Royalty (Chris Brown album)


Royalty is the seventh studio album by American singer Chris Brown. It was released on December 18, 2015, by CBE Entertainment and RCA Records. The album serves as the follow-up to his sixth album X. The album is dedicated to Chris Brown's daughter, Royalty Brown.
The album received mixed reviews from music critics, who celebrated the record's old-school sound, but were dissatisfied towards its lyrical content. The album was considered a qualitative step back from previous solo album X.
Royalty debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200, selling 184,000 units in its first week, marking an improvement over Brown's last three studio albums. It also became his seventh solo album consecutive top ten debut in the United States. As of March 2016, Royalty has sold 360,000 copies in the United States It was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for combined equivalent units of 1,000,000 units.
Preceding the album's release by four singles; including "Liquor", "Zero", "Back to Sleep", and "Fine by Me". The album's third single "Back to Sleep" peaked at number 20 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Background

On June 25, 2015, Chris Brown announced that his seventh album would be released during the autumn of 2015. On the day after, he released the album's lead single, titled "Liquor".
On August 22, 2015, the singer revealed on his Twitter, that this new album will be titled "Royalty", in honor of his daughter. On October 16, 2015, he has revealed the album cover, portraying Chris with Royalty in his arms in a black and white picture. During an interview with Hot 97, Brown explained the significance of the title:

Composition

Royalty is mainly an R&B album, with some songs heavily influenced by funk, trap and PBR&B music. The opening track, "Back to Sleep" is an R&B slow jam that features beats and minor influences of funk and pop music, reminiscent of Marvin Gaye's 1982 song "Sexual Healing". "Fine by Me" is an EDM, disco and R&B song inspired by 80's music. "Wrist" is a trap song with some heavy influences from R&B and hip hop. "Make Love" is a slow jam that has a pure R&B style, inspired by 90's music. "Liquor" is an R&B song with heavy influences from psychedelic and soul music. "Zero" is a disco and funk song that was compared by some critics to the work of American band Chic and French electronic music duo Daft Punk. "Anyway" is a dance-pop song which features an auto-tuned chorus sung by Tayla Parx. "Picture Me Rollin’" is a g-funk and old school hip hop song, which features influences by west coast rap. "Who's Gonna " is an R&B song that samples "Nobody" performed by Keith Sweat featuring Athena Cage, and "My, My, My" performed by Johnny Gill. "Proof" and "Discover" are PBR&B songs with painful lyrics about breakup. "No Filter" is a disco and funk song. "Day One" is a trap and PBR&B song, with a dark tune and fast rapping, where Brown's voice is auto-tuned. "KAE" is a PBR&B song dedicated to Brown's ex-girlfriend, Karrueche Tran. "U Did It" is a slow R&B song which features some electronic elements.

Release and promotion

On October 13, 2015, Brown announced that Royalty will be released on November 27, 2015. After it was revealed that the album has been pushed back to December 18, 2015, in exchange on November 27, 2015, he released a free 34-track mixtape, called Before the Party, as a prelude to Royalty. The mixtape features guest appearances from Rihanna, Wiz Khalifa, Pusha T, Wale, Tyga, French Montana and Fetty Wap. On October 16, 2015, the album cover was revealed.
On December 4, 2015, the track "Wrist" featuring Solo Lucci, was released as part of the countdown single, with the pre-order of the album on December 4, 2015. On December 11, 2015 the track "Anyway" was released as an instant grat with pre-orders.

Singles

The album's lead single, "Liquor" was released on June 26, 2015. The song was produced by ToneStith. On September 22, 2015, the music video premiered, sharing along with the music video for "Zero". The song has since peaked at number 60 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
The album's second single, "Zero" was released on September 18, 2015. The song was produced by Riley Bell, Matthew Burnett and Tushar Apte. On September 22, 2015, the music video was released for "Zero", while sharing along with the music video for "Liquor". The song has since peaked at number 80 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
The song, titled "Back to Sleep" was leaked via SoundCloud on November 5, 2015. It was officially released as the album's third single on November 9, 2015. The song was produced by Vinylz and Boi-1da. On December 14, 2015, Brown uploaded and released the music video for "Back to Sleep" on his YouTube and Vevo account. The video begins, after the conclusion of Brown's "Fine By Me" music video. The song has since peaked at number 20 on the US Billboard Hot 100 making it Brown's highest charting single from Royalty in the United States.
"Fine by Me" was released, along with the pre-order on iTunes on November 26, 2015. On the following day, it was officially released as the album's fourth single. The song was produced by The Monsters and the Strangerz. The video begins at the end of his video "Zero", and shows a clip from his other video "Liquor".

Other songs

The track "Wrist" featuring Solo Lucci, was released as part of the countdown single, with the pre-order of the album on December 4, 2015. On December 15, 2015, Brown uploaded the music video from the song.
The track "Anyway" was released as an instant grat with pre-orders on December 11, 2015. It was produced by BLAQTUXEDO and features guest appearances from Tayla Parx.
The music video for "Picture Me Rollin’" was uploaded and released on December 17, 2015. Scott Disick, French Montana, Cal Scruby, Kid Red, ASAP Ferg, and ASAP Rocky, all make their cameo appearances in this video.
On December 18, 2015, Brown uploaded the music video for "Little More " on his YouTube and Vevo account. The song has since peaked at number 91 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Music video series

Brown directed and released eight music videos for Royalty, serializing them to construct a linear story.

Plot

Chris Brown is first seen drowning his sorrows at a bar alone when a mysterious woman buys him a drink and gives it to him after slipping a drug into it. After reluctantly drinking it, Brown loses control of his senses and leaves with the woman to her home, but Brown is under the effect of the drug and sees everything in a psychedelic way as his eyes turn temporarily neon green. After the night spent with the mysterious woman, Brown then takes a taxi home, only to find a girl he’s been seeing throwing his clothes off a balcony because she did not know where he was. Rather than get into an argument, Brown decides to gather his boys and go out. Afterwards, he starts dancing in an alley and moves his way into a laundromat with his crew before taking the stage at a downtown theater and meeting up with Dan Bilzerian.
After Brown leaves his crew, another woman catches his attention. He follows her to a building containing a high tech fighting arena. Suddenly, an old man's face appears on the screen and tells Brown that he owns the substance that was slipped into his drink back at the bar and wants it back via Brown's blood. Realizing he was tricked in the first place, Brown is forced to fight the old man's henchmen, but easily dispatches them with his heightened physical abilities derived from the drug and escapes, though the old man tells the second woman to follow him. Brown then calls his girlfriend and heads over to her place, where they make love through the night.
Brown wakes up and goes for a walk, but is caught by the old man's henchwoman who drugs him again with a dust-like substance. In another trance-like sequence, Brown is dragged into another dark room by the henchwoman, inter-cut with clips of him and rapper Solo Lucci performing and dancing to "Wrist". She seduces him as he is tied to a chair, then tries to slit his throat, but Brown glitches out of his trap and the henchwoman is bound to the chair in his stead, allowing his escape. Brown calls his girlfriend again to try to explain everything, but she is fed up and claims she is "done", ignoring any further calls from him. She then meets another man who asks her out on a date while she works out with her friends, but the man stands her up when they are supposed to meet. Brown sees his dejected girlfriend walk into a club and with his crew's encouragement, reconciles with her inside the club and leads a dance number. While Brown and his girlfriend leave, the man from earlier bumps into them and upon hearing the man call his girlfriend "love", Brown punches him, which leads to another argument resulting in Brown's girlfriend leaving him for good.
While Brown sulks, another of his friends calls him, inviting him to go to a house party that coincidentally takes place at his own house, which Brown reluctantly accepts as "Picture Me Rollin'" starts to play. While Brown cheers himself up at the party, the old man himself appears and confronts Brown, saying "we can do this the easy way or the hard way". Brown's friends, including Disick, French Montana and ASAP Rocky, step in and toss the thug out while Brown escapes.
Brown is then seen tossing in his sleep inter-cut with flashbacks from the earlier videos, in addition to new footage of his girlfriend struggling to accept her pregnancy. He then wakes up in his bed and finds a toddler, revealed to be his own daughter Royalty, sitting next to him. Initially confused, he realizes the previous experiences were likely a dream and begins to play with Royalty in a musical montage, proclaiming his fatherly love for her and how she brings out the best in him. The video series ends as the same green flash in Brown's eyes from earlier appears for a second in Royalty's eyes.

Critical reception

Royalty received mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 59, which indicates "mixed or average reviews", based on 5 reviews. Allmusic editor Andy Kellman expressed a mixed response saying that the album "is designed more to please Brown's devout fans than illustrate growth", and called it a qualitative step back from previous solo album X. Los Angeles Timess Mikael Wood expressed a positive response, and complimented its music as "a convincing bad-guy energy that’s all the more potent for its sweet, often luscious textures". Complexs Michael Arcenaux expressed a negative response, describing the album as a "mistake" and calling it a "directionless mess", saying that "Chris Brown has all the components to be excellent, he’s a decent singer with a nice tone, a proven songwriter, and an excellent performer, but rarely is that reflected on his albums". Mike Pizzo of Las Vegas Weekly said that on the album Brown "doesn’t attempt to make a cohesive album, but looks to solidify his position by producing another handful of radio-ready cuts, attempting to satisfy multiple audiences at once".
Brad Wete of Billboard praised the album's sound, but he was dissatisfied towards its lyrical content, saying "Admittedly, a rich 26-year-old bachelor’s life is full of romps with women and wild nights. Fame, access, and talent bring those with ease. This seems to be an art imitating life thing. But if and when Brown ascends to the next level, it likely will be because he starts talking about the morning after. It’s time for him to wake up." Marcus Dowling of HipHopDX on his review has expressed the same concepts of Brad Wete's review, saying that "While showing progression on Royalty, Chris Brown still is quite far from being the best man and artist that he can be."

Commercial performance

Royalty debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200 selling 184,000 equivalent copies behind Justin Bieber's Purpose and 25 by Adele. It was the second best-selling album of the week. The album was the sixth Brown's solo album to debut at number one on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Royalty was also streamed 17.3 million times in the first week. The album debuted at number 23 on the UK Albums Chart and number-one on the UK R&B Chart, becoming Brown's fifth number-one on that chart.
The sales for Royalty mark an improvement over Brown's last three studio albums, with the former two peaking higher, but selling less, while the latter than a collaboration with Tyga; which has sold 51,000 copies. Despite having greater first week sales than his three previous albums, this is his third-lowest peak position for one of his solo studio albums. In its second week, the album remained in the top ten at Billboard 200, fell to number 8, selling 55,000 equivalent copies. In its third week, the album dropped down to number 12 on the chart, selling 29,000 equivalent copies. In the fourth week the album fell to number 14 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 23,000 equivalent copies. As of March 2016, Royalty has sold 360,000 copies in the United States. Royalty was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for combined album sales, on-demand audio, video streams, track sales equivalent of 1,000,000 units.

Track listing

Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.

Notes

Sample credits
Credits for Royalty adapted from Allmusic.

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Chart Position
Australian Urban Albums 20
US Billboard 20039
US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums 7
US Top R&B Albums 4

Chart Position
Australian Urban Albums 98

Certifications

Release history