Robert Barisford "Bobby" Brown (born February 5, 1969) is a Grammy Award-winning American R&B singer-songwriter and dancer. After success in pop group New Edition, Brown began his solo career in 1987 and had a string of Top 10 Billboard hits, culminating in a Grammy Award. He was a pioneer of New Jack Swing music, a fusion of hip hop and R&B. His second album, Don't Be Cruel, included popular songs such as "My Prerogative." Brown is the ex-husband of R&B singer Whitney Houston and starred in the reality show Being Bobby Brown.

New Edition

Solo career

After leaving New Edition in 1986, Brown released his first solo album, King of Stage, in 1986. This album included "Girlfriend," a minor hit which went to #1 on the Billboard R&B charts and #57 on the Billboard Hot 100. Other than that, King of Stage did not garner much attention. However, Brown's next album, 1988's Don't Be Cruel rocketed him to super stardom. Working with the writing/producing team of L.A. Reid and Babyface, as well as Teddy Riley, Don't Be Cruel spawned five Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 singles: "Don't Be Cruel" (#8), "Every Little Step" (#3), "Rock Wit' Cha" (#7), "My Prerogative" (#1, subsequently covered by Britney Spears in 2004), and "Roni" (#3 'which is ranked as the #2 ranked song of all time'). The album would eventually be certified 8x platinum (8,000,000 units sold) .

In 1989 he contributed two songs (including "On Our Own," which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100) to the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack, in addition to making a cameo in the film. Brown has subsequently dabbled in acting.

In between the "On Our Own" single and the release of Brown's next album, a remix album, Dance! Ya Know It! was released to capitalise on Brown's huge success at the time. A non-album "megamix" single was released to promote the project. The European dance-orientated version (sampling beats by Snap!) was titled "The Freestyle Megamix" and was a hit in the UK, reaching #14 on the Gallup charts. A more R'n'B orientated version called "Every Little Hit Mix" (b/w "Roni) hit the Australian top 10

Brown's third album, Bobby, did not arrive until 1992. It reached #2 on the Billboard album charts and produced the hit singles "Humpin' Around" (#3 on the Billboard Hot 100) and "Good Enough" (#7) as well as a smaller hit in "Get Away" (#14). The album was eventually certified 1x platinum (1,000,000 units sold). However, it did not come close to matching the album sales or singles chart success of its predecessor.

Brown waited until 1998 to release his next (and thus far, last) album of original material, Forever. The album was originally titled Bobby II and was supposed to produced by such luminaries as R.Kelly, Teddy Riley, Sean Combs and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. However, Brown negotiated 100% creative control of the albumfact: date=May 2008 and decided to write all the songs himself. It only managed to climb to #61 on the Billboard Hot 200 album charts and produced no charting singles. There were hopes for a Brown comeback in 2002 when he appeared on the lead single "Thug Lovin'" from rapper Ja Rule's third studio album The Last Temptation. There were even talks that Brown had signed with Murder, Inc. records. In 2006 Brown appeared on "Beautiful," the third single from Damian Marley's album Welcome to Jamrock. He is also set to appear on the new album, Voice of the Streets, by Mike Jones, on a song called "One & Only (Tenderoni)," which also features T.I.