Chris Brown Pairs With Rihanna, McGraw

Still riding high on the success of his 2007 sophomore Jive set "Exclusive," which has sold 1.9 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, Chris Brown is wrapping up a banner 2008.Not only did he snare two more Grammy Award nominations -- best pop collaboration (with Jordin Sparks on "No Air") and best male R&B vocal ("Take You Down") -- he emerges as Billboard's top pop artist of the year (click here for Billboard's Year in Music special section).Brown says he's content to let the album "die down," although a new single, "Superhuman" featuring Keri Hilson, was recently released. "Then I'm going to go away for a little while so people won't get tired of me," he says with a laugh. "After that I'll come back and give them some bangers."In the meantime, Brown is plenty busy with other projects, including new music with girlfriend Rihanna. "I actually have a couple of songs written already that would be dope collaborations between me and her," he says. "And I'm writing for her new album now."Among other outside writing projects, Brown says he "did a couple of songs for the Jonas Brothers, but I don't know if they took any of them. And I did a couple of songs with the Backstreet Boys and the Pussycat Dolls. I've also been writing songs for several new girl groups who are coming out."

But his most surprising collaboration is with Tim McGraw, on a song called "Human" which has yet to be released. "It's incredible, he says. "I wanted to do something more along the country line. That's a bigger and different audience for me. I also did a song with the Japanese group called the Teriyaki Boys out of Pharrell's camp."Next year will see the release of Brown's first artist on his CBE label through Interscope, 13-year-old Scooter Smiff. Brown appears on Smiff's first single, "Head of My Class." "I will also have another label through Jive that's still in the works," he says. "Urban acts are the hardest to pick because of the competition level that's out there right now. You don't want to choose a novelty artist who's only going to give you one record."