Chris Brown Ponders Music, Movies

It's been quite a few months for young R&B sensation Chris Brown, who rode his debut single, "Run It," to the top of the charts. But the Virginia native, while looking back during Grammy week ("Last year at this time I didn't even have an album out," the personable younger vocalist recalled), is also looking ahead with a new album he says should drop "the top of September."

"I worked with a lot of producers last time," he said during rehearsals for Clive Davis annual pre-Grammy soiree. "I think this time I'll work with the same number."

If he's not clear on who he'd like to see behind the boards for his sophomore effort, Brown certainly has definite ideas on who he'd like to see behind the mike. "Michael Jackson would be off the hook," he said with the enthusiasm of a seventeen-year-old. "If I could get him to lay down a chorus that would be the dream." Among the other fantasy guests is Alicia Keys. "For her ear for music," he says.

In between working on the record, Brown says he'll also have an eye to the silver screen. "I've got a couple of scripts I'm looking at," he says. And his fantasy co-star? "Samuel L. Jackson."

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

More Song Stories entries »

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