walking upstream…
Chris Brown
photo: pelpa time production · cc by 3.0 ↗Chris Brown
In Tappahannock, Virginia, an eleven-year-old Chris Brown was watching Usher perform "My Way" on television when he started trying to mimic the moves in his living room. "My mom was like, 'You can sing?'" he told People in 2005. "And I was like, 'Well, yeah, Mama.'" The family began chasing a record deal soon after. In 2005, his debut single "Run It!" topped the Billboard Hot 100, making him the first male artist in a decade to reach number one with a first single — a career built on the same instinct that started it: copying what he saw on-screen until it became his own, whether it was Usher's footwork or, longer and deeper, Michael Jackson's.
the sound in question
2008
ForeverChris Brown
walk the tributaries ↓
Michael Jackson1980s · Pop / R&B / Funk
Brown taught himself Jackson's dance moves off television reruns as a kid, then spent his career restaging the debt in public. At the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards he paid what MTV called "an amazing homage to the timeless icon," mimicking Jackson's signature spins two years before Jackson's death. When Jackson died in 2009, Brown released a statement: "Michael Jackson is the reason why I do music and why I am an entertainer. I am devastated by this great loss, and I will continue to be humbled and inspired by his legacy."
listen: upstream & heresource: MTV News — Lil Wayne, Chris Brown Mourn Michael Jackson's Death (Brown's 2009 statement, and the 2007 VMA tribute) ↗
1979
Rock with YouMichael Jackson
2013
Fine ChinaChris Brown
listen for"Rock with You" rides Quincy Jones and Rod Temperton's unhurried disco-funk pulse, Jackson's voice thinning into falsetto right as the hook lands. Critics reached for the same playbook when Brown released "Fine China": AllMusic filed it beside "Zero" as evidence of his own disco-funk streak, and the resemblance is audible in the phrasing, not just the choreography — Brown lets his tenor float and lighten at the hook's peak the way Jackson does, riding the groove instead of fighting it, before the video's spins and gliding footwork make the connection literal.
Usher2000s · R&B / Pop
By his teens, Brown named the debt outright. "He was the one who the youngsters looked up to," he told Vibe in 2006. "I know that we, in the dancing and singing world, looked up to him." Nine years later, weighing his own chart numbers against Usher's, he went further: "If it wasn't for Usher, then Chris Brown couldn't exist," he said, admitting Usher was one of only two artists who ever made him think, simply, he has it. The other was Michael Jackson.
listen: upstream & heresource: People — Chris Brown Biography (2005 ↗
1997
My WayUsher
2005
Run It!Chris Brown
listen forJermaine Dupri built "My Way" out of clipped hi-hats and acoustic-guitar arpeggios, then broke his own hook with a guest rap verse. The same structural trick resurfaces on "Run It!": Scott Storch's slinky synth line gets interrupted by Juelz Santana mid-song, resetting the groove rather than closing it, so Brown's smooth, boyish tenor can re-enter changed. Usher plays his verse cocky, all swagger; Brown plays his hungrier and more urgent — the same production move aimed at two different ages of the same persona.