At 16, Chris Brown ushers in a new era of R&B

PHILADELPHIA -- A No. 1 pop single is not served a la carte. It comes with stuff, as music phenom Chris Brown recently discovered.

Hordes of squealing fans, for instance. A bejeweled Charlie Brown pendant. The cover of Vibe magazine. And an entourage that includes a Yale-educated tutor, road manager, career manager, manager's assistant, a spaniel wearing a knitted wool sweater, and two bodyguards -- each roughly the size of Tappahannock, Va., the tiny town where Chris Brown grew up.

But a No. 1 single does not come with this: a sleek new Range Rover.

Not even when it's a No. 1 single that catapults a 16-year-old R&B newbie into the rarefied air atop the Billboard chart, as with Brown's ''Run It!"

For that, you need approval from the person who really runs it: your mother. And Chris Brown's mother had another, more sensible idea when her son said he really wanted a Range Rover.

''He got a Ford Expedition," Joyce Hawkins says. ''It was a business decision."

Welcome to the glamorous life of pop music's hottest newcomer.

This is Chris Brown's world after his chart-topping, crunkish hit ''Run It!" (produced by A-list hip-hop beatmaker Scott Storch) climbed past the Mariahs, Kanyes, and Nickelbacks of the world.

Brown's staggeringly successful launch ratcheted up the buzz that the kid may be the next Usher, if not the next King of Pop, and landed him a show-closing radio festival slot at sold-out Madison Square Garden. There was also the near-instant gold certification of Brown's eponymous debut album.

''My personal life is the same," he says. ''At the end of the day, this is just a job. I love what I do, and it's a great job. But it's like my alter ego. There's Chris Brown the singer. And there's Christopher Brown, the down-home Tappahannock boy that plays video games and basketball and hangs out."

But Brown isn't just any singer. He's the kind whose rare combination of talent, charisma, and teen-idol looks makes label executives crank up the hyperbole.

Andre Harris and Vidal Davis are in a good position to know. The songwriting-production duo, known as Dre and Vidal, have made hit records with Usher, perhaps the most successful male R&B performer since Michael Jackson. Jackson, too, has worked with Dre and Vidal, as have Ciara, Destiny's Child -- and now Brown, whose second single, ''Yo (Excuse Me Miss)," is a Dre and Vidal production.

''He's the new wave," Harris says, ''and he hasn't even fully tapped his potential. When he does, it's going to be ridiculous."

Says Davis: ''He's a good songwriter already, and he's got a voice. Plus he can dance. He's a triple threat."