In My Lifetime Vol. 1

By

Christopher K.P. Brown

Click Here To Download Mixtape

Christopher K. P. Brown was born and raised in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. In March of 1999, at the age of 14, he wrote his first poem, Teenager, Not Danger, in order to enter Southern Arkansas University’s youth writing competition. Though Teenager, Not Danger was his first attempt at writing poetry he won first place. Thus, a poet was born. In August of 2000, after being rejected repeatedly by numerous publishers, Christopher’s mother and brother decided to purchase him a $500 printer so that he could self-publish his own works. With new resources, Christopher self-published his first book of poetry, Content, at the age of 16. Content contained 100 poems and 12 works of art. Originally, Content was only for Christopher’s personal collection, however, after an older cousin approached him about purchasing a copy, it encouraged Christopher to consider attaching financial value to his work and Content went on to sell over 200 copies at $20 a piece. He was only in the 11^th grade at the time.  The feedback received from Content would serve as the foundation for Christopher K.P. Brown’s career in poetry.

After graduating from Pine Bluff High School in 2002, Christopher moved to Macon, Georgia to attend Mercer University. During his freshman year at Mercer, Christopher recorded his first CD, Primary Concern. Primary Concern, originally written to be published as a book, was released on cassette tape instead of CD due to a lack of financial resources. While the decision to sell Content had been a choice, selling Primary Concern was not an option. He needed the money just to get back home to see his mother during winter and summer breaks from school. In fact, funds were so scarce that the cover art for Primary Concern was copied in black and white then Christopher colored in each cover by hand with crayons because he could not afford color ink. A few months later after fellow classmates suggested Christopher make a CD; he re-recorded Primary Concern in the dorm room of his friend, Okenna Oparah, and re-released it in CD format. Primary Concern went on to sell just under 200 copies (cassettes and CD’s combined) by the summer of 2003 when Christopher and his brother established the 2 Pens & Lint (www.TwoPensAndLint.com) website in order to broaden Christopher’s support base outside of college friends and friends and family back home in Arkansas. The 2 Pens & Lint website would allow people from all over the world to read, listen to, and purchase his poetry in a time when he wasn’t able to travel city to city to perform.  

 Read Poetry by Christopher K.P. Brown

The first release through 2 Pens & Lint came in March of 2004 with Christopher’s second album, Deuteronomy 19.  On this album, Christopher produced music for the first time after suggestions that he include some type of instruments with his poetry.  Though he was pleased with the outcome he felt that he could do a better job at making music. Therefore, he quickly went to work on his next release, 2 Pens & Lint: Volume 1. However, before he finished the project, plans for the album went in a totally new direction after a few conversations with his long time friend, Okenna Oparah, who had helped record Primary Concern. In the spring of 2004 Christopher learned that Okenna was working on a hip hop album that he planned to release that fall.  With Christopher working on a project that was slated to be released around the same time as Okenna’s album the two fit to press a double album.

The resulting product would come to be known as Fine Arts, with Christopher’s album being named 2 Pens & Lint: Volume 1 and Okenna’s album entitled M.I.A. With a supporting cast of fellow Mercer students, Fine Arts was an album that included Spoken Word and Hip-Hop, blended with live instrumentation and background vocals it sold over 200 copies in 2 months. With the money made from the album, Christopher and Okenna started a campus newsletter, The Seed, which concentrated on the contributions of influential African Americans. Originally established to commemorate Black History Month for February of 2006, they would bring The Seed back the following school year in order to raise funds for a scholarship competition they were planning called The Power of One. With The Power of One scholarship competition, Christopher and Okenna gave out $1,000 in scholarship money to students at Central High School located right down the street from Mercer University.  

Purchase the other releases from Christopher K.P. Brown:

     During the fall of 2005 Christopher penned a poem titled Mahagony which was planned to be the title track to his next project, Mahagony: A Tribute to Black Women. However, the need to address the topic of Black male identity and the fact that Christopher has always been influenced by hip-hop culture made it hard to focus on one subject completely. Therefore, POETRY: a hip hop album was released in 2007 as a hybrid of the original idea for Mahagony and the idea to focus on Black male identity. The first half of the album focuses on Black male identity with poems such as Losing Isaiah and Rhyme Scheme while the second half serves as a tribute to Black women with poems like Mahagony, SGA (Sanchez, Giovanni, Angelou), and A Poem 4 My Mother.  Once again reaching the goal of 200 copies sold, Christopher plans to push and promote this album until at least 1,000 copies are sold. He feels that this is his best album to date. By creating an album that can only be classified as poetry while being influenced by hip hop, this album truly sums up what Christopher K.P. Brown represents. This album sums up who Christopher K.P. Brown really is, a young African American male deeply influenced by hip hop but also a young African American who uses poetry to tell his story and the story of those in his community.  After producing his own music for two projects, Christopher decided to hand the job of producing over to Okenna Oparah, creating an album that allows both artists to focus on what they do best, Christopher with poetry and Okenna with making music.

In the spring of 2008, with a degree in African American studies, Christopher made plans to attend Temple University for a graduate degree in African American studies. However before he started at Temple in the fall of 2008, Christopher embarked on 10 show tour known as the Straight No Chaser tour. Motivated by the acquittal of the police officers who killed the young African American male, Sean Bell, the tour expanded the 2 Pens & Lint support base and improved the sells of POETRY: a hip hop album. He created a buzz for the tour by producing his own mixtape, The Straight, No Chaser mixtape. After sending out 500 free copies of the mixtape to those who have supported his career over the years, he headed to Atlanta, Macon, Little Rock, Baltimore, and Washington DC to do shows. His last show came just two days before he’d start classes at Temple University. 

A few weeks after he began classes at Temple University, Christopher’s mother went into a nursing home. This was problematic for him since his reason for being in graduate school for African American Studies was so that he could better serve his community. However, feeling that it was a contradiction to focus on community while neglecting his own family, he chose to leave graduate school in order to spend more time taking care of his mother and also to completely dedicate himself to poetry for the first time without being distracted by school. Now that he is focused on doing poetry full time, Christopher is working everyday to establish 2 Pens & Lint as a well known and respected company that concentrates on building poetry as an industry in which artists are able to pay their bills and feed their families with money made from the works they create.  When 2 Pens & Lint was created in 2003 as simply a website, Christopher was only 18 years old. Since then he’s studied the poetry industry; he’s had successes and failures in poetry; but most importantly he feels that he’s still young enough to live up to the 2 Pens & Lint motto of “A New Direction In Poetry”.

Purchase the other releases from Christopher K.P. Brown:

 Read Poetry by Christopher K.P. Brown

Follow Christopher K.P. On Twitter

Click Here To Download Mixtape