Chris Brown discusses 'coded' artwork

Chris Brown believes in "ancient aliens".

The rapper is promoting his upcoming record Fortune, which is out later this month. The record's artwork features Chris looking to the side, with a number of symbols and digits covering him. The 23-year-old explained it links to his beliefs on other-worldly creatures.

"You can see on the album cover, it's like a code. That's an encryption for my fans. I wanted to do something different because I'm into ancient aliens," he told Fuse TV. "I like being stuff that's other than what everybody expects… When they look in the booklet, they'll see the different code. Some of it says I love Team Breezy [Chris' term for his fans] or it'll say certain things directed to them and they'll know it if they break the code."

Although Chris is still young, he has noticed a shift in the music industry during his career. There isn't as much money around as there used to be, which he claims is having an adverse effect on artists' careers.

"The industry is so broke that it's starting to kill our creative side," he said.

"I started when they had the $600,000, $800,000 video budgets. My Run It! video [single out in 2005] was around that. Now you get it where people are like, 'We got $50,000.' It's really killing us in a sense because nobody believes in the brand anymore. If we don't do it, who gon' do it? So I'm like f**k it, I'ma do it myself."

Chris' love of Michael Jackson is well known, he met the superstar singer before his death in 2009 and also performed a tribute to him at an awards show after his passing.

Although the star still admires Michael's legacy, he's happy to carve his own path in music.

"My legacy is not to be Michael Jackson, but to just be me… I want to make him proud. I don't want to make it an effort to copy because I hate clones, so I don't want to be a clone," he said.

Chris was recently embroiled in a brawl with fellow rapper Drake while at a New York City nightclub.