Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) 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 romance, sex, fast life, desire, lovesickness, regret, emotional conflict and loneliness. Brown has gained a cult following and wide comparisons to Michael Jackson for his stage presence.

In 2004, Brown signed with Jive Records, and released his self-titled debut studio album the following year, which was later certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). With his debut single “Run It!” (featuring Juelz Santana) peaking atop the Billboard Hot 100, Brown became the first male artist since 1995 to have his debut single top the chart. His second album, Exclusive (2007), was met with further commercial success worldwide, and spawned his second Billboard Hot 100 number one “Kiss Kiss” (featuring T-Pain). In 2009, Brown pled guilty to felony assault of his then-girlfriend, singer Rihanna. In the same year, he released his third album, Graffiti, which was considered to be a commercial failure compared to his previous works. Following Graffiti, Brown released his fourth album F.A.M.E. (2011), which became his first album to top the Billboard 200. The album contained the commercially successful singles: “Yeah 3x”, “Look at Me Now” (featuring Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes) and “Beautiful People” (featuring Benny Benassi), 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), his 2017 double-disc album, Heartbreak on a Full Moon, consisting of 45 tracks, was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units after one week, and was later certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Brown’s ninth studio album Indigo was released in 2019, also debuted atop on the Billboard 200. It included the single “No Guidance” (featuring Drake) which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100, and broke the record for the longest-running number one on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. Its chart success was outdone with the single “Go Crazy” (with Young Thug) released the following year, which peaked at number 3 on the Hot 100 as part of the collaborative mixtape Slime & B (2020).

Brown has sold over 197 million records worldwide, making him one of the world’s best-selling music artists. He is also one of the highest-grossing African American touring artists of all time. Brown has the most Billboard Hot 100 entries of any male singer in history; as well as the most top 40 hits of any R&B singer in history. Brown was also ranked third on Billboard’s top R&B/Hip-Hop artists of the 2010s decade chart, behind Drake and Rihanna in first and second, respectively. Throughout his career, Brown has won several awards, including a Grammy Award, eighteen BET Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, and fourteen Soul Train Music Awards. Brown has also pursued an acting career. In 2007, he made his on-screen feature film debut in Stomp the Yard, and appeared as a guest on the television series The O.C. Other films Brown has appeared in include This Christmas (2007), Takers (2010), Think Like a Man (2012), and Battle of the Year (2013) and She Ball (2020).

Christopher Maurice Brown was born on 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.

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. 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 the same time, Brown was going through personal issues. His parents had divorced, and his mother’s boyfriend terrified him by subjecting her to domestic violence.

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.