indigo (2019) found similar success, debuting atop the Billboard 200. It included the single "No Guidance" which broke the record for longest-running number one on Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. Its chart success was outdone with the single "Go Crazy" released the following year, which broke Brown's own record for longest-running number one. In 2022, his Indigo album spawned a sleeper hit with its song "Under the Influence", which was re-released as a single. In the 2020s, Brown released top-10 debuts Breezy in 2022, Grammy-winning 11:11 in 2023, and Brown in 2026.
Brown has sold over 140 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists.
He has gained a cult following,
and is one of the highest-grossing African American touring artists of all time. His singing and dancing skills have often been compared favorably to those of Michael Jackson.* In 2019, Billboard named Brown the third most successful artist of the 2010s decade in R&B and hip-hop music, behind Drake and Rihanna. Brown has won 219 awards from 566 nominations over the course of his career. He has also pursued an acting career. In 2007, he made his feature film debut in Stomp the Yard, and appeared as a guest on the television series The O.C. Other films include This Christmas (2007), Takers (2010), Think Like a Man (2012) and Battle of the Year (2013).
Early life, family and education Christopher Maurice Brown was born on May 5, 1989, in 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, a bank employee. Music has been present in Brown's life since his childhood. He listened to soul albums his parents owned, and eventually began to show interest in hip-hop.
His parents had divorced when he was 6 years old, and his mother's boyfriend, Donnelle Hawkins, terrified him by subjecting her to domestic violence. In a 2017 self-documentary film, Welcome to My Life, Brown recalls the couple's 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. Donnelle vented his anger and frustration on Brown's mother. "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".
Brown taught himself to sing and dance at a young age and often cites Michael Jackson as his inspiration. He began to perform in his church choir and in several local talent shows. Brown said, during a 2023 interview with Shannon Sharpe, that he began considering a music career 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'." 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.
At age 16, Brown dropped out of Essex High School in Virginia in late 2004 or early 2005 to relocate and pursue a music career.
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. Around the same time, he performed with one of his production manager's sons, named TJ, for hip-hop artist Puff Daddy, but the rapper refused to sign him to his record label Bad Boy Records. 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 various artists on the CD, she was impressed by Brown’s track "Whose Girl Is That". Davis later had Brown auditioning in her New York office, and she immediately took him to meet the then president of 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. Brown then moved temporarily to Harlem, New York City, to seek a record deal. 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."
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." In a 2014 interview, Brown said that during his time in Harlem, his artistic intention was to both rap and sing on his records. However, Jive convinced him to focus solely on singing, because at the time, "it wasn't acceptable yet" for an R&B singer to also rap on records.
2005–2006: Chris Brown and acting debut
After signing to Jive Records in 2004, Brown began recording his self-titled debut studio album in February 2005. By May, there were 50 songs already recorded, 14 of which were picked to the final track listing. He has worked with producers and songwriters Scott Storch, Cool & Dre, Sean Garrett, Jazze Pha, and others, and has said that they "really believed in [him]". Brown co-wrote half of the tracks. "I write about the things that 16 year olds go through every day," he said in 2005. "Like you just got in trouble for sneaking your girl into the house, or you can't drive, so you steal a car or something." The whole album took less than eight weeks to produce.
The album's lead single, "Run It!", was a great commercial success, making Brown the first male act since Montell Jordan in 1995 to have his debut single to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100—later remaining for four additional weeks. Three other singles, "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)", "Gimme That", and "Say Goodbye", were successful, peaking in the top 20 on the same chart. Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 154,000 copies. In a retrospective review, Mya Singleton from Yardbarker listed the album among "the best R&B albums of the 2000s". Chris Brown sold over four million copies in the US and was certified four times platinum by the RIAA; worldwide, it had sold six million copies as of 2009.
On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey, which shows footage of him traveling through England and Japan, preparing for his first visit to the Grammy Awards, behind the scenes of his music videos and bloopers. On August 17, 2006, to further promote the album, Brown began his major co-headlining tour, The Up Close and Personal Tour. Due to the tour, production for his next album was pushed back two months. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received $10,000 in ticket proceeds from Brown's 2006 Up Close & Personal Tour. Brown has made appearances on UPN's One on One and The N's Brandon T. Jackson Show on its pilot episode.
2007–2008: Exclusive
In January 2007, Brown landed a small role as a band geek in the fourth season of the American television series The O.C.. Brown then made his film debut in Stomp the Yard, alongside Ne-Yo, Meagan Good and Columbus Short on January 12, 2007. In April 2007, Brown was the opening act for Beyoncé, on the Australian leg of her The Beyoncé Experience tour. On July 9, 2007, Brown was featured in an episode of MTV's My Super Sweet 16 (for the event, it was retitled: Chris Brown: My Super 18) celebrating his eighteenth birthday in New York City.
Shortly after ending his summer tour with Ne-Yo, Brown quickly began production for his second studio album, Exclusive. The album's lead single, "Wall to Wall" was released, and peaked at number 79 on US Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Kiss Kiss", featuring T-Pain, was released as the album's second single and achieved significant success, reaching number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 and becoming his second number-one single after "Run It!" in 2005. "With You", produced by Stargate (a production duo known at the time for their work with R&B singer Ne-Yo), was released as the third single from Exclusive. It achieved greater worldwide success than "Kiss Kiss", becoming one of the all-time best-selling digital singles and reaching number two on the US Billboard Hot 100. Exclusive was released in the US on November 6, 2007. According to The Guardian the album demonstrated "his agility in fusing R&B with the era's auto-tuned strain of pop-leaning hip-hop". The album debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 294,000 copies in its first week, becoming a bigger commercial success than his previous outing. Exclusive was certified four times platinum by the RIAA.