The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research Volume 18 Article 6 2017 Chris Brown: Out of control mess or grossly misunderstood Artist? Christopher C. Fritch St. John Fisher College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/ur Part of the Leisure Studies Commons, and the Other Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons How has open access to Fisher Digital Publications benefited ou?y Recommended Citation Fritch, Christopher C.. "Chris Brown: Out of control mess or grossly misunderstood Artist?." The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research 18 (2017): -. Web. [date of access]. <https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/ur/vol18/iss1/6>. This document is posted at https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/ur/vol18/iss1/6 and is brought to you for free and open access by Fisher Digital Publications at St. John Fisher College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Chris Brown: Out of control mess or grossly misunderstood Artist? Abstract In today’s pop culture world, celebrities are seen as perfect individuals with grand houses, cars, and entourages. When Chris Brown came on the scene in the mid-2000s, he was a teenage heartthrob who could do no wrong. That all changed when he brutally beat fellow music superstar and then girlfriend Rihanna in 2009. Brown’s media persona came crashing down, along with seemingly everything else in his life. However, in a situation where many artists would normally descend and never return, Brown has surged back almost to the heights he reached prior to 2009. How did this happen? What does the role of the music industry play in this? The norms and tendencies of the popular music industry are examined to determine the external factors that both hindered and helped Brown’s changes in reputation (and by extension, record sales) over time. This article is available in The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research: https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/ur/ vol18/iss1/6 Fritch: Chris Brown Chris Brown: Out of Control Mess or Grossly Misunderstood Artist? Christopher C. Fritch ABSTRACT In today’s pop culture world, celebrities are seen as perfect individuals with grand houses, cars, and entourages. When Chris Brown came on the scene in the mid-2000s, he was a teenage heartthrob who could do no wrong. That all changed when he brutally beat fellow music superstar and then girlfriend Rihanna in 2009. Brown’s media persona came crashing down, along with seemingly everything else in his life. However, in a situation where many artists would normally descend and never return, Brown has surged back almost to the heights he reached prior to 2009. How did this happen? What does the role of the music industry play in this? The norms and tendencies of the popular music industry are examined to determine the external factors that both hindered and helped Brown’s changes in reputation (and by extension, record sales) over time. Introduction/The Incident about love and commitment: I loved watching him dance and how it seemed to Prior to 2009, Chris Brown was becoming mesh perfectly with the music. And I wasn’t one of the most popular R&B/hip hop artists the only one; the hit American comedy “The the world had ever seen. Album sales were Office” used it as a soundtrack for a through the roof, even at the age of fifteen. wedding, and many actual weddings used Right from the beginning, he had levels of this song, some of which became viral charisma and stage presence that were videos. A few years after the domestic unparalleled. It was almost as if he violence incident, when I could grasp the established a new genre that combined R&B lyrics and meaning of this song, its meaning and hip hop, one that was able to appeal to a to me was ruined by the change in Chris much “softer” audience than the genre could Brown’s reputation. From then on, the normally sell to. Yes, it seemed like the image of Brown’s free-flowing, teenage phenom could do no wrong. But in synchronized dancing was ever sullied by February of 2009, a domestic violence knowing in the back of that childish mind incident between Brown and then-girlfriend that he’s done terrible things, and that the Rihanna would tear down the image that we music is supposed to distract and cover that had all known. I remember my parents up. telling me about what happened and as a fan of Brown, or as much of a Chris Brown fan Mainstream Music Doesn’t Care as an eleven year old from upstate New York could be, I was as outraged as But again, I still watched and listened to his everyone else. I almost immediately swore music. WHY? Why was my conscience, and off of Brown forever, as I then thought it obviously many others if he has remained as made me realize the extreme nature of the successful as he has all this time, allowing two-faced lives many superstars in music itself to keep listening to Brown’s music live. despite all of this? The careers of other superstars like Rick James, R. Kelly and I remember when Brown released “Forever” even Michael Jackson were very damaged in 2007. As a ten year old boy, I did not by highly controversial events in their particularly care for the message of the song personal life. However, despite these events Published by Fisher Digital Publications, 2017 1 The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research, Vol. 18 [2017], Art. 6 these artists have somehow retained their of success. This began the coining of the popularity. Michael Jackson received a term “thug” as a term of respect and pride. tremendous mourning across the globe after Made popular by Tupac Shakur in the mid- his death, and R. Kelly still sells out his 1990s, “thug music” was associated by shows despite being sued for $10 million on many with the “dissolution of our family the accusations that had sexual relations values nationwide” (Jeffries 35). This one- with a minor, which was settled out of court. sided, negative connotation does not and So is it solely the catchiness and the ability should not contain all of Shakur’s music, to dance to almost anything he releases? especially the tracks that pertain to love and Maybe. Or is there something more sex. Even Tupac himself said, “Part of being ingrained in all of us that has allowed us to [a thug] is to stand up for your separate the music from the artists that responsibilities…. I want to be real with produced it? myself” (36). This hyper-masculinity can certainly account for a large portion of the There are a multitude of different things that misconception of extreme materialism we can make of this anomaly, but first we within the industry. need to remove the proverbial mask that has been created by the media. If we continue to The similar concepts of black manhood or allow what is reported in the news to fully black masculinity are very hot topics among make our decisions for us, with no discussion of hip hop and rap music. In its assessment of the situation on our end, a simplest of definitions, black manhood and very unfair impression of people can be black masculinity are the stereotypes, created in scenarios where they may not norms, and expectations put on African- deserve it. It is very common that we forget American men by the predominantly white even the most popular figures in music are audience. This is not exploited directly by also human beings. The viewing public has the artists; rather, the artists and their music such a scrutinizing eye that any mistake are byproducts of a stigma created by made is extrapolated into something it consumers and “a give-and-take negotiation shouldn’t necessarily be. This is not to say process between the artist and the music that domestic violence is made into producer that has historically been heavily something it shouldn’t be or that it is not a skewed toward the latter” (Balaji 22). heinous act; it is only to say the reaction Consumers communicate to the music when a celebrity does it is vastly different producers what type of music is making than in everyday civilian life. money through album sales, and producers then bring on clients that can produce this Origin of Celebrity Elitism and Gender in type of music. It seems as though Balaji’s Music findings would refute the idea that people This separation of standards between like Tupac created the term “thug” and celebrities and the viewing public has been started the tough, rugged black male figure going on since celebrities have existed. In throughout hip hop and rap. And in a sense, this case however, the focus is on the it is; Tupac had a certain “tough guy timeline of rap and hip-hop music that swagger” about him that producers knew started in the mid-1980s. The general would sell albums, and the term “thug” was consensus among the genre, then and now, born. However, in a sense it reinforces the is an overwhelming amount of male ideas of enforced male heterosexuality. dominance and an idea that accumulating Tupac’s music personality is, as stated money, drugs, and even women is the root before, a product of the time. Without it, he https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/ur/vol18/iss1/6 2 Fritch: Chris Brown would not be able to be properly marketed to The masculine circle converges with the the rap music audience of the early 1990s.