2009: the year when Chris Brown pushed his career into a downward spiral after putting his hands on the FENTY queen herself, Rihanna. How could any of us forget the year that “hearts all over the world” broke? Well, we’re now wrapping up 2017, and it seems as though he’s still committing all his efforts to making a comeback. We see you Chris, we see you.
So the other night at work, one of my supervisors chose to listen to Chris Brown’s latest album “Heartbreak on a Full Moon,” and people lost their minds. No, not because there’s 45 songs (that’s insane on its own), but because people were upset that someone could listen to and support an artist guilty of domestic violence. I was actually surprised to hear that so many people were still holding all of that against him and his music. Of course, I’m against domestic violence and abuse of all sorts. Rihanna or anyone, it’s not okay.
It’s not like this comeback was anything surprising or out of the blue. Chris Brown has put out six other albums since he was found guilty. However, this latest one seems to be sending a little louder of a message than the others. “I Love Her” one of the 45 songs put out on this album has been rumored to be about RiRi, and has gotten people pretty invested. He says, “Know everybody got some skeletons in their closet” which could possibly a reference to the abuse. Although if that is where the inspiration came from, then no Chris: your skeletons are very much outside of the closet and have been for the past nine years now. Another Easter egg (shoutout to the fans that take the time to find these things): in his song “Other N****s” Chris sings “why you gotta hang up on me and then call right back?” I don’t think Chris can claim that there’s no correlation between that line and Rihanna’s instagram caption of a picture that she posted on October 23rd saying “when you hang up on em, then call right back”. Keep in mind that “Heartbreak on a Full Moon” dropped on Halloween day, a week after the queen’s instagram post. Initially I’d think that for an artist to write and release a song in seven days is probably unlikely, but considering there are 45 songs on this album, I’m sure they were all written in a fairly timely fashion.
A lot of people see his music as signs of the fact that he’s still in love with Rihanna (but aren’t we all?!). However, it’s my personal belief that a person can’t hurt someone that they truly love in the way that he did to her. Then again, I’m no expert. Plus, a lot can happen in nine years. For all I know, Chris Brown could have reinvented himself, or maybe he’s in the process of doing so and that inspired all his 45 songs in the album. Though if that’s the case, he should consider reinventing that beaten woman tattoo (that he claims is not Rihanna) while he’s at it. Not necessarily because I think it means anything, it’s just not at all cute.
So is there anything wrong with listening to his music? By aiding to his career and success, are we supporting domestic abuse? Some people would argue that we’re paving the way for future artists or media icons to do the same thing and come out of it with no repercussions. That you can mess up that badly and still be wildly successful, so why not? Whereas some other people believe that we’d be doing him an injustice by pinning that on his shoulder and career for the rest of his life. Did Chris learn his lesson from his 5 year probation sentence and should we all move on? The guy did create a 45 song album, which if you haven’t noticed my emphasis on it, that’s a really big album and I still can’t get over the fact that he did that. So maybe we should be more impressed at his work ethic and give the guy some credit. I don’t expect a decision to be made for everybody, but I would love to hear what you think about all of this! Leave your comments below, and be sure to check out the rest of the USFCA Her Campus site.
Did you like this article? Yes? Well then maybe you’ll like the first article in this “What’s Happening in Music” series about young rapper XXXTentacion and the latest controversy over his last video. Follow the link below and tell us what you think!
What’s Happening in Music: XXXTentacion