American singer-songwriter and chart-topping artist Chris Brown has been releasing music since the mid-2000s. But does he write his own songs?
Whilst Chris Brown doesn’t write all of his songs, he is involved in the writing of a lot of his music and has writing credits on a number of his tracks. He’s also written, or co-written, songs for a number of other high-profile artists including Jennifer Lopez, Mary J. Blige, and Joe Jonas.
Read on to learn more about Chris Brown’s songwriting for himself and other singers.
Writing His Own Songs
Chris Brown became an instant success when his debut single ‘Run It!’ topped the Billboard Top 100 chart, making him the first artist to achieve that feat since 1997. He’s since released nine studio albums and receives writing credits on most of his tracks.
The content of Brown’s lyrics and music has changed over time. Back as a teenager working on his first album, Brown’s lyrics reflected the things he was experiencing.
In an interview with MTV, Brown said “I write about the things that 16 year olds go through every day, like you just got in trouble for sneaking your girl into the house, or you can’t drive, so you steal a car or something”.
For his first, self-titled studio album, Chris Brown received a number of writing credits and was grateful that, as such a young artist, he was given that level of autonomy over his music. For the album he worked with producers and writers like Scott Storch and Sean Garrett.
In an interview for the release of his second studio album, ‘Exclusive’, Brown told cameras, “a lot of the songs I did get a chance to write on”.
He continued to tell cameras that the album would focus more on his life and “personal relationships with girls over the years that people didn’t know about”, adding “I’m talking about that a little bit more now”.
Singer and songwriter Eric Bellinger has worked with Chris Brown on a lot of his albums, in addition to writing music for the likes of Justin Bieber, Beyonce, and Usher.
Bellinger worked with Brown on his sixth studio album at a writing camp, and later said of their collaboration, “Chris was there the whole time. He was really involved. I was there every single day for like a month straight and we were just pumping out records.”
Chris Brown’s ninth and most recent album ‘Indigo’ became his third number one album, debuting in that position. The album has 32 tracks and Brown has a writing credit on every single one.
Writing For Other Artists
Besides working on songs for his own albums, Chris Brown has written and co-written songs for a number of other artists.
His vocals are also featured on a lot of those tracks. Perhaps his most circulated writing credit is on Rhianna’s song ‘Disturbia’, given their highly-publicized relationship. Though the song was originally intended for Brown himself, he ended up giving it to Rihanna after feeling it would better suit a female singer.
In the lead up to Joe Jonas’ solo debut he also worked with Chris Brown. Jonas spoke to MTV about Brown’s work ethic, saying “he’s always in the studio, and to work with him is really fun. We were able to collaborate really well together, and the vibe in the studio was really chill; just two musicians writing together”.
The duo wrote a song called ‘See No more’, which was released as Jonas’ first solo single.
Among other credits, Brown has worked with Jennifer Lopez, and told MTV at the time about his ambitions to become a more established songwriter for other artists.
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