Official Music Video

One Take

“X is about life, it’s about me,” he says. “It’s the Roman numeral for 10. 5/5/89 is my birthday: 5 plus 5 is 10, and this is my tenth years since I got into music. X is the 24th letter of the alphabet, and I’ll be 24 when it comes out. When you see X on a vial, it’s like forbidden fruit. For me, it means being able to express myself without a filter, without boundaries.”

During a studio visit, the typically press-shy Brown is all smiles as he plays five new X tracks, including potent first single Fine China and its video, a lavish cinematic treatment with a dazzling mashup of martial arts choreography and dance moves. Both are out April 1, and the album is expected by late summer. The rollout will entail not only a tour and promotional appearances, but also interviews.

“I’m going back to groundwork,” he says. “I’ll show people who I am and not be a recluse. I wasn’t ready to talk before. It was timing. I’m more comfortable in my own body.”

Widely reported eruptions — a fracas with Drake at a New York club last year and a fight with Frank Ocean over a parking space in West Hollywood in January — were setbacks on Brown’s path to redemption.

The public hasn’t seen his progress, because “people see the circus on the blogs,” he says. “I’m cool. I’m happy. I’m focused. I’m a lot calmer. Everyone has anger issues and days they don’t feel like being bothered.

“I’m passionate about everything I do, whether I’m driving my car or hanging out. I wear my heart on my sleeve. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. Sometimes it comes off the wrong way. I’m learning how to deal with it and how to channel that into my music.”

Cobbled from a pool of 50 songs, X evolved from a process looser than the rigid strategy taken on 2011′s Grammy-winning F.A.M.E. and last year’s Fortune.

“I wanted a Quincy Jones approach, where you bring in various writers and producers and they vibe off each other,” he says. “I wanted to keep it comfortable and natural and draw creativity off the energy in the room. I wasn’t focusing on what could make a No. 1 single. I was honing in on the craft and different emotions from my life. I was more open to defining who I am: Chris Brown, a young man, not a full-grown man.”

5 songs Preview of X

• Fine China. Roccstar and PK produced the soulful track written by Brown, Sevyn, Roccstar and Eric Bellinger. “I’m keeping it fresh but it pays homage to the old greats, Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke and Michael Jackson,” Brown says. “I don’t like to go with what the crowd is doing or what I hear on the radio. I go with a gut instinct and what I feel in my heart.”

• Add Me In. Brown, Roccstar and Bellinger wrote the Danja-produced retro-R&B tune with a mathematical twist on romance. “I like to use metaphor,” Brown says. “There’s not a lot of synthesized sounds and Auto-Tune. It’s just real singing.”

• Autumn Leaves. Produced by BAM and written by Brown and Roccstar, the unfinished tune’s melancholy tone will lighten with the addition of an upbeat rap from Kendrick Lamar. “It’s one of those songs that you put on in the car and just ride,” Brown says. “It makes me think about a rainy day.”

• Lady in Glass Dress. Camper produced the inspirational track that Brown wrote with Sam Hook. “It’s saying that I know there may be girls out there who have had their hearts broken and don’t have faith in relationships anymore,” Brown says. “They have dreams of being loved. Everything will be all right.”

• X. Producer Diplo brings an electronic wallop to hip-hop grooves on an autobiographical tune Brown penned with Roccstar, Sevyn and Dewaine Whitmore Jr. One lyric, in which the singer declines taunts to fight so he can rejoin a party, contradicts the rap on Brown.

“That’s my mentality,” he says. “I’m focused on my path, on being more positive and on the up and up.”

That means shrugging off Internet gossip, including persistent reports that he’ll wed a bikini-clad Rihanna in July in Barbados. “That would be a rumor,” he says.

Likewise regarding speculation about infidelity. “We’re good,” he says. “We’re taking it one day at a time. She’s a wonderful girl. She’s beautiful. She’s on tour and our schedules don’t allow us to be as close as we want to be. But everything is good. She will be on my album.”

Jennifer Lopez may be another Madame X. Last week, she tweeted a photo of herself in the studio with Brown, starting a brush-fire of speculation. Brown will only say the collaboration is “phenomenal” and could appear on his album, hers or both.

“We met briefly at the Grammys and she said she wanted me to write for her album,” he says. “Working with her was amazing.”

Outside of music, Brown has been busy, starring in Battle of the Year: The Dream Team, a break-dancing film due in September, and showing his graffiti-inspired paintings in galleries.

“There’s still a lot for me to prove,” he says. “I have a lot of goals and ambition. I’m going to be better in the future.”

Source

For his sixth studio album, Brown will work with producers Timbaland and Danja, who worked with him on the Grammy-nominated, chart-topping Fortune. He’s also enlisted the help of Diplo, who previously worked with Brown on his Grammy-winning F.A.M.E. in 2011.

Further information about the release — including a title and release date — has yet to be released. Last week, Breezy dropped a music video for the new song “Home,” which features behind-the-scenes tour footage of the singer as he croons about fame and fortune over the midtempo jam. On the chorus, he sings, “Wish I could go back to when I was young/ Wish I could go back from where I came from.” The track serves as a teaser for this album release.

With so much unknown about Brown’s project, MTV News did get some scoop from Da Internz, who have been working with the singer on this new album.

“It’s really crazy with Chris, because Chris can really do whatever the hell he wanna do,” Da Internz’s Marcos “Kosine” Palacios told MTV News about hitting the studio with Breezy for this album.

“I’ve never seen anyone work as fast as him in the studio. His voice is incredible. He knows what he wants, you know what I mean? Like you’ll play him a track and he’ll be like, he’ll just start talking about you know ‘Oh, I know what this is; video, visual. I know who I would put on it.’ “

Whatever Brown does end up creating for this album release, he was spotted in the studio with Rihanna earlier this year. At the time, his rep confirmed that the singers were working on new music together, but didn’t provide further details about it.

#TeamBreezy, who do you want Chris to collaborate with on his upcoming album?!

Source

-Rita

Yesterday (Jan 4) Chris and his crew attended the Agenda show at Long Beach, California. The Agenda show is an exhibition where all kinds of different clothing brands are promoted. Together with his crew, Chris promoted his Black Pyramid clothing line.

The Agenda show is mostly for vendors who order clothes for their stores and sell them there. Black Pyramid clothing can be purchased at the MechanicalDummy website.

Chris took photos of fans and seemed to enjoy himself a lot. He was also joined by Wiz khalifa and his wife Amber Rose and more various friends and people!

When: 4-5th January, 8am-5pm
Where: Long Beach Convention Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd, Long Beach, CA 90802
Official site: Agendashow.com

Check out more photos from day 1 and day 2 after the jump!

Day 1:

Day 2:

Photo credit goes to chrianna.tumblr.com and various instagram accounts.

“Love is something I am still learning. It’s just an obstacle that I haven’t yet mastered. I think that’s my biggest hurdle in life.”

– Chris Brown

Check out this sneak peak of Chris’ photoshoot in the December issue of XXL magazine! A little snippet of the interview has also been published in an earlier post right here on CBW (scroll down the page).

For full interview and photoshoot wait until the December issue drops! Don’t forget to pre-order/buy your copy of the magazine too!

-Rita

XXL Magazine:
Silence is no longer golden. The extremely successful and often controversial Chris Brown graces one cover of the December/January issue of XXL for his first major interview in almost two years.

Breezy has made his share of non-music related headlines, but he also keeps winning from his work in the booth—hit after hit, hook after hook, he’s hip-hop’s most reliable R&B ally. In the story, written by Chris himself, the multi-platinum selling artist reflects on his growth as an artist, moving past hardships in his life, recent altercations, his love life and plenty more.

Some quotes from Chris Brown:

“In the beginning, I used to be hot. I’m normal. I’m human, so if anybody says something that’s a lie, I’m numb to it. I’ve smartened up.”

“A lot of people wanna know about the whole situation with me, Drake and Meek Mill. At the end of the day, I’m me, they’re them. They rap, I sing. Totally different caliber. I rap, I play around on mixtapes. But our words don’t collide as much as you’d think.”

Read more after the jump!

“I haven’t been as mature and thought out in the past, so, me growing now, it’s showing my progression. I used to use my Twitter account to vent, but now I mostly use it for marketing and promotions. Even if the media asks me something, if it’s cool then it’s, ‘What’s up?’ But if it’s anything that’s too negative, I don’t care to respond.”

“One thing people often want me to talk about is my public love life. When it comes to my love life, the perception seems as though I am a player. But that’s not true. Love is something I am still learning. It’s just an obstacle that I haven’t yet mastered. I think that’s my biggest hurdle in life.”

“I use music or painting as my outlet to get through the confusion. I try to promote positivity and love.”

Source – XXlmag.com

-Rita

Chris also premiered a whole new song called “Nobody’s Perfect” which will be on his upcoming album! This song is also the very first single of the new album called “Carpe Diem” and is produced by Lukas Hilbert.

Check out Chris talking about his tattoos

-Rita

Prestige Magazine:

Virginia-born R&B star CHRIS BROWN sits down with JOE YOGERST for an exclusive interview to talk about his upcoming tour, doing some good and crying on set.

Even after eight years in the spotlight, it’s difficult to say with any certainty what makes Chris Brown tick. He’s granted few long-form interviews and his press coverage tends to be ruled by tabloid headlines rather than probing questions about what really goes on in the head of this 23-year-old musical superstar. Brown plays his cards so close to his chest that we can’t tell if the ambiguity is intentional – part of a carefully crafted public persona – or his bona fide self.

Anyone who follows music knows that Brown is one of the great talents of his generation, someone who doesn’t just cross genres but one of those rare artists who is actually capable of bending them. R&B, hip hop, techno and pop all fall within his purview. Anyone attuned to the flow of gossip that now passes for mainstream media has heard all the rumours of Brown’s love life, but that’s about all we know, because everything else – the heart and soul of Chris Brown – gets steamrollered by the shock and awe.

Born and raised in small-town Virginia, Brown showed an aptitude for showbiz from the get-go. Heavily influenced by the multitalented Michael Jackson, who ruled both the music charts and airwaves when Brown was a kid, young Chris took an interest in both music and dance. He also studied other masters – Stevie Wonder, 1970s R&B legend Teddy Pendergrass and 1950s pioneering pop star Sam Cooke. By age 13 Brown had been “discovered”, and by 16 he had recorded and released his first album. The self-titled Chris Brown came in at number two on the Billboard charts, almost unheard of for someone so young and virtually unknown prior to a debut disc.

It wasn’t just raw talent. There was personality, too. Even as a teenager, Brown flaunted a blend of swagger, smarts and charisma that revealed that he was more than a run-of-the-mill crooner. His second album (Exclusive) spawned several hit singles and earned him Billboard Artist of the Year honours in 2008. His third album (Graffiti) proved that Brown could switch genres – and dance steps – just as deftly as his bygone idols. His fourth album (F.A.M.E.) came in at number one on the Billboard charts and landed a Grammy for Best R&B Album of 2011.

His latest effort (Fortune) was released in June, another crossover tour de force that runs the gamut from the soft R&B ballad “Don’t Judge Me” and the techno-pop dance tune “Don’t Wake Me Up” to the classic hip hop “Till I Die”, which also blends in arcade-game noises and cadet-corps drumming. Many of the tracks are complemented by emblematic Chris Brown videos, visually mesmerising mini movies that tell a story rather than just shout a song. Brown kicks off the promo tour (dubbed Carpe Diem) this month with a concert in Copenhagen followed by other European gigs.

Brown is also busy on the acting front, after testing the waters in 2007 in the hit dance film Stomp the Yard. Spreading his wings in much the same way as he does with music, he crossed genres to play an LA bank robber in Takers. He’s also guest starred in several hit American television shows, including The O.C. Up next September is his biggest role yet – a starring turn in Battle of the Year: The Dream Team, a big-budget dance film directed by Korean-American Benson Lee.

Breaking from his reticence to meet the press, Brown agreed to sit down for an hour-long chat with Prestige Hong Kong in Hollywood – his first major press interview in nearly four years.

What do you want the world to know about who you are and what you stand for?
As a 23-year-old young entertainer, I want the world to see my art and hopefully be inspired by it, promote positivity with what I do now – with painting, with fashion, with directing, with creativity as far as videos and cinema. I want to have people admire that and hopefully have people follow in my footsteps.

What are you having the most fun at right now?
Honestly, my day-to-day life is the most fun right now because I get a chance to not focus on “the artist” Chris Brown. Going through the regular things, like going to the grocery store. I’m also running a label right now, so I have different artists, four or five different acts, shooting videos that I’m directing and coming together.

Do you ever get time off?
I kind of have that luxury of being able to hand off my schedule and say, “I need a day off. I don’t want to do this, let’s cancel, reschedule.” I’m more of a CEO with my team. My days off, I hang out with my homeboys and play basketball. I paint, go to parties, listen to music, dance. I just bought a bike, so I like to ride. The cardio is good. Just to ride on the street on the bike, beating the traffic.

You can actually do that without getting hassled?
[Laughs] Yeah, I do. Then maybe a couple of minutes later someone in a car turns around and realises it’s me. “Hey, that’s Chris Brown. What’s Chris Brown doing on a bike?”

Turning to your music: your range is amazing. So many different genres. That’s kind of been your MO from the beginning, right?
Definitely with Fortune that’s the direction I wanted to go, but even with the F.A.M.E. album. What I wanted to do was not set the bar with a certain kind of style. I didn’t want people to say. “He’s just R&B.” Yes, I will sing an R&B song. But then I’ll do a pop song, then I’ll do a song with a country kind of feel, a reggae feel. I always want to be eclectic with my music. I don’t think music has a race. I think music has a soul and it’s just a feeling. What evokes the set of emotions from you is what I try to bring out…whatever flows, whatever I feel, I just write.

Whether they’re fun or super serious, the videos for Fortune are all mesmerising. How involved do you get in the developing the stories and visuals, and the production?
With the comedy videos like “Till I Die” – which I did with Wiz Khalifa and Big Sean – it was like, cool. Let’s have fun with it. Make a crazy video. Being able to direct by myself and have full creative focus and being able to know the cameras – that was the easiest part. The vision is the hard part. Whenever you’re sleeping, you have that dream or that nightmare and that’s your video. That’s how I kind of interpret it. Or whatever I see when I hear the music, whatever vision I see, I put it right onto paper and put it out on the video. Like the video for “Don’t Judge Me” – it was me going into a spaceship. Not to be arrogant when I say it, but I want to be the Steven Spielberg of music videos, to be innovative and young, not to put a bar on it just because of budgetary issues or certain capabilities.

All of them are like mini movies. The music and dance are great, but they also tell a story.
Back in the day, what inspired me as a teenager growing up was Fred Astaire, James Brown, Michael Jackson. Not their personal life or what they do when they go home, but the movies they made that took you to a land they made up when you saw them. Gene Kelly, too. A lot of different people. And a crazy, crazy amount of Broadway-like theatre stuff. When you can incorporate that, it intrigues the mind, lets you focus in on another place like when you watch a movie. It takes you somewhere where it’s not real life. That’s what I focus on in all my videos, why they’re like mini movies.

Tell me about your painting.
I’ve been painting secretly since I was a kid. A lot of people didn’t know that it was my hobby. I focused on doing the bad stuff at first with graffiti and vandalising as a kid. But as you get older, you start studying art books and sketchbooks in the libraries. I started getting better, like maybe three or four years ago. I met Ron English and Kid Zoom [Ian Strange] and they were just teaching me different techniques for painting. So my art started growing and I started doing it on my own. I finally got people to recognise it and I did a couple of art galleries – one in LA and one in New York – and I sold four out of my seven paintings. You know, I’m new. But my feet are in the water and that’s all it takes. I don’t think I want to conquer painting. It’s just something I love to do.

Acting is something else you do well. Was that something you discovered later in life?
Acting is just something that comes natural. I used to look in the mirror all the time, make funny faces, trying get my face right. Looking at Jim Carrey, looking at a lot of different movies. The key is that you pick up what you see all the time. That’s kind of where I got my Michael Jackson inspiration, my charisma. I did a couple of acting lessons, but when it comes down to it, I learned more from the actors on set, their energy and timing.

Much like in music, you’re also branching out in acting rather than getting typecast. Your roles have been very eclectic.
I really want to get into more action and sci-fi because that’s where I do a lot of my own music videos. And seeing as how I do most of my stunts, people get to see my capabilities. For me it’s like, “Hey, whatever movie you’ve got, let’s go!” I really want to be able to pull my weight and when you see the movie – the part when I cry – that you believe me. I really want you to know who the character is and really take that seriously.

What’s been your best acting experience so far?
My best acting experience? I can’t say. Every movie, I’ve learned something, whether it be directing, whether it being editing, even learning the lines. Learning from different people. But I can definitely say one of my favourite movies is the one I just did – Battle of the Year. I had a crying scene. Most of the guys on the set were goofballs. Everyone was like 23 or younger. So they were sitting around and laughing the whole time the camera was not on them and they were trying to make you laugh the whole time. But you’ve got to stay in character, so that was probably the most challenging thing I had to do, and also being able to do more serious scenes with more established actors. You want to show them that you’re serious, don’t want to come off like, this is fake.

Tell me a little about Battle of the Year.
It’s not just your average dance movie. You’ve got basically 10 to 15 of the best guys in America competing to be on one team and this is an actual contest that happens, called BC. We actually go and battle for real against teams from Russia, Germany and other places. So it’s like a sports movie. It’s really technical moves. People can get hurt. I remember being super ripped on stage and super in shape. That’s the best shape I’ve ever been in.

Like your painting, something that seems to be more on the quiet side is your charity work, like St Jude’s Children’s Hospital and Best Buddies.
I’ve been involved with [those] since I was 15, 16. It’s not about recognition, because that’s not what satisfies me. The satisfaction is people that are getting helped or are benefitting from whatever I donate, whatever I contribute to their lives. I don’t like it to be publicised. If there are cameras around, it’s cool. But I do it from the heart. When I go on TV and do my videos, that’s the artist Chris Brown. But when I go and do [charity work] it’s just me – it’s just Christopher.

A lot of it seems to be working with kids.
Absolutely! My nostalgic feeling of working with kids is because of my mom working in day care. I was in day care when I was three weeks old. Growing up in day care with the kids coming in and out, when I turned 13, 14, 15 I was doing the same job as her. It’s easy! I used to watch them in day care and they’d all be asleep. Someone would say to me, “Man, what did you do?” And I’d say I just ran them outside and I have just as much energy as them. It’s just being a kid and having that free spirit with them. They see me having just as much fun with all the responsibilities I have, with all the life stuff that I deal with every day, still taking time out to just smile and play around.

What’s Symphonic Love all about?
Symphonic Love does programmes in schools, like with my school back home. Musical programmes and helping kids with disabilities. I do a lot of stuff with Best Buddies that coexists with that. The name comes from a tattoo that I’ve got [runs hand across his chest] – something that’s over my heart right now. So my heart is where it’s at. The tattoo “symphonic love” encompasses the positivity of what I’m trying to do – uplifting humanity.

And then there’s your lifestyle and fashion side, things like mechanicaldummy.com. That’s a wild website.
“Mechanicaldummy” meaning “brain washing”, like when we watch TV. The news will tell us we need everybody to move to this spot because of whatever and we all do it because the TV tells us to. So we are brainwashed, so to speak. The site is my way of brainwashing my viewers. You can see whatever you want, from fashion to art houses to lifestyle, culture and music, everything in my everyday life. And my clothing line, Black Pyramid. The brainwashing is my choice. But it’s brainwashing in a good way. Not to facilitate anything negative with hate or racism or anything. All fashion-forward lifestyle.

How much of small-town Virginia is left in you?
Ha! I’m still country. Sometimes when I talk the twang will come out. But I feel humbled by my upbringing. I still live in Virginia. I have a house there. I go back and forth. Most of my family is based out of there. And I always go back to get my aunt’s cooking. That’s a must.

But you like LA too?
I love LA. It’s more fast-paced and you can get a lot of work done. But when I want to relax, I get to go home [to Virginia].

How do you get around town? What do you drive?
I got a couple of cars. The nice one I love right now is the [Lamborghini] Aventador.

You’ve touched a little bit on this already, but who were your early showbiz influences?
The whole ’90s era shaped who I am, from MTV to Kris Kross to Vanilla Ice to MC Hammer to Hootie & The Blowfish and TLC. Also people like Michael Jackson – you can even say he’s the reason why there is a Chris Brown. A lot of different artists growing up shaped me because I don’t listen to one form of music.

Were you really discovered in a gas station?
The gas station thing [laughs]…It’s kind of like when you line everybody up and whisper something and by the time it gets to the end it’s a different story. A guy came to the gas station [in Virginia] where my father worked, who knew a guy who happened to know a guy who worked for the guy who knew a guy who knew a production team.

I have a picture in my mind of you bursting out in song in a gas station.
[Laughs] Oh, never, never, never. I used to do it at the malls, though. I definitely used to sing in the malls and walk up to a group of girls. And they’d say, “Hey! Who’s that boy?” And all my friends would talk to all the girls. It was a good chick magnet back in the day.

Is there something that fans would be surprised to learn about you?
Just how involved I am with everything. I think a lot of people, a lot of artists, they get the glamour and glitz and everything else is already set for them. You see it and you say, “Oh man, it’s perfect.” But everything is already written. For me, it’s all just straight from thin air. I hear a song [claps his hands] – that’s my concept. When you hear my records, it’s really me writing. It’s really my emotions. It’s really me behind the cameras, directing those videos. It’s me making the decision on what singles we put out. Being the CEO. A real businessman at 23. That’s what I want to show my audience. The generation that we’re in – we’re a lazy generation. The kids in my generation are not as hyper. The work ethic isn’t there. The attention span is short. But I think if they can see me do it at 23 and have all this stuff going on – and still have fun while I’m doing it – who’s to say they can’t?

PHOTOGRAPHY / GIULIANO BEKOR
CREATIVE DIRECTION AND STYLING / PARIS LIBBY
MAKE-UP / SARAH B HALL
BARBER / EDDIE INDA
SET DESIGN / SMOEK
PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANTS/ ANTHONY ALTMORE AND KURT LINDER
STYLING ASSISTANTS / KATHY LAM AND MICHELLE WILLIAMSON

prestigehongkong.com

Chris Brown – See Through – Prod. By Drumma Boy – DOWNLOAD
Chris Brown – Oh Yeah – Prod. By Drumma Boy – DOWNLOAD

Videos from Mechanical Dummy after the jump!

There are many many tweets about this, go check them out on @Rihanna‘s and @ChrisBrown‘s twitter!

• Rihanna Feat Chris Brown – Birthday Cake

DOWNLOAD HERE

• Chris Brown Feat Rihanna – Turn Up The Music Remix

DOWNLOAD HERE

-Rita

-Rita

-Rita

Chris just recently revealed the next Fortune single – “Turn Up The Music”. The track is the 2nd single form the upcoming album. So far we’ve only heard the first single “Strip” (Feat Kevin McCall).

Last year Chris also added that “Treading Water” and “Fools With You” were going to be on Fortune. Nobody knows for sure, but they are possible tracks for the album. “Don’t Wake Me Up” produced by David Guetta seems to be Fortune material as well, so don’t be surprised if you see it in the tracklist!

Listen/Download “Turn Up The Music”

-Rita