Bark + Bite

The softer side of Chris Brown

Well, perhaps a leopard can change its spots after all.

Chris Brown and his team are on a tear, trying to recast the controversial R&B star as a really nice guy. (Hint: Maybe get him to remove a few of his many tattoos)

They've even decided to come at the domestic violence angle indirectly by having him volunteer at the Jenessee Center, a domestic violence shelter for women and their children.

He recently let Extra TV film his activities and the center and he spoke on camera about his motivations for working with the Jenessee Center.

Watch Chris Brown talk about his work with the organization below

Album Review: Chris Brown's Fortune is stuck on mediocre

Fortune, a victim of incessant pushbacks and a series of underperforming singles, has finally dropped (June 29, 2012) almost a full year after its original planned release date. Backed by all-star collaborations and first rate production credits, Chris Brown’s fifth studio album was meant to reaffirm his commercial status as pop’s “it boy” as well as to continue the rehabilitation of his brand. The question is...does it?

Picking up where 2011's F.A.M.E. left off, Chris has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons: bad mouthing Robin Roberts of GMA after hurling a TV through ABC's windows, collaborating with Rihanna only to "go in" on her in a follow-up freestyle, allegedly stealing a fan’s iPhone, and [last but not least] getting into a “fight” with Drake all the while never singing a single, solitary note live. Long story short? The boy has been busy.

Unwrap the FULL review after the jump and sound-off below!

Chris Brown is back on speaking terms with the media

Kudos to Chris Brown for manning up and stepping back into the public arena. And by that, we mean getting on camera and submitting himself to an interview.

Ever since he went Incredible Hulk on Good Morning America last year, Chris pretty much x'd out all media. No press, no interviews, nothing. But hey, he has an album to promote and some of his singles could use an extra boost, so some smart cookie on his team realized it was time for him to bite the bullet and kiss a few babies and shake hands with the people.

Chris made a recent appearance on 106 & Park where he answered a few questions, but that was safe territory. He recently ventured before MTV and Fuse's cameras to give his sales pitch for Fortune.

Chris Brown strikes back at lip synching criticisms

After Chris Brown put on his Aunt Jemima headscarf and popped, locked and dropped it for the crowd at the 2012 Billboard Awards, he probably expected a round of applause. Instead, what he got (at least on the Internet) was a scathing batch of nasty tweets lampooning him for his blatantly obvious lip synching.

Pink and her husband Carey Hart came for Chris' neck first with their unfiltered thoughts on Breezy's lip-synched performance.

one day if i lipsync, i hope i do it as well as him....

— P!nk (@Pink) May 21, 2012

Im pretty sure i saw my wife did that same performance, but she was 3 months pregnant and actually sang the song.

— Carey Hart (@hartluck) May 21, 2012

Even Joe Jonas threw in his two cents, which is weird since Chris actually wrote a song for him on his last album. Is this how he repays Chris' kindness?

What happened to people singing live??? .....

— joe jonas (@joejonas) May 21, 2012

Chris heard all of the teeth gnashing on the tweets and as usual, he didn't stay quiet.

Anyone who is upset obviously is upset with their lives... Make your music...make a difference.. Be better than me! Godbless!

— Chris Brown(@chrisbrown) May 22, 2012

Great performance!youtube.com/watch?v=MWY5Sw…

— Chris Brown(@chrisbrown) May 22, 2012

Did you catch what he did with that second tweet? It was a "Hey, Michael lip synched so why can't I?" plea for sympathy. He also tweeted out a link to an old lip-synched performance of Britney Spears' "I'm A Slave 4 U," but someone at RCA must've told him to keep his labelmate out of his mess because Chris quickly deleted it.

The Michael comparison is a bit off, since the performance Chris tweeted was of MJ performing at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards. Michael was in his late '30s and in many ways, a weakened, pale imitation of himself. Chris, who is in his '20s, is still healthy and sturdy. He should look up performances of Michael during his Thriller days and see if MJ was lip synching then.

Whether other artists have or haven't gotten away with it or not, complete lip synching almost always leaves a bad taste in most fans' mouths. A backing track is understandable, but this isn't the first time Chris has completely lip synched a full performance. He should find a way to comfortably blend the two so that he's singing live for portions of the performances and using the backing track when necessary.

Chris should study the book of Beyonce if he needs a few tips.

Chris Brown smacks Rihanna around in "Theraflu" freestyle

Welp. Things sure have a way of souring quickly between Chris Brown and Rihanna.

After an in-your-face reunion campaign that saw Rihanna drive away droves of loyal fans, Chris Brown has repaid Rihanna's absolution kindness with a rude, crude, slut-shaming diss in his latest viral freestyle. The track, which Christopher released to the web, is his take on Kanye's "Theraflu" aka "Way Too Cold," and like Kanye, he doesn't hold back one bit on his ex.

"Don't f**k with my old bitch it's like a bad fur
Every industry n***a done had her
Trick or treat like a pumpkin just to smash her
Bitch is breaking codes, but I'm the password"

Listen to Chris Brown vent his rage on RiRi below

Diplo doesn't hold back his feelings on Chris Brown, M.I.A.

If you thought Diplo was going soft just because he's working with mainstream artists like Beyonce, Usher and Chris Brown these days, think again.

In an intimate profile by Rolling Stone, Diplo reveals that while he respects Chris Brown, the artist, he doesn't think too highly of Chris Brown, the man.

"I do think he's an asshole – like, at the Grammys, he could have been more graceful. But he's an artist. He's good at what he does."

As for his ex-flame M.I.A., Diplo keeps the love/hate beef between them alive by slamming her middle finger stunt at the Super Bowl and unflinchingly panning her collaboration with Madonna on "Give Me All Your Luvin'."

"[The middle finger at the Super Bowl] was kind of stupid. I think her being on that Madonna song is kind of lame, and she was trying to make up for that. That song is such a flop."

This kind of candor won't win Diplo too many friends in Hollywood, but who needs showbiz friends anyway, right? The good news is that Chris Brown hasn't freaked out about this on Twitter — yet.

Rihanna says her recent collaborations with Chris Brown are 'innocent'

After pissing off her fan base and throwing up the middle finger to anyone who voiced concern about her two duets with ex-boyfriend Chris Brown, Rihanna is finally talking that talk as far as the reasoning behind her reunion with the man who beat her.

In a largely softball interview with Ryan Seacrest, Rihanna touched on the remixes of "Birthday Cake" and "Turn Up the Music." In Rihanna's strange mind, the duets were "innocent" and meant to unite Rihanna and Chris Brown fans who have understandably been divided like Israel and Palestine ever since news broke of the assault that night in L.A.

"The hottest R&B artist right now is Chris Brown, so I wanted him on the track. Then in turn he was like, why don't you do the remix to my track? And you know, it was a trade-off. We did two records. One for my fans, one for his fans. And that way our fans can come together. There shouldn't be a divide. It's music and it's innocent," Rihanna insisted.

Hear the audio snippet yourself. Clip via That Good Hit:

Rihanna is either hopelessly naive or willfully ignorant. The word "innocent" left the building when it came to Chrihanna that night of the Grammys in L.A. No duet, no press release, no "get well soon" e-card is going to change or remove the memory of that attack from her fans' and the public's minds.

So pretending that some simple ass remixes are supposed to make her fan base — a large portion of which remain anti-Chris Brown — reach out and hug his fan base — a large portion of which remain anti-Rihanna — is pretty dumb.

It's interesting that Rihanna is insistent that there shouldn't be a divide between Rihanna and Chris fans. Why not? There are divisions between her fans and Beyonce fans, thanks to her association with Jay-Z. Will RiRi be cutting a track with Bey and Blue Ivy on a Kanye West-produced remix of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to clear the air?

Or how about Rita Ora, Jay-Z's new star du jour? He's recently kicked off a full-force promo campaign for the European-born star, supposedly in retaliation for Rihanna's reunion with Brown, which was reportedly against his wishes. Her fans have attacked Ora viciously on Twitter and even defensively trended #RihannaWillNeverBeReplaced in response to the Roc Nation newbie's promo campaign. Will Rihanna be inviting Ora out for a cup of tea one of these days while she's out in London?

Never before has an artist willingly pissed off their own fan base to please another's. Rihanna didn't just bite the hand that feeds her with this move, she took the freshly removed fingers and threw them to the dogs.

And the sad thing is, Chris didn't even need Rihanna's seal of approval. Thanks to a prolific amount of material, hard work and a crazy work ethic, Chris had already built himself back up. He performed twice at the Grammys and WON, for Christ's sake. All these Captain Save-A-Ho efforts Rihanna's pulling are late and so unnecessary.

Can you imagine Tina Turner turning around and doing some dang duets with Ike to help clean up his reputation?

Hell, when Ike died in 2007 and the media came knockin' on her door for some kind of commentary, Ms. Turner promptly released a no funny business statement: ”Tina hasn’t had any contact with Ike for more than 35 years. No further comment will be made."

Now that's how you do it. They sure don't make 'em like they used to.

Chris Brown reflects on his pain but focuses on his triumphs in "How I Feel"

Chris Brown is opening up his diary with a newly released track "How I Feel." The "song," if you want to call it that, is really just a stream of consciousness verse featuring rap Breezy as he reflects on his start in the industry as kid, witnessing his mother being abused by his stepfather, the heights of his fame and falling in the limelight as haters cheered on.

The line that relives his mother's domestic violence is actually somewhat revealing, "All alone sleeping in my bedroom, as I wet the sheets / 'Mama gon be dead soon,' cause a man beat her / But he don't realize she important to this family like a heirloom."

This sets Chris up to reflect on his own horrific transformation into a monster just like his stepfather, whose abuse so terrified him as a child that he wet the bed. Instead, Chris turns the arrogance up and walks away from sharing something meaningful, telling anyone who has anything to say about his own domestic violence incident that they should really just get off his d**k. If the line sounds familiar, it's the same crap he trotted out on "Look At Me Now" too.

"I done said all I had to say, what else? / Cocksuckers low blowin' under my belt / Yeah, they hangin' from the tip, they tryin' to get a sip / Don't let 'em get a grip, I'm pissin' on 'em myself," Chris spits defiantly.

Maturity, thy name is not Christopher Brown. Oh well.

Listen to Chris Brown's new song below