(ThyBlackMan.com) Dear Chris,
I don’t know if anyone has reached out to you, to let you know that as a friend, there are some issues that you are having that you may not readily recognize. Now I know you have plenty of people around you, handlers and all, and as we’ve seen with the trial against Dr. Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson’s former doctor — the people around you may not always be the best. So I’d like to take the time out as a concerned individual to ask you with all sincerity what the hell all is wrong with you? But to ask you this question thoroughly I will need to begin at the beginning.
Chris when we met, or moreso when I and the rest of the world met you it wasn’t in the flesh. It was aurally. You were a bright-eyed teen who just wanted to sing. You were 16 and running it. Now while I personally wasn’t the biggest fan of “Run It” I did love “Yo (Excuse Me Miss)” the follow-up single. As a 
college sophomore who hadn’t completely traded BET and 106 & Park for marathons of MSNBC I danced to your music with a dance group on campus and at frat parties later that night. You entertained children and the young adult set in a way that hadn’t been seen since early non-Confessions Usher. You were quickly compared to Michael Jackson, and while such comparisons are trite for some solo male artists, they were actually spot on for you. You had a wide innocent smile, pinchable cheeks, and a mischevious glint in your eyes just like Mike. But just like Mike we the music loving public would soon learn that Young Chris, the young boy all young girls were falling in love with had another side.
Your second album released in May 2008 saw you continue the trend that Chris Brown began. Once again the club banger and chart topper “Wall to Wall” was released as a single followed by “Kiss, Kiss” that featured the trend that refuses to die T-Pain and his Auto-Tune. We saw the softer side initiated in “Yo (Excuse Me Miss)” with “With You.” That track had hearts open all over the world as you showed us your grown up — more like mannish — side with “Take You Down.” Where before my friends and I put you in the “good clean fun box” like we did with boys that will never leave the “friend zone” you were now singing about things that made us re-evaluate our position. You were singing songs that immediately went on cuffin’ season playlists. Young girls swooned over there first sexual crush and adult women tried to reconcile their age with yours and determine just how much of a cougar or puma they wanted to be.
A video and stellar BET Awards performance with Ciara later and it was official you had begun the transition into teen sex symbol like so many others before you.
You had a beautiful woman on your arm. An older woman. The Bajan beauty Rihanna. Where she was still solidifying her career with the single that wouldn’t go away in the lead up to Good Girl Gone Bad, you showed the world how you really felt about her in the “Umbrella” remix. She was your Cinderella and this was to be a match made in pop heaven.
Then came the infamous Grammy weekend where something apparently/allegedly happened with a phone inside a car and BOOM Rihanna’s battered face is all over the interwebs. The blame is laid squarely on your shoulders. You were vilified immediately, your fans, #teamBreezy as you call them, defended you while deriding Rihanna. Oprah implored you on one of her live shows to seek help, the world watched in confusion as you tried but failed at explaining yourself with your mom on Larry King and then women grown enough to know better looked at you and Rihanna sideways when pictures surfaced soon after “the incident” with the two of you chopping it up poolside in Miami.
“The incident” as we will refer to the events of Grammy weekend 2009 have left you a changed man. While still a teen, and for the most part a child, you were charged with a very adult crime of rage and passion. As your relationship ended you star also seemed to fade while your ex’s rose. Rihanna went on to global pop domination saturating airwaves with catchy hooks and hard beats while her actual talent remained in question, whereas you with all the talent in the world couldn’t escape the negativity brought on by court appearances, injuctions, community service, and angry people everywhere who had something to say about “the incident.”
Chris Brown was still Chris Brown but markedly different. Much like Michael Jackson after his first set of molestation accusations.
Chris you soldiered on with your third album Graffitti. An album that didn’t do as well as your previous efforts. An album you said through Twitter rants was blacklisted. But quiet as it’s kept, this writer right here, was head over heels for “I Can Transform Ya.” Granted I only heard at 2 in the morning as I was heading to work in my first of many overnight producer positions. But the song was banging and that’s all that mattered. Right?
Wrong.
Chris, I mention your public persona backstory, past music and perceptions because even though there is only one incident to speak of it is still one incident too many. You will forever be haunted by it and asked about it no matter how old you are, how many years ago it was, or how much both you and Rihanna have moved past it. To the public you are another sad story of a young soul given too much too soon. To music lovers you are another example of a “conflicted genius:” Michael Jackson and boys, R.Kelly and girls, DMX and drugs, Amy Winehouse and alcohol, Kanye West and Kanye West.
Your road to redemption paved in talent, hard work, professions of being a changed man, and a BET Awards performance tribute to the “Man in the Mirror” where you broke down beyond belief mean nothing to an elephant memory having public who see you months later looking crazed, dazed, and having a deluded since of how morning news works. Chris you will be asked about Rihanna as much as Janet Jackson is still asked about the Super Bowl. It’s not going away and you don’t need to jump bad with Robin Roberts for doing her job and you for damn sure don’t need to allegedly trash a dressing room at the GMA studios. Really dude… who does that?
Chris you’ve named your latest album F.A.M.E. On GMA you said the acronym stands for two things: Facing All My Enemies and Fans Are My Everything. If you want fans to continue to be your everything you’ve got to stop doing asinine things. Tweeting pictures of your cloaked junk is still tweeting a picture of your junk. It continues to remind the un-forgiving public that you haven’t gotten all the help you claimed to, you are still very much a dazed and confused boy instead of the man you purport yourself to be, and at the end of the day you rather continue to play the victim than man up and take responsibility for your own actions as ridiculous as they may be.
Chris Brown you don’t want to be more known for infamy than F.A.M.E. You don’t want to be more known for your past transgressions than your future musical offerings. You don’t want to be Ike Turner. When people hear Ike Turner’s name they think of how he beat the hell out of Tina Turner, not the fact that he was still making music (after his jail stints) and received a Grammy for that music in February 2007, just 10 months before he died. Chris read the beginning of this post and add on to your list of musical accomplishments, including those after “the incident” instead of detracting from them. If you want to make music that lasts forever on the dance floor than you can’t be a person, a pop star, or super star, that acts without common sense.
I could just say grow up. But Chris Brown you are a grown man. You just seem to be misguided. So here’s some guidance, act like you have the home-training your mama gave you, get you some people around you that will tell you “No,” find a nice girl that won’t hold your past against you, take some anger management classes, act like you have common sense, and make music that shows your growth as an artist and not how hard you can go off on people who may or may not care for you. We looked at you and we see you the question is… Do You?
Sincerely Signed,
A concerned music fan
Staff Writer; Nikesha Leeper
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