“Say what you want…” Chris Brown began at the message he posted to his Instagram Stories on Dec. 28, “But when it come(sic) to what I do, you can’t do it.” The 31-year-old singer didn’t really specify what made him start this rant, but it seems he caught a bit of “hate” online and felt the need to clap back. “Approval ain’t sh-t when you make real music for the people!!! No cocky sh-t, but I’ve been proving myself and providing some sort of comfort for my fans’ emotions. If you think I’m in this studio on sone bullsh-t, every second of my life, [then] you are out of your rabbit ass mind!”
“I’ma keep working overtime because that’s what it takes!!!” continued Chris. “No hate, but I respect all the young n—-s trying to follow they (sic) dream. I hate on no music and no struggle. There is room for sunstance (sic), growth.” Chris then said he felt “a type of way today,” so he “decided to drop my nutts.” Chris ended his screed with “manifestation is not a myth. Spirituality does not make you a b-tch!”
Again, Chris didn’t specify who this message was for. His Instagram bio boasts the phrase “IM THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO ME,” and on Dec. 22, Chris published a post about how “Go Crazy,” his song with Young Thug, hit the top of the Billboard Hot R&B Songs chart. “Go Crazy” hails from Breezy and Young Thug’s collaborative mixtape, Slime & B. The mixtape only reached No. 155 on the Billboard Top 200, and peaked at No. 20 on the Top R&B Albums chart. The release received mixed reviews. HipHopDX gave it a 4.4/5, and Pitchfork rated it a 5.0, calling it a “mismatch” that required Thug to “sacrifice a ton of what makes him special and engaging” in order to work with Chris.
Chris’s use of “you can’t do it” invokes a moment from 2019 after Beyoncé released her Homecoming documentary on Netflix. While fans were buzzing over the inside look at her 2018 Coachella headlining performance, one fan decided to kick the hornets’ nest – or, in this case, the Beyhive. “Until the day does this on stage, never in your life compare her to Breezy,” a fan (from a now-suspended account) tweeted along with a video of Chris doing a front flip. The obvious troll was successful, as a war broke out between the Beyhive and Team Breezy.