On what he was like growing up…
I was cool but I wasn’t the main kid that everybody was like Oh my Gawd, it’s Chris! You know, there’s always one guy in school that everybody’s like, Oh my Gawd! I wasn’t that guy. I was the guy that hung out with him. I was always an individual, always did my own thing. When I was in 5th grade me and my mom moved to the ghetto part of where I’m from. Where I lived before it was called Dunnsville, it’s still in Tappahannock, but Dunnsville is in the county of Essex, it’s just forest and trees, you seen all your homies at school. But when I moved to the actual hood part, Airport Road, all my homies was in the hood. The hood has bad elements all the time around you, drugs and fighting and guns and stuff like that, I was around it all the time, but I wasn’t a part of it. I hung out, learned how to cuss, using bad words, being a bad guy, disrespecting people, but it wasn’t a good thing, I didn’t like doing it. I rebelled against a lot of stuff like as a kid. I didn’t like nothing nobody else was doing. I never wanted to be like everybody else, I wanted to stand out. I used to sneak out the house, ride my bike all the way down to this big ol’ Walmart, egg cars, run from the police on the bikes, it was just normal little kids stuff that we was doing.

On his most memorable fight…
My most memorable fight was a fight that I didn’t wanna fight. I was in 9th grade and it was the beginning of basketball season, I was on the basketball team, point guard. And this dude, I ain’t gonna name him ‘cause I don’t wanna even give him no shine, he was jealous of me ‘cause I sang and I was starting to do my music thing. At the time, I was back-and-forth between Virginia and Harlem. So one day we was at a girls basketball game at Essex High School and my cousin Datwon came and sat beside me in the dude’s seat so the dude came over like “Hey get up out my seat, man!” So he was like, “Somebody told me not to move. “So the dude started cussing me out and I was like, “Dude, you don’t know me like that. Don’t come at me wrong. “ So the homie was like, “Im’a strike you in your mouth when we get outside!” So me, I don’t care, I’m not scared of nobody. I had my book bag on, four, five, six big homework books, big thick ones, it was the winter season, I had this big ol’ coat on, so I walk out the door and I see my mom’s truck right in the front and I see him and six of his homies so I’m like, “Alright let’s rock!” He was like, “What you said?” I was like, “You heard me say it, don’t try ‘cause your boys here.” So then he started to swing, but I had taken martial arts so I was already expecting the hit, the punch, so I ducked. I was taking my book bag off, and he caught me one time BOW! He caught me and that’s when I blanked out like, whoa , let’s fight! My morals was like forget everything, don’t think I’m a punk! So we really got to fighting and my homeboys came to break it up and my momma was getting out the car ‘cause she didn’t know who was fighting and when she found out it was me she was like, I’m tired of this boy! Because he was always giving me problems and I’m like, “Mom, I’m not a punk, don’t go to no cops pressing no charges, like we don’t do that in the hood, he just was a hater, he’s so wack. I’m never gonna snitch on nobody, I’m gonna take care of myself. That was like the code of the hood where I was at.

One how he learned some of his moves…
When the original Power Rangers came out, Black Ranger Jack, Trina the yellow one, Jason or Tommy the Red one, Billy the blue one, I remember watching it seeing them flipping and doing all this stuff and I told my momma, “I wanna take martial arts.” So we found a Tae Kwon Do instructor I took it for like 6 years from like age 5. But I didn’t continue to do it till I was a black belt. When you from the hood and you with your homies you like, Nah, I’m learning just how to beat somebody up. So that’s what my mentality was. If something go down, I’m whipping their tail like I’m gonna give it to them. I learned how to block and all my defensive moves but then I was like, I’m cool, I’m done, I’m older now, girls will laugh at me if I take karate. So I stopped taking it.

On getting rid of his country twang…
She’s telling me what to do when I’m in front of certain people, like record people, or just to be nice, not talk too much, don’t give ‘em everything, I used to talk like (high pitched voice), “Yo, so they said I was gonna do this.” She was like just keep them on the edge of they seat sometimes, like she’s like just fall back and keep ‘em guessing. I did media training because I was so country but at the same time I had a twang, so I had two weeks of how to say my stuff because I was just like (goes into real country accent/voice) Yeah maaan I’m just saying like, this is how you gotta do it, youknowwhatimsaying folk? I was just real country so my media training really helped me out, my media-training teacher was like when somebody asks you a question, you repeat it, the training was helpful.

On his many tattoos…
I got most of these tattoos early. On my 13th birthday I was like, “Mom, I want a tattoo.” She’s like, (high pitched voice) “You ain’t gettin’ no tattoo!” So I went against her will and got one but I told her it was positive so then she liked it. That first one is basically Jesus with the music notes signifying he gave me the gift to sing. Then I got this one when I was 14, I drew this C (looks like a graffiti tag) and added a hand image. The hand means me holding my own name, my own destiny. This one, 2 ups 2 downs, is for Virginia, I had to do one for Virginia, when I was 16, in Miami. I designed that. Then it’s a spray can because I used to do graffiti and the B for Brown. I recently got this one (on his hand, it’s a skull with a halo over it). I got it the day after my 18th birthday and it signifies when you die, when you’re buried, your flesh deteriorates and all that’s left is your bones and the memory of you, it’s your bones, but you an angel. I wanted to do something that’s not demonic, so I put a halo over it to make something positive. And then this one, these is ninjas but Darkness to Light was about my life, me being a kid but being bad, being with the wrong crowd, doing the wrong things, but following my own path. This is the demon that I used to fight when I was younger, this is the angel, they just battled.

On his first love and heartbreak…
When I was younger, I was cute to girls but I never used to like the girls where I was at, I’d have a girl that I met at summer camp or from another county. My last girl, I broke up with her when I was 15, she lived in the county next to me, and she cheated on me with another guy. I found out ‘cause I played basketball, and her school is our rival school, so we went to the school, she was kickin’ with a dude like muah and all that, the whole nine yards. I peeped it, the whole thing, I was like wooooow! So I walked up like, “How ya’ll doing, ya’ll good? Ya’ll chillin’?” She was lookin’ like she saw a ghost I was like, “That’s whassup, I’ll holler at ya’ll later.” That was that. She was callin’ me and I was like stop calling. I was hurt but it put me in focus mode. I love girls, I love being around girls, but let me get focused right now ‘cause I don’t’ need to go through that again.

On what he’s like when he’s with a lady…
I’m confident, everybody has their insecurities though. When I’m with girls I just be myself, I don’t try to be like, yeah baby, I don’t put no extra bass in my voice. I’m the same guy, I crack jokes, I be joking on people, just chillin’. At the end of the day, I think people look at me like this dude don’t care, he ain’t trying to impress me, he not trying to put on no whole persona like, Oh, I got money, I got this, I can do this. Some girls might care about that ,but if they care about that then that’s not the right girl for you.

On not getting caught up in the Hollywood hype while he was on The OC…
It was cool, it was a different environment, the set was cool for the most part. The actors were consumed by Hollywood though. Some of the actors, I don’t wanna say their names, but some of the girls were real Hollywood c**ky like (high pitched stupid girl voice) I’m this, I’m that Oh wow! I don’t like that so I just stayed to myself, did my scenes and kept it moving.

On not winning the Grammy he was nominated for…
Not winning the Grammy was a big disappointment for me. I was up for Best New Artist. I was very disappointed. But as soon as they made the announcement I had to go back and get changed for my performance so I was extra mad for my performance so I wanted to perform and show ‘em why they shoulda gave it to me.