Running With It

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

Brown's manager, Tina Davis, is thinking even bigger.

Davis came across Brown more than a year ago the old-fashioned way: The kid who used to sing in a church choir had been kicking around Tappahannock, about 100 miles due south of Washington, with some local producers, who knew some people who knew some people who got Def Jam's attention. Davis was a senior A&R executive at Def Jam at the time. She loved what she heard and saw, and was about to sign Brown to the label when she lost her job. So she became Brown's manager a day later. And within a week, Brown had a deal with Jive Records, the label that launched the careers of Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, among others. That was last December.

Now, with a straight face, Davis says Brown might be "the biggest thing since Michael Jackson."

For his part, Brown kinda, you know, wishes the comparisons would just go away already.

Especially the ones to Usher, which have become de rigueur. (To wit: A recent People magazine headline says, simply: "Is He the Next Usher?")

"I'm not gonna say that I hate it, because I really respect Usher and I was influenced by him," says Brown, who used to perform Usher's "My Way" in the mirror at home. "But so many people compare me to him, and I don't think it'll ever stop. I just want to be my own artist."

Even so, Brown's show begins with a flashy entrance set to Jackson's "Thriller" -- the obvious insinuation being that it's time to get that old King of Pop throne warm.

Onstage he's charismatic and kinetic, popping, locking, twirling, high-stepping, constantly moving, even when he serenades two young girls picked from the audience. He performs a half-dozen songs, which is more accurate than saying he sings them, since he lets the crowd carry some of the lyrics while he dances. (It's worth noting, though, that Brown doesn't once lip-sync and that his stage voice is basically the same as his studio voice, which is to say that he sounds like a cross between Tevin Campbell and New Edition's Ralph Tresvant. Or, for those seeking more recent data points, a young Justin Timberlake.)

The crowd whips itself into a frenzy when Brown launches into "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)" and even more so when he follows that up with "Run It!" At some point, you figure, the audience's collective breath will run out. The screaming will stop. It never does. Thriller, indeed.

But one hit single and another seemingly on the way do not a new king make. And besides, there's nothing royal about Brown's surroundings right now.

He is holed up, post-show, in a bare-bones wedge of a dressing room that can't be more than 10 feet by 20 feet. It is furnished with a pleather couch, two metal-backed leather stools and a low-definition television set tuned to some sort of prime-time network drama.

There is nothing resembling a lavish meal spread: just a pot of steaming water, a few lemon wedges, an assortment of teas, some bottled water and a few Jolly Ranchers, plus a bag of potato chips that Brown is inhaling between sips from a can of Coke. This represents his dinner, much to his mother's dismay.

To review the night's performance, Brown huddles with his dancers over a video camera, all of them looking for slip-ups on the tiny playback screen. He then dashes off for a live radio interview, ducks into Bow Wow's dressing room for a chat, then spends about 30 minutes signing autographs for young girls, who leave with personalized signatures (to Alicia, to Nikki, to Charlotte, etc.) on 8-by-10 photos, each of them enhanced by the hearts hand-drawn by Brown. Throughout the autograph session, "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)" plays on an endless loop, with Brown singing along to himself.

When he's done, he jumps out of his seat and dances his way down the hall, back to the tiny room, where he's now bouncing off the walls. He can't stand still, apparently. "He's like this 24/7," his mother says. "He just has so much energy."

Which is good, says manager Davis, because, along with everything else, a No. 1 pop single is traditionally served with a heaping side order of increased expectations.

"Just because his album went gold in a month and his single hit No. 1 doesn't mean he can stop grinding and pounding the pavement," she says. "There's a lot of work to do."