As usual, the Party don’t start until Chris gets there, and he has arrived. With little promotion, Chris Brown released his single, Party on December 16. Team Breezy has worked tirelessly to get the word out. Within 24 Hours the song reached the Top 10 on US iTunes, the video had 10M views on Youtube within the first week.

Well it all has paid off as the song has debuted on the Billboard Charts at #58. Pretty solid start for the song has yet to be sent to radio, so it has nowhere to go but up!

On Aug. 13, a high spirited Chris Brown gave Billboard his first formal interview since leaving jail in June. Kicked back in front of a control board at Hollywood’s hot Chalice Recording Studios, a vintage-gear-stuffed space favored by young artists, the 25-year-old was taking a late-afternoon break from putting the finishing touches on his sixth studio album, X. But like much of his recent life, the day featured a major distraction from the music: Hours earlier, the singer, who lives in Los Angeles, had to appear in a courtroom to get a (positive) progress report on sticking to his probation.

That five-year probation stems from Brown’s 2009 conviction for assaulting ex-girlfriend Rihanna, an attack that remains notorious despite his public apologies, trips to rehab for anger management and diagnoses with both bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders. Brown’s sometimes belligerent attitude and other tangles with the law haven’t helped. The 108 days he spent in a Los Angeles county jail this year were for violating parole after assaulting a stranger outside a Washington, D.C., hotel in October 2013. (Brown, who pled guilty to that charge on Sept. 2 and was sentenced to time served, punched the victim after the man tried to get into a photo with him.) He also has allegedly brawled with Drake and Frank Ocean.

Trouble has found him, too. On Aug. 24 — less than two weeks after Billboard’s interview — hip-hop mogul Suge Knight and two others were shot at Brown’s pre-MTV Video Music Awards party at Hollywood’s 1OAK. Unsubstantiated rumors spread that Brown was the actual target, and TMZ reported that he was “throwing gang signs” before the shooting. On Sept. 4, Brown provided this exclusive statement to Billboard regarding the events of the last few months:

“I realize that what I do for a living opens my life to public scrutiny and that I have a responsibility to everyone because of that exposure. I can say that I am only human and I have made mistakes. I can say that I try to live my life in the most true, honest way that I can. I am not perfect, no one is. No one is harder on me than me. No one can please everyone. No one can live in the past and expect to grow. I have been moving forward and hope that I am not defined by just a few moments in my life but all of the moments that will make up my life.”

Amid all of this “mayhem and hoopla,” as he himself calls it, Brown’s commercial clout remains massive. His most recent hit, “Loyal,” peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and generated 1.1 million of his 41.3 million total downloads as a lead artist, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The Grammy-winning singer has scored 13 top 10 Hot 100 hits, including two No. 1s; 30 top 10s and four No. 1s on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart; and two No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200. All told, Brown has sold 6.1 million albums.

Brown also boasts one of music’s most dedicated — and sometimes aggressive — online constituencies. “Team Breezy” numbers 38 million on Facebook, 13.6 million on Twitter and 4.7 million on Instagram. Women account for the majority of these fans: Brown’s manager Mike G estimates the artist’s base skews 65 percent female. (Many of them are teens, too: 21 percent of the overall visitors to his Facebook page are between 13 and 17.)

Brown is undoubtedly one of the most controversial stars in music. But during this conversation he was gracious and engaging, if a bit circumspect. As he tinkered with the final mix and sequencing for X, which RCA will release Sept. 16, he sang, bobbed his head and tossed out instructions (“Let’s tone that down so it’s not too dominant”) to his engineer. In this Q&A, Brown discusses life behind bars, his growth as a person and whether society is ready to let him be considered a role model.
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Just hours after receiving a positive probation progress report in a Los Angeles courtroom, Chris Brown candidly spoke with Billboard for our latest cover story, opening up about his upcoming sixth album, X, and what life was like for him behind bars.

Less than two weeks later, Brown was at the center of a new scandal — hip-hop mogul Suge Knight and two others were shot at his VMA pre-party on Aug. 24. In the midst of unsubstantiated reports and endless speculation, the R&B singer reached out to Billboard with this exclusive statement about trying to move past his troubles — even as they nip at his heels.

“I realize that what I do for a living opens my life to public scrutiny and that I have a responsibility to everyone because of that exposure,” Brown tells Billboard. “I can say that I am only human and I have made mistakes. I can say that I try to live my life in the most true, honest way that I can. I am not perfect, no one is. No one is harder on me than me. No one can please everyone. No one can live in the past and expect to grow. I have been moving forward and hope that I am not defined by just a few moments in my life but all of the moments that will make up my life.”

For Breezy’s thoughts about Rihanna, life in jail, his loyal fanbase and his new album, check back tomorrow for Billboard’s full cover story.