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Independent Weekly: Chris Brown, the haters and how his F.A.M.E. is our fault

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Illustration by Chris Williams/Plastic Flame Press

In print, the title of this essay is “F.O.A.D.” (the title above is the subheadline), which was the dude Grayson Currin’s idea and I love him for thinking of it. Dunno, sort just love the idea that this is in a newspaper somewhere. So yeah, me telling you one more time why Chris Brown is an asshole. Enjoy!

To talk about Chris Brown is to talk about “haters.” America’s No. 1 female-assaulting R&B singer threw the word around on a personal webcam video, his first appearance after he assaulted his then-girlfriend, the singer Rihanna.

He’s followed suit in numerous interviews and quite often on his noxious Twitter account. His song “Beautiful People”—simultaneously the best and worst radio hit of the year—finds him belting out feel-good platitudes like “Live your life” and “Don’t let them bring you down.” It’s one of 2011’s numerous fist-pump pop jams, and it’s squarely directed at all the “haters.”

People have good reason to hate Brown: He punched Rihanna in the face a whole bunch of times, bruising her angular visage nearly beyond recognition. Still, he seems intent to pretend that it never happened, as if he were the victim of some great injustice. Brown’s latest album, and the first since his February 2009 beating of Rihanna, is titled F.A.M.E.—an acronym for “Forgiving All My Enemies.” Irony, it seems, has found a new home…

Written by Brandon

September 28th, 2011 at 7:05 pm

Posted in Independent Weekly

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  1. I agree with your statements about Brown being an asshole. However, you give Rihanna way too much credit re: expressing her personal experiences in music. It’s documented that her label hosted the best songwriters from all over the country to write hits for Rihanna’s album in songwriting camps in LA.

    Justin

    28 Sep 11 at 8:33 pm

  2. Kinda surprised we’re having this conversation in 2011 on a rap blog, but you know, stuff isn’t that simple. She’s singing those words and she agreed to sing them and it seems clear that since ‘Rated R’ she’s taken an active role in structuring her albums and her career. Also, is she supposed to not hire the “best” songwriters to work with her? She should be working with bad songwriters?

    Brandon

    29 Sep 11 at 6:19 am

  3. I didn’t know Beautiful People was a hit, but if so I’ll go with best hit of the year, plain and simple. Surprised to see you or anyone else acknowledging it. I ranted about it on Jukebox when it came out but as I recall I was its only fan.

    Tray

    4 Oct 11 at 1:55 am

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