TheGuardian.com:
When Brown was two, he began copying Michael Jackson's dance moves, and was soon singing in his church choir and competing in local talent shows. His parents divorced when he was seven, and before long he and his sister and mother were living with her new husband in a trailer park, where in the past he has described lying in bed listening to his stepfather beat his mother.
I ask him to tell me a bit about his childhood. What's his earliest memory? "I remember my kindergarten teacher made me count pennies and see how much did it add up to, and then I just remember her telling my mom, 'He's a smart kid.' When I was three, I remember being at a daycare centre and having to stay in a room with a bunch of little kids my age, but I just felt like, OK, I know what I'm doing, I know how to unlock the gate, I know how to get out. My mom told me as a youngster I was always intellectual, like as far as being able to adapt fast and quick. But I had a fun childhood, went to regular school."
He lost his virginity when he was eight years old, to a local girl who was 14 or 15. Seriously? "Yeah, really. Uh-huh." He grins and chuckles. "It's different in the country." Brown grew up with a great gang of boy cousins, and they watched so much porn that he was raring to go. "By that point, we were already kind of like hot to trot, you know what I'm saying? Like, girls, we weren't afraid to talk to them; I wasn't afraid. So, at eight, being able to do it, it kind of preps you for the long run, so you can be a beast at it. You can be the best at it." (Now 24, he doesn't want to say how many women he's slept with: "But you know how Prince had a lot of girls back in the day? Prince was, like, the guy. I'm just that, today. But most women won't have any complaints if they've been with me. They can't really complain. It's all good.")
By 12, he knew he wanted to be a singer. "I drew a lot of inspiration from the Ginuwines, the Ushers, the Michael Jacksons, the James Browns, Sam Cooke. I was never afraid to take those steps or cross those boundaries of trying to be equal to those guys. I never doubted myself, and I thought if I'm going to do it, I've just got to work hard."
And he did work hard, phenomenally so. Discovered by a record producer at 13, he was signed to Jive Records by 15 and a year later released his eponymous debut album, a smooth slice of commercial R&B that went double platinum and produced four top 10 singles. Brown spent the best part of the following two years on a tour bus conducting a relentless "meet and greet" campaign of promotional appearances in schools and shopping malls across the country. He launched his acting career, and two years later his second album, Exclusive, went double platinum, too. Brown has a perfectly competent voice, easy on the ear and agile enough to straddle R&B, dance and pop. He writes or co-writes a lot of his songs, can claim a string of acting credits and has a prodigious work ethic. But it's the way he dances that marks him out, justifying any comparison to Michael Jackson: he is an effortlessly fluid and inventive performer.
By February 2009, still just 19, Brown was the crown prince of American R&B, with a pop princess girlfriend, Rihanna, on his arm. When both failed to show at the Grammy awards ceremony, rumours spread that the couple had rowed, but the news that he'd attacked her and been arrested sent the country into a degree of shock that's hard to fathom without understanding the full cultural significance of both stars to many Americans. Brown was issued with a restraining order and sentenced to six months of community labour and five years on probation.
Former child stars often famously self-destruct in adulthood, so I ask if he thinks of himself in this category. "I guess people could say that. But the only thing that's probably changed for me is just the facial hair a little bit. When I first came out, it was more of a young, warm, clean look. Very clean, very Disney."
Does he ever wish, I try again, he'd had a chance to grow up in private? Does he regret fame coming so early?
"Honestly, where I'm from, probably not. I think me being able to travel from the small town I was from, me already having a good IQ, and you know being intelligent, and regular stuff, I just had to learn more and more of the street life, you know, how to manoeuvre around a room full of wolves."
Wolves?
He offers a slightly sour, dismissive shrug. "You know, whether it be naysayers, people that won't say, 'Hey, I like that.' But as far as me being young, like, I don't regret it, I love it, being able to accomplish my dreams at an early age. That's just showing the kids that's coming up in sixth or seventh grade, I can do this. If I really stick to it, I can do it. 'Chris was my age when he did it.'"
The advice he'd give his 14-year-old self now is "pay attention to details, details, details. I'm 24 now, so I'm making sure I'm on top of it, but back then I was just, like, whatever we're doing, I'm just glad to be here, you know?"
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