Chris Brown is once again reflecting on his troubled past.
Posing for the cover of Notion magazine, the 26-year-old singer gets candid about the “mistakes”; he’s made.
“People make mistakes — I’ve made mistakes — I’ve judged people who made mistakes, and they judge me back,”; Brown says. “The best part about it is me having 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 a**hole like, so what, f**k it, I got money,’ and you know, at the end of the day everybody knows right from wrong,”; he continues.
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In the accompanying photoshoot, Brown shows off his shirtless physique, which is curiously covered with white powder.
These days, he’s now a proud father to his adorable 1-year-old daughter, Royalty.
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“I love being a father, you know, and at the same time, there were certain wrongs and certain rights that I did do,”; Brown acknowledges. “I might’ve hurt some people along the way.”;
Despite the admission, Brown laments what he sees as unfair press.
“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 neighborhoods that are in the inner cities,”; he points out. “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.”;
Now, Brown sees himself as an “underdog.”;
“Right now I just want to inspire the world, because, with everything I went through, I kept my head up,”; he explains. “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.”;
The “With You”; singer’s seventh studio album, Royalty, comes out on Dec. 18.
“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,”; Brown says about his new music. “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.”;
Notion magazine’s Issue 71 is out today.
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ET caught up with Brown last September, when he candidly talked about moving forward after facing his own demons.
“You have to forgive yourself,”; he said. “You can’t beat yourself up over the years, because it’ll just eat at you and you’ll be stuck in the past. And for me, I just learned to be a more humble individual and more of a conscious person.”;
