Renowned American singer/songwriter CHRIS BROWN is the first of four cover stars to be revealed for NOTION Magazine’s Issue 71. The Look At Me Now performer talks exclusively about fame, finding a soul mate, his new music and balancing fatherhood. Brown’s seventh studio album, Royalty, is released 18th December 2015 worldwide.

ON HIS NEW ALBUM ‘ROYALTY’

You can't be stagnant and you cannot continue to do the same things and expect a different outcome. So for me, it’s a reflections album. I love being a father, you know, and at the same time, there were certain wrongs and certain rights that I did do. I might've hurt some people along the way.

ON THE POTENTIAL REACTION OF HIS NEW ALBUM

All my music is a reflection of what I go through in my life so I wouldn't put too many particulars on it but, my music is in my blood, it's what I breathe. In this album people can honestly understand who I'm trying to be, as a man, not who I am. Life is knowledge, trying to define the higher or the next level of consciousness. I’m trying to stay true to myself as an artist and what I wanted to say on my own album. It's like a point to prove almost. So it just feels like, the first album, what you gonna do, you're going to hit or miss you know? And I like the fact that I doubt myself sometimes because it makes me humble.

ON MAKING MISTAKES

People make mistakes, I've made mistakes, I've judged people who made mistakes, and they judge me back. The best part about it is me having to learn. I think I had a great time like ... <he corrects himself> I didn't have a great time... at all, but it was a great lesson for me to learn. I thank God he had something bigger for me to do. The mindset I was in when I was younger, it was full of arrogance like 'yeah I'm an asshole like, so what fuck it, I got money like' and you know, at the end of the day everybody knows right from wrong.

ON BEING JUDGED BY THE PUBLIC

Well everyone knows right from wrong. As a man you deal with adolescence and you deal with peer pressure a lot. People talk about me being in gangs and affiliated, but they don't talk about the nice things I do like bring 5,000 sneakers to Crenshaw high school South-Central or Campanella park or different neighbourhoods that are in the inner cities. Nobody cares about it unless it's glorified in the rap music. You don't have to like me. And what I do is for my art. I'm only going to be passionate for what I want to do.

ON INSPIRING PEOPLE

Right now I just want to inspire the world, because, with everything I went through, I kept my head up. And even for the people that turn their back against you as the outcast or the underdog..I love that. Because it just makes me better when I earn my music and I earn awards and I earn my dancing and I earn being able to direct on my own videos. I feel like, that's the only thing that man hasn't given me and that's the only thing that they can’t take away.

ABOUT HAVING INSECURITIES

I would be lying if I said I didn’t have insecurities. But that’s what makes us unique. You’ve got to accept that you aren’t in control of everything. You won’t control your life until you are internally free. This is chill, like.. this is a great life. But I think there’s more to it than all this.

HIS MUSIC AND FAME CHANGING PEOPLE

I mean fame isn’t acquired by the amount of people who like you. Fame is acquired by the amount of people’s lives you’ve changed. So at the end of the day I can’t say that my music is that deep right now, I can’t physically change the world. But I made a positive step you know?

Photography credit: Millicent Hailes/Notion Magazine

**ISSUE 71 RELEASED 18TH DECEMBER 2015** ORDER HERE: http://notionmagazine.com/buy-notion/online-store/

Website: www.notionmagazine.com  
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**ENDS**

NOTES TO EDITOR:

Notion Magazine is a leading quarterly music, fashion and culture publication based in London and reporting internationally, spotlighting the newest styles, sounds and trends, from the underground to the mainstream, and the lifestyles which surround them. Previous Notion covers include The Weeknd, 5 Seconds of Summer, Adam Lambert, Lindsay Lohan, Pharrell Williams, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus and Bruno Mars.