During a sneak peek of his sixth album last week at Burbank, Calif.’s Glenwood Studios, Chris Brown shared the project’s lead single, “Fine China,” which will be released along with its official video on April 1. “Fine China,” an uptempo song defining the qualities of a woman, is one of five tracks the Grammy Award-winning singer shared of “X,” the RCA set is slated for late August/early September. The reflective “Autumn Leaves,” Diplo-produced title track, new ballad “Lady in Glass Dress” and uptempo “Add Me In” were also played to whet appetites for the follow-up to last year’s “Fortune.”
Following the sneak peek, an enthusiastic and talkative Brown sat down for a 20-minute chat about the album, the “Fine China” video and other projects.
Billboard: How far along are you with the album?
I’m always thinking ahead so with every album I’m doing, there’s always another album in mind. When I did “F.A.M.E.,” “‘Fortune” was already being thought about with certain songs we’d already started. As far as this album, I think it’s pretty much done. In a nutshell, we have about 40 songs and we’ve got to break those down tremendously. “Fine China” will be the foot in the door. Hopefully, when people hear it, they’ll like it, saying it’s something they haven’t really heard from me. But I’m never really done recording. I always stay in the studio whether I’m just writing or coming up with other stuff. If you keep your mind going, you always come up with something new, fresh.
We’ve got a lot of collaborators on this album. I didn’t really bounce around doing songs for the album. I basically kept it in one place, almost like a writer’s camp the way Quincy Jones did back in the day. Put everybody in one place and come up with music. That was the process. We’d come up with ideas. We’d also have parties in the studio; invite people and just pack it out, playing music. Then we’d see what their response was to it, just to get a different feel. Read the rest of the Q&A here.