Indigo

Indigo is the ninth studio album by American singer and songwriter Chris Brown, released on June 28, 2019, by RCA Records. The album marks his second double album and serves as a follow-up to his eighth album Heartbreak on a Full Moon (2017). Brown enlisted and worked with several producers, including Smash David, Soundz, Hitmaka, Boi-1da, Scott Storch, OG Parker and many others. The album features various guest appearances by urban and pop artists, including Nicki Minaj, G-Eazy, Tory Lanez, Tyga, Justin Bieber, Juicy J, Juvenile, H.E.R, Tank, Lil Jon, Lil Wayne, Joyner Lucas, Gunna, Trey Songz and Drake.
The official recording sessions for the album began in August 2018 and ended in May 2019, with some songs being recorded earlier during the first months of 2018, while a couple songs from the extended edition were recorded a few years prior. The album's aesthetics feature a supernatural and spiritual imagery, conceived by Brown himself, and handled by graffiti artist Saturno, visual artist Jeff Cole, and 3D artists Circle Circle Math and Sarper Baran.
The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, making it his third number-one album in the country, and first in seven years, since Fortune (2012). Six official singles were released from Indigo: "Undecided", "Back to Love", "Wobble Up", featuring Nicki Minaj and G-Eazy, "No Guidance", featuring Drake, and "Heat", featuring Gunna. "No Guidance" became the biggest hit from the album, peaking at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, and topping the Rhythmic Airplay chart, until being unseated by the following released single, "Heat", at the top spot.
Background and recording
In December 2017, soon after releasing his first double-disc, Heartbreak on a Full Moon, Brown started to work on new material. Later in the beginning of 2018 he worked on two collaboration mixtapes, that ended up never being released, one with R&B singer Jacquees, and another one with rapper Joyner Lucas, while still working on new songs for his next solo project, that was rumored to be called Indigo.
The actual processing work of the project, after the drafting of its concept, began in August 2018, at the end of the "Heartbreak On A Full Moon tour", with "Undecided" being the first song composed following the idealization of the album, while a couple songs from the extended edition, dropped 3 months after the actual album, were composed during the realization of the previous album Heartbreak on a Full Moon, with the song "Technology" made in 2016, and the song "Going At It" in December 2017. The album was fully recorded and mixed at Calabasas Sound in Los Angeles, with the exception of "Undecided", being recorded and mixed at Brown's home studio, named CBE Studios.
Prior to its release the singer said that Indigo would focus on "energy, love, light, and happiness", saying that it reminded him of his previous albums Chris Brown, Graffiti and F.A.M.E.. Brown explained the album's title during an Instagram live, saying:
The color indigo is a symbol of spirituality and inner awakening, and for the album I composed various songs entitled by colors that represent the emotion of those colors, for example "Red" represents anger, but the concept of the disc develops on the meaning of indigo. It's also connected to indigo children, and that explains the supernatural mood of the album.
Music and lyrics
Indigo is an R&B album, which tends to a slightly more pop sound than its predecessor Heartbreak on a Full Moon, containing as well genres such as dancehall and afrobeat. The album's sound in parts contains influences of tropical music, where songs with percussionist sounds from genres like dancehall, afropop and bounce music prevail, as in songs like "You Like That", "Juice", "Wobble Up", "Back to Love" and "Lurkin'".
On the disc there are 4 double tracks, where there's a progression of different musical productions, and they are "Emerald/Burgundy", "Natural Disaster/Aura", "Trust Issues/Act In" and "BP/No Judgment".
Indigo's topics outline a positive turn that follows a bad period in a person's life, represented as the calm after the storm. In many parts of the album the singer describes how love, in his many forms, connects him to the enlightment of his spirituality. According to A.D. Amorosi of The Inquirer, the album's themes mix spiritual awakening with sexuality. Indigo, being the follow-up of Heartbreak on a Full Moon, leaves the raw and personal songwriting of that album, as well as its dark and sultry mood, for a way more lighthearted sound and tone, still having few introspective songs like "All on Me" and "Don't Check on Me" that give a closer look at Brown's trials and tribulations.
Artwork
The cover art for the album was revealed on May 14, 2019, along with the back cover. The front cover artwork was designed by graffiti artist Saturno and features a purple-haired Chris Brown's face in space, surrounded by fictional monsters and flying saucers, while the back cover, designed by visual artist Jeff Cole, continues the supernatural theme with a levitating body over a pyramid. The CD's interior illustrations were handled by 3D artists and concept designers Circle Circle Math and Sarper Baran, that worked over a photoshoot done by Jake Miosge, Brown's official tour photographer.