Floyd Bentley

Floyd Eugene Bentley III (born July 7, 1987), also known by his stage names A1 and Sprng BRK, is an American record producer and songwriter. He has been credited on singles and albums for prominent music industry artists including Drake, Chris Brown, Trey Songz and Future, among others. He produced the latter's 2022 single "Wait for U", which peaked atop the Billboard Hot 100 and won a Grammy Award. Bentley has often worked in tandem with fellow producer Hitmaka and his former spouse, Lyrica Anderson.^[1][2][3][4]

In his personal life, Bentley's relationship with Anderson has been publicized on the reality television series Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood, where Bentley appeared on seasons 3 through 6, as well as other various other reality shows.^[5][6][7]

Bentley grew up on “the rough side of Kansas City”, and was accepted to Highland Community College, where he played basketball.^[8] In his junior year, Bentley suffered a serious leg injury, making the decision to subsequently leave both the basketball team and college. After returning home and starting a job, Bentley began to write songs and rap, attracting the interest of an early manager. He quickly realized that his passion was music, and moved to Los Angeles to break into the music industry. Bentley experienced homelessness for 8 months before a chance encounter with Tony! Toni! Toné! artist and producer Raphael Saadiq, who allowed him to use his studio for six months after hearing several early demos, and Saadiq also introduced him to Mike Caren, the former Executive President of A&R at Atlantic Records.^[1] Caren subsequently gave Bentley the opportunity to write for several artists in his roster, including Trey Songz and Tank.^[9]

In 2010, Bentley co-wrote "Unusual" featuring Drake for American singer Trey Songz, which entered the Billboard Hot 100, peaked at number seven on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, and won Bentley an ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Award.^[10] Over years, he also received album placements on various Tank, Chris Brown, and Jason Derulo projects. In 2016, Bentley released his debut single "Upside Down" featuring rapper O.T. Genasis.^[11] Bentley began to create a closer relationship with Chris Brown's camp at this time, accepting potential album submissions and demos for Brown from other songwriters.^[12] In 2017. Bentley contributed twelve songs to Chris Brown's album Heartbreak on a Full Moon, including multi-platinum single "Party" featuring Usher and Gucci Mane, as well as platinum single "Questions".^[13][14][15] Bentley would also co-write and co-produce "No Pressure" for French Montana's Jungle Rules project, as well as co-write and co-produce Platinum single "Something New" for Wiz Khalifa and Ty Dolla Sign, which went viral as the result of a summer TikTok dance challenge.^[16][17]

In 2019, through a Power 106 interview, Bentley was announced as a new artist signee of T-Pain's record label Nappy Boy Entertainment, releasing debut mixtape Turbulence, before changing his artist name to Sprngbrk as a form of "reintroduction" after his reality TV appearances.^[18][19][20] Bentley released single "Pride" in 2021, as the first release in a new collaboration between Nappy Boy and music streaming platform Soundcloud's RePost A&R creation department.^[21] In 2022, Bentley co-wrote two songs from Future's album I Never Liked You, including multi-platinum, Billboard number-one single "Wait For U".^[2]

Bentley met fellow artist-songwriter Lyrica Anderson in an elevator at a Los Angeles area studio prior to a songwriting session for a mutual friend, before getting married in 2016.^[22] Together they have one son, Ocean Zion Bentley, born in 2018. Anderson filed for divorce in 2022 for undisclosed reasons. ^[23]

• Love Scars EP (with Lyrica Anderson) (2016)
• Turbulence (2019)

Credits are courtesy of Discogs, Tidal, Apple Music, and AllMusic.

A. ^A Winning songwriters in this category are awarded with a Winner's Certificate.