When music artist Christopher Brent Wood was about 10 years old, he started to collect CDs from D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, and other artists who also made hip-hop and R&B types of music. At this age, he loved to go over the behind-the-scenes of his favorite albums to see how they were made.
When Brent was in middle school he set up his own home studio including a USB microphone and downloaded software which he got when he switched from listening to music to being a singer. Brent said when he started making music, people from around the neighborhood would stop by his house and buy music CDs from him.
Brent Faiyaz did not end up going to college. As much as his parents tried to get him to go, they ended up just asking him to at least graduate high school. Brent didn’t get great grades throughout school but his parents figured as long as he was making money for himself he would be fine.
Brent started releasing his music on SoundCloud over a decade ago. Brent Faiyaz eventually gained popularity across the nation on GoldLink’s multiplatinum hit “Crew.” Then he dropped his studio album Sonder, Son in the year of 2017. He continued to gain popularity. By 2020, he made an appearance on the Billboard 200 with one of his other albums. Two years later his other studio album Wasteland made its way to number 2 on the chart. The popular songs on this album were “Gravity” featuring Tyler, The Creator, and “Wasting Time” with Drake and The Neptunes. These featuring artists also helped Brent gain popularity
Brent has charted 13 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, 20 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs, and 33 on Hot R&B songs. In 2015, Brent and his manager, Ty Baisden, co-founded the label “Lost Kids” which released his albums, F–k the World and Wasteland. The success of these albums caught the attention of the music distributor, UnitedMasters, and its founder and CEO, Steve Stoute. This company partnered up with Faiyaz in the year 2023 to launch Brent’s first ISO album, Larger Than Life, which was released in October and reached number 11 on Billboard 200. Again, in 2023 he embarked on his F–k the World, it’s a Wasteland world tour, which played in theaters and grossed over 5.3 million over 18 shows according to Billboard Boxscore.
In order for Brent to be so successful he had to put in a lot of work. After he graduated from high school he moved to Charlotte, N.C. As Faiyaz was recording his music he was also working at places like Dunkin’ or other grocery stores. As he was recording this music on SoundCloud, his manager, Baisden, noticed him. Baisden says it was his singing that intrigued him, not his rapping.
Although Brent Faiyaz loved R&B music, he didn’t see himself as an R&B singer. Baisden flew from Charlotte to see Brent and they joined together to be partners in “Lost Kids.” Brent and Biasden are still very successful and most likely will continue to grow in the coming years.
