Jennifer GreyThere are artists who chase fame, and then there are artists who spend their entire lives chasing the feeling that first made them fall in love with music in the first place.
For Christopher Myers, known to his fans as Ambition The Kid, that feeling started in Pittsburgh at seven years old with a Boyz II Men CD and a bedroom full of terrible practice vocals his mother desperately wished would stop. He laughs about it now.
“My mom hated it,” he said during an exclusive interview with theCITYSCENE. “She was like, ‘You sound terrible. Please go outside.'” But he never stopped.
Long before magazine covers, BET appearances, sold-out arenas, and national tours, there was simply a kid from Pittsburgh replaying Cooleyhighharmony over and over again, teaching himself how to sing by imitation.
“I wasn’t gifted,” he admits. “I had to learn.”
That honesty defines much of Myers’ story. Despite the industry gloss that eventually surrounded his career, there’s very little hyperbole in the way he tells it. No manufactured “overnight success” narrative. No fake humility. Just years of obsession, repetition, disappointment, reinvention, and survival.
Because while many people remember Ambition The Kid as the singer who stepped into Pretty Ricky during one of the group’s most visible eras, the reality behind that chapter was far more complicated than most fans realized.
Before the national spotlight, Myers was already building a reputation in Pittsburgh’s music scene as both a performer and creative architect. After years performing solo, he became deeply involved in artist development for local R&B group Crave, helping shape nearly every aspect of their presentation.
“I literally did everything,” he says.
“Whatever needed done, I did it for them.” That work ethic became his identity.
Eventually, Crave caught the attention of people connected to Pretty Ricky during a transitional moment for the platinum-selling group. Original lead singer Pleasure P had exited to pursue a solo career, leaving one of the biggest openings in R&B at the time. Then came the phone call.
Late one night in 2007, Myers was told he needed to catch a flight the following morning for an audition in Florida. “I thought I was going for the weekend,” he said. He didn’t come home for a year.
Everything moved at warp speed after that.
Within weeks, he was introduced as Pretty Ricky’s new lead singer on BET’s 106 & Park, appearing in videos, rehearsing nonstop, filming behind-the-scenes content, and touring nationally with a fanbase that was initially skeptical about anyone replacing Pleasure P.
“At first the fans were like, ‘Who’s this guy?'” he recalls. “But once they brought people into the process, it started to work.”
The group leaned into the transition publicly, creating content that documented Myers learning choreography, recording sessions, and integrating into the group dynamic. It helped fans slowly accept the new era of Pretty Ricky while simultaneously introducing Myers as a personality in his own right. And for a while, it worked. The momentum was enormous.
One month before joining Pretty Ricky, Myers was dancing with his Pittsburgh breakdance crew at a local skating rink while Flo Rida performed during the early explosion of Low.
A month later, Flo Rida was opening shows for Pretty Ricky while Myers stood center stage in arenas packed with screaming fans.
“That’s how crazy the change was,” he says. The experiences quickly became larger-than-life.
At the BET Awards, New Edition’s Ralph Tresvant recognized him by name. He saw himself on magazine covers in grocery stores. Fans memorized his lyrics. Everywhere he went, people suddenly knew who he was.
For someone who had spent decades dreaming about the industry from afar, it felt like life had accelerated overnight.
But even during the height of that visibility, there were early signs that he was losing control over his own identity. One of the clearest examples was the decision to change his stage name.
For years, he had built himself as Ambition: a name tied directly to his childhood group, his personal story, and his artistic identity. Later, “The Kid” was added strategically to make the name easier to search online.
But after joining Pretty Ricky, the group’s management pushed to rebrand him entirely as “4Play.” Myers hated it.
“I told them, ‘My name’s Ambition.’ But they didn’t think it was right for the group,” he recalls.
To him, the new name felt disconnected from the reputation he had already spent years building. More importantly, he felt it erased the identity and recognition he had worked so hard to create.
The pressure to accept the change reflected a larger pattern he would continue experiencing during that chapter of his career: creative control often belonged to everyone except him.
“There were a lot of moments where I felt like I didn’t really have a voice in my own career,” he says.
Publicly, the name change may have seemed minor. Internally, however, it represented something bigger. Myers was beginning to realize that success inside a major group often came with compromises he never anticipated. And behind the scenes, things were becoming increasingly unstable.
Without diving into the most private details, Myers describes those years as emotionally draining and creatively turbulent. What appeared glamorous publicly often felt chaotic internally. Contracts, management disputes, financial confusion, pressure, and constant instability slowly transformed the excitement into something far more tumultuous than he anticipated.
“At first I thought it was just part of the process. But after a while you realize certain environments just aren’t healthy.”
He also found himself navigating an industry where young artists are often expected to make enormous decisions with very little guidance.
One moment in particular still stands out vividly to him: being handed a contract and pressured to sign immediately without legal representation present. Looking back now, he understands how unprepared he truly was for the business side of music.
“When somebody dangles the thing you’ve wanted your whole life in front of you, you’re not thinking clearly. You’re just afraid to lose it.”
That tension would continue throughout his time with the group.
As touring intensified, Myers began realizing that fame and financial success are not always synonymous. From the outside, the group appeared legendary. Internally, however, there were growing frustrations surrounding control, money, creative direction, and day-to-day decision-making.
He describes many of those years as a constant balancing act between gratitude for the opportunity and disappointment in what the experience was becoming. “There were incredible moments,” he recalls. “But there were also moments where I started realizing this wasn’t what I thought the industry was.”
And yet, despite everything, he never speaks about that chapter with bitterness alone. There’s still genuine appreciation when he talks about the opportunities, the audiences, the travel, and the disorienting experience of suddenly living inside a dream he had chased since childhood.
He remembers sold-out crowds. Television appearances. The BET Awards. Tour buses. Fans waiting outside venues. The rush of hearing thousands of people scream lyrics back at the stage. “You can’t fake that feeling.”
But eventually, the pressure, instability, and constant tension behind the scenes became impossible to ignore. What fans saw publicly was a successful national R&B group. What Myers experienced privately was far more complicated.
Then one night, he left. Abruptly. In the middle of the night. There was no dramatic farewell or carefully planned exit strategy. Just the realization that he could not continue living that way anymore. Looking back, he describes the decision less as impulsive and more as survival.
But he also now understands how quickly the entertainment industry moves on once momentum disappears. “When I came back home, it was hard,” he admits. “You go from arenas and TV to figuring out what life looks like afterward.”
Fans often assume visibility equals wealth, stability, or long-term security. Myers now speaks openly about how complicated the music business actually is, especially for artists navigating label structures, publishing agreements, management deals, and constantly shifting marketing systems. After years inside the industry machine, he sees independence as both the hardest and most honest route for artists.
“Today artists have to prove they already have an audience before anyone invests in them.” That shift has completely changed the music industry. Now, artists compete not only against each other, but against algorithms, social media trends, viral content, and an internet flooded with thousands of new songs every single day.
“People aren’t discovering artists the same way anymore,” he says. “Everything’s numbers now.” Still, despite everything he experienced, Myers has never stopped creating.
Many artists disappear after difficult industry experiences. Some become bitter. Others stop believing in themselves entirely. Myers adapted instead. Today, he continues recording, performing, directing visuals, conceptualizing branding, and refining his artistry with the same obsession he had as a child studying Boyz II Men harmonies in his bedroom.
He still performs throughout the region and is releasing fresh, new material. And when he talks about music, the excitement is still there. Not the excitement of celebrity, but the excitement of creation. “I know who I am creatively,” he says. “I know what I want things to look like. I know how to build the vision.”
That vision no longer depends on the the systems that once controlled nearly every aspect of his career. If anything, Myers seems more grounded now than he did during the years when his name was appearing on screens and magazine covers across the country.
Because for all the success, disappointment, hard work, reinvention, and years spent trying to navigate an industry that nearly swallowed him whole, he still loves music enough to keep creating anyway.
Stay up-to-date with Ambition by visiting his website at officialambition.com and following him on Instagram @ambitionthekid
