Pops Culture

By: Papa Minnow

Whether you love him or hate him, there is no denying that Chris Brown is one of the greatest artists of all time and it’s about time the music industry and fans alike start acknowledging it. No other artist has released as much music commercially, nor to the high quality that Brown has in the past five years.

His last four album run alone could define another artist’s career as one of the best out. So it’s no surprise that when the 33-year-old singer returned with 24 new songs for his 10th studio album Breezy, fan anticipation was through the roof.

Could Brown strike gold again and deliver another stellar body of work?

Breezy starts off on a very somber tone as Brown leads off with the song “Till The Wheels Fall Off” featuring Lil Durk and Capella Grey. The song’s first lines state, “summertime, but it feels cold, sun’s out it ain’t shining though,” depicting a resonating internal sadness despite the joyful season.

It’s a powerful opener that sets a tone of authenticity that is maintained throughout the album. Features are very prominent on the first half with some very interesting collaborations in the likes of Bryson Tiller, Lil Baby, and even gangster rapper EST Gee.

For the most part each artist does well to mesh their talents with Brown’s vocals and add value to the collaboration: such as Lil’ Wayne whos verse on the song “Possessive” demonstrates his generational talent for wordplay and effortless flow. Another stellar collaboration comes from H.E.R., who seems incapable of missing when teamed up with Brown.

However, there are some features that don’t hold up as strongly like Bryson Tiller’s showing on “Need You Right Here” and Jack Harlow’s verse on “Psychic”. Tiller just croons his way through without much substance in his lyrics and Jack’s storytelling is a little all over the place. Neither feature derails their respective tracks to the point that they’re unlistenable though.

The only other misstep on this album comes in the form of song construction, in that, the majority of songs fall within the same time length of around three minutes and the fade outs are very abrupt without much leeway for the beat to ride out onto the next song. Past projects like Indigo saw Brown deliver a variety of song lengths that helped complete the album package.

That’s not to say that Breezy doesn’t offer variety, it absolutely does with a very wide range of pop, R&B, and soul (especially on the later half of the album), that lovers of any genre can enjoy. In fact, this might be his most cohesive album yet.

It would have just been even better than it is if there were more songs that hit that four to five minute mark like the intro (Till The Wheels Fall Off), “C.A.B.”, and “WE (Warm Embrace)” did, which happen to be some of the best songs off this album.

Other notable standouts include “Hmhmm” which features a very catchy hook, “Show It”, “Survive The Night”, and “Harder”. Four very different songs that show off Brown’s incredible musical range vocally and creatively.

Breezy is a testament to the culmination of effort that Brown consistently puts into his music and the past five years has shown that he truly is a living legend deserving of more recognition than he’s received. This album deserves several Grammy nominations amongst being a must-listen-to album and the project that saved Summer 2022.

Salute, Breezy.

9/10