Robyn Rihanna Fenty (born
February 20, 1989), better known mononymously as Rihanna,
is a Barbadian
recording artist and occasional model.
Born in
Saint Michael,
Barbados
, Rihanna moved to the United States
at the age of 16 to pursue a recording career under
the guidance of record producer Evan Rogers. She
subsequently signed a contract with
Def Jam Recordings after auditioning for
then-label head
Jay-Z.
In 2005, Rihanna released her debut studio album,
Music of the Sun, which peaked within
the top ten of the
Billboard
200 and features the
Billboard Hot 100 hit single
"
Pon de Replay". Less than a year
later, she released her second studio album,
A Girl Like Me (2006),
which peaked within the top five of the
Billboard albums
chart, and produced her first US number one hit single, "
SOS", as well as
Billboard Hot 100 top ten entries
"
Unfaithful" and "
Break It Off". Rihanna's third studio album,
Good Girl Gone Bad
(2007), peaking at number two on the
Billboard 200,
featured five top ten hits including three US number one hit
singles—"
Umbrella", "
Take a Bow" and "
Disturbia"—and the worldwide hit "
Don't Stop the Music".
The album was nominated for nine
Grammy
Awards, winning
Best Rap/Sung
Collaboration for "Umbrella," which features Jay-Z.
Rihanna has sold over 12 million records, worldwide in her
four-year career span and has received several accolades, including
the 2007
World Music Awards for
World's Best-Selling Pop Female Artist and Female Entertainer of
the Year, as well as the 2008
American Music Awards for
Favorite
Soul/R&B Female Artist and
Favorite
Pop/Rock Female Artist. Rihanna has attained five Hot 100
number one singles, becoming the first of two female artists with
the most number ones attained within the 2000s. She also serves as
one of Barbados' honorary cultural
ambassadors.
Life and career
1988–2004: Early life and career beginnings
Rihanna
was born in Saint Michael, Barbados to Ronald Fenty, a warehouse supervisor, and Monica
Fenty, an accountant. Her mother, a native of Guyana
, is Afro-Guyanese and her father is Barbadian and Irish. She is the oldest of three
siblings; two younger brothers, Rorrey and Rajad Fenty. She began
singing at around the age of seven. Her childhood was deeply
affected by her father's addiction to crack cocaine and parent's
rocky marriage, which ended when she was fourteen years old.
Rihanna attended Charles F. Broome Memorial School, a primary
school in Barbados, and then the
Combermere School, where she
formed a musical trio with two of her classmates at the age of
fifteen. In 2004 she won the Miss Combermere Beauty Pageant. She
was an army cadet in a sub-military programme that trained with the
military of Barbados and
Shontelle was her
drill sergeant.
At the age of 15, she formed a
girl group
with two of her classmates. In 2003 friends introduced Rihanna and
her two bandmates to record producer
Evan Rogers, who was
vacationing in Barbados with his wife. The group auditioned for
Rogers, who said that "the minute Rihanna walked into the room, it
was like the other two girls didn't exist." While auditioning for
Rogers, Rihanna sang
Destiny's
Child's cover of "
Emotion".
Over the
next year, Rihanna and her mom shuttled back and forth to Rogers
home in Stamford,
Connecticut
. Then, shortly after turning 16, she
relocated in the United States and moved in with Rogers and his
wife.
Carl Sturken
helped Rihanna record a four-song demo, which included the ballad
"Last Time," a cover of
Whitney
Houston’s hit "For the Love of You" and what would become her
first hit, "
Pon de Replay" to send to
various recording companies. It took a year to record the demos,
because she was going to school and would only record during summer
and Christmas school breaks. Rihanna's demo made its way to
Def Jam, which invited her to
audition for the label's then-president,
Jay-Z, who quickly signed her.
2005–2006: Music of the Sun and A Girl Like
Me
After signing with
Def Jam, she
spent the next three months recording and completing her
debut album. The album featured production from
Evan Rogers,
Carl Sturken,
Stargate and
Poke & Tone. She first collaborated with
rapper
Memphis Bleek on his fourth
studio album
534 before her
debut. She released her debut single, "
Pon
de Replay", on August 22, 2005, which peaked at number two on
the
Billboard Hot 100. It
also became a global hit where it peaked within the top ten across
fifteen countries. Her debut album,
Music of the Sun, was released in
August 2005 in the United States. The album reached number ten on
the
Billboard 200, selling
69,000 copies in its first week. The album has sold over two
millions copies worldwide and is certified gold by the
Recording Industry
Association of America, denoting shipments to US retailers of
over 500,000 units.
Her music
was marketed within the soca and reggae genres because of her Caribbean
descent. The album received mixed reviews by
music critics.
Rolling Stone
magazine rated it 2.5 out of 5 stars and described as lacking the
replay value, ingenuity and rhythm of the single with "generic
vocal hiccups and frills" of US R&B inflecting upon her
"Caribbean charm". Sal Cinquemani of
Slant Magazine described the album as a
"glut of teen R&B chanteuses " and described her lead single
"
Pon de Replay" as "a dancehall-pop
mixture that owes plenty of its sweat and shimmy to
Beyoncé's "
Baby
Boy"." A reviewer for
Entertainment Weekly commented
that the "dancehall/R&B debut is filled with chintzy production
and maudlin arrangements that block out the
Music of the
Sun." The albums second single, "
If It's Lovin' that You Want"
was less successful than "Pon de Replay", having managed a peak
position of number thirty-six in the US, and number eleven on the
UK Singles Chart. In Australia,
Ireland and New Zealand the single proved to be well-received
reaching the top ten in those countries. However, the third single,
"Let Me" was only released in Japan, peaking at number eight.
A month after the release of her debut album, she began working on
her second studio album. The album contained production from
record producers Evan Rogers and
Carl
Sturken who produced most of her debut album,
Stargate,
J. R. Rotem and label-mate
singer-songwriter Ne-Yo. While recording the album, Rihanna served as an
opening act for
Gwen Stefani to promote
her debut album. The lead single, "
SOS", peaked at number one on the
Billboard Hot 100, becoming her first number-one in
the United States.
A
Girl Like Me was released in April 2006, less than eight
months later of her debut. The album reached number five on the
Billboard 200 selling 115,000 copies in its first
week and has been certified platinum by the
RIAA, having shipped over one million units.
Internationally, the album peaked at number one on the
Top Canadian Albums,
five on the
UK Albums Chart and
number five on the
Irish Album
Chart. The critical response to the album was mixed;
Rolling Stone magazine
commented "Like her filler-packed debut album, this similar but
superior follow-up doesn't deliver anything else as ingenious as
its lead single." Critics also described the album as a record that
almost identically alternates between the sunny
dancehall/dub-pop,
hip-hop-infused club bangers and gushy,
adult-oriented ballads. The second single, "
Unfaithful", became a major worldwide hit,
reaching the top ten in dozen countries around the world, including
the United States where it reached number six on the
Billboard Hot 100, as well as topping the charts in
Canada, France and Switzerland. The albums third single, "
We Ride" failed to reprise the success of the lead
single but the fourth single, "
Break It
Off" featuring
Sean Paul, jumped from
number fifty-two to number ten eventually peaking at number nine.
After the release of the album, she embarked on the Rock Tha Block
Tour and then toured with
Pussycat
Dolls from November 2006 to February 2007 in the United
Kingdom.
2007–2008: Good Girl Gone Bad
Rihanna released her third album,
Good Girl Gone Bad, in June 2007.
Prior to the release of the album, she spent the week of the
Grammys writing songs for the
album with Ne-Yo. She adopted a more sexual image while recording
the album, eventually dying her hair black and cutting it short.
Rihanna worked with Timbaland and
Christopher "Tricky"
Stewart, as well as previous musical collaborators such as
Stargate, Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers to
re-imagine her album compositions with uptempo dance tracks.
Rihanna commented, "I want to keep people dancing but still be
soulful at the same time [...] You feel different every album, and
[at] this stage I feel like I want to do a lot of uptempo [songs]."
The album topped the charts in countries like the United Kingdom,
Canada, Japan, Brazil, Russia and Ireland, and peaked at number two
in the United States and Australia. Unlike previous work, the album
featured a more dance-pop sound instead of the dancehall, reggae
and ballad styles. The album received positive reviews by critics,
becoming her most critically acclaimed album at that time compared
to her previous efforts. It yielded eight hit singles — all singles
reaching the top twenty on the
Billboard Hot 100 —
including the worldwide number-one hit "
Umbrella," featuring Jay-Z. In addition to
reaching number one in various countries, "Umbrella" was the number
one single in the United Kingdom for ten consecutive weeks, making
it the longest-running number-one single since
Wet Wet Wet's single "
Love Is All Around"
spent fifteen weeks at the top in 1994. The song is listed number
three on the 100 Best Songs of 2007 published by
Rolling Stone magazine. Her other
singles, "
Shut Up and
Drive", "
Don't
Stop The Music" and "
Hate That
I Love You" were able to mirror the success of "Umbrella," with
"Don't Stop the Music" reaching number three on the
Billboard Hot 100 while peaking at number one in
various countries.
With the re-issue of her third album, titled
Good Girl Gone
Bad: Reloaded, which was released in June 2008. Rihanna
released the first singles from the re-release "
Take a Bow" — which became a
worldwide number-one hit — the duet with
Maroon
5, "
If I Never See
Your Face Again," and the other US number-one hit "
Disturbia." "Disturbia" reached to number
four before reaching number one, as her previous single, "Take a
Bow", was at number two, making Rihanna the seventh female singer
to have two songs in the top five. Meanwhile, Rihanna was featured
on rapper
T.I.'s "
Live Your Life," which peaked at number-one
on the
Billboard Hot 100, giving Rihanna her fifth
number-one single on the Hot 100 thus far ("
SOS," "Umbrella," "Take a Bow" and
"Disturbia," as well as T.I.'s "Live Your Life"). This made Rihanna
one of the two female solo artist with the most number-one singles
this decade, with the other being Beyoncé Knowles.
Good Girl
Gone Bad has shipped over two million units in the United
States, receiving a two-time platinum certification from RIAA; this
gave Rihanna her best-selling album, to date. She was nominated in
four categories at the
2007
MTV Video Music Awards, winning Monster Single of the Year and
Video of the Year. At the
2008 Grammy
Awards, Rihanna earned her first Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung
Collaboration, in addition to receiving five other nominations,
including
Record of the Year,
Best Dance Recording,
Best R&B
Performance by a Duo or Group and
Best R&B Song. In support of the
album, she embarked on her first headlining tour
The Good Girl Gone Bad Tour on
September 12, 2007, with several shows across the United States,
Canada and Europe and then embarked on the
Glow in the Dark Tour with
Kanye West,
Lupe
Fiasco, and
N.E.R.D on April 16, 2008.
Rihanna also won Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist and Favorite
Soul/R&B Female Artist at the 2008
American Music Awards.
2009–present: Domestic violence case and Rated R
On February 8, 2009, Rihanna's scheduled performance at the
2009 Grammy Awards was cancelled.
Reports later surfaced regarding an alleged altercation with
then-boyfriend, singer
Chris
Brown, who was arrested on suspicion of making criminal
threats. On March 5, 2009, Brown was charged with assault and
making criminal threats. Due to a leaked photograph from the
Los Angeles Police
Department obtained by
TMZ.com—which
revealed Rihanna had sustained visible injuries—an organization
known as STOParazzi has proposed a law called "Rihanna's Law",
which, if enacted, would "deter employees of law enforcement
agencies from releasing photos or information that exploits crime
victims." Gil Kaufman of
VH1 reported "[t]he
nonstop coverage of the Rihanna/Brown case has brought up a number
of issues regarding the privacy of alleged victims of domestic
violence, including the decision by almost all major news outlets
to divulge the identity of the victim—which is not typically done
in domestic-violence cases" and the controversial distribution of
the leaked photograph. Rihanna was subpoenaed to testify during a
preliminary hearing in L.A. on June 22, 2009. "The DA told me
Rihanna will be subpoenaed. I will accept on her behalf," Rihanna's
attorney, Donald Etra told
Us
Weekly. "She will appear in court, and if asked to
testify, she will do so". On June 22, 2009, Brown pled guilty to
the felony assault. In exchange for his plea Brown received five
years probation and was ordered to stay fifty yards away from
Rihanna, unless at public events, which then will be reduced to ten
yards.
Rihanna collaborated with
Jay-Z and
Kanye West on "
Run This
Town." The song peaked at number two on
Billboard Hot 100 and also
reached the top ten in ten other countries. She appeared on the
cover of
Vogue Italia for the September
2009 Issue. The photo shoot was influenced by Rihanna's hair, which
she had cut for the shoot into a mohawk-like style. The style of
the shoot was Extreme Couture and very dark, and in one shot she
appeared semi-nude.
Rihanna performed "Run This Town" along with
Jay-Z and West for the "Answer the Call" concert at Madison Square
Garden
in September 2009, making it her first musical
performance since the altercation with Brown. The trio also
performed "Run This Town," on the premiere of
The Jay Leno Show on September 14,
2009.
Rihanna started recording in the studio with numerous different
producers, including
The-Dream,
Tricky Stewart,
Chase & Status,
Stargate,
Slash,
Justin
Timberlake,
Ne-Yo and
Akon, on her fourth studio album
Rated R in March 2009.
On
October 8 2009,
Rihanna shot the cover for her fourth album with Ellen von Unwerth in Berlin
. The
new album was released
November 23,
2009. The album's lead single, "
Russian Roulette", was released on
October 20,
2009.
Rihanna performed the song on,
The X Factor on
November 29,
2009. The
official video was released on
November
13,
2009. On November 10, 2009 the second
official single. "
Hard" featuring
Young Jeezy was released. A promo
single, "
Wait Your Turn" was released
on November 3rd, but it has since been announced as the official
third single set for release in early 2010 in the UK.
On November 16, 2009, Rihanna
performed her first concert in London
for Nokia customers. She performed 4 songs from her
new album,
Rated R,
4 songs from
Good Girl Gone
Bad, 2 songs from
A Girl Like Me and the 2
recent duets, "
Live Your Life" and
"
Run This Town".
Musical style and influences
Volume 65
of the Contemporary Black Biography book series notes that
"Rihanna is the rare rhythm and blues (R&B) diva to emerge from
the Caribbean world." Becoming an international sensation,
Rihanna is known for blending R&B with
Caribbean music, such as
reggae and
dancehall. Peter
Coulter of the
Antrim Times, commented that "[Rihanna] has
an amazing voice which showed during her acoustic set, she just
needs to work on her audience engagement during live shows." At the
time of her debut, reviewers referred to her as a "
bubblegum queen" and her music to "
teen pop." Larry Meyler of
The Sun stated that Rihanna going bad is very
good and that she had shook off any 'teen pop' image as she rocked
the stage.
While performing at the Ottawa
Bluesfest
in 2006, Denis Armstrong of Canadian Online Explorer
commented on her performance saying "her show was a Disney-esque
choreographed fantasy of non-stop hip-swivelling, sassy attitude
and personal endearments and a string of funky, sugar-free
hits." After revealing a new image while headlining her
first tour, she was likely to be criticize for her tight leather
outfit during each show. A review in the
The Times compared Rihanna's stage wardrobe
styling to that of
Janet Jackson. He
also described her outfit as "a vision of
Ann Summers couture in thigh-high boots and a
few scraps of black PVC." However, Stuart Derdeyn of
The Province commented that "even with the
whole haute couture B&D clearly firing on all points, she's
still got a ways to go to become the new Janet Jackson."
Music and themes
Rihanna's musical style has changed during the release of her last
three albums. She was originally marketed as a
reggae singer since she burst on scene in 2005, with
a styles of
pop,
R&B and
dancehall. Her music also include various styles
of
musical genres, including
contemporary R&B,
dance-pop,
pop rock and
the
Caribbean music styles of
reggae,
soca, and dancehall. With the
release of her debut album
Music of
the Sun and its lead single "
Pon
de Replay", Jason Birchmeier of
Allmusic described Rihanna's musical style as
"synthesize Caribbean rhythms and beats with standard-issue urban
dance-pop: Caribbean-inflected urban, if you will." Rihanna is also
described as utilizing "dancehall-lite beats and a reggae vocal
cadence."
NME describes the singer as a
"heady mix of dancehall, reggae and contemporary R&B." During
the release of her sophomore album, many critics felt that
Rihanna's sound and substance was too heavily similar to that of
Beyoncé's. The media even made negative
reviews comparing her music,
music
videos, performances and even her image to Beyoncé, which
garnered Rihanna much criticism. Some media even unfairly claimed
that Jay-Z fashioned her to be a replica of Beyoncé. Barry Walters
of
Rolling Stone considers
Rihanna's
A Girl Like Me to be "lightweight dancehall and
R&B jams." After the release of
Good Girl Gone Bad,
Allmusic's Andy Kellman credits Rihanna to be "as pop as pop gets."
Kelefa Sanneh of
The New York
Times described her hit "
Umbrella" as a lightweight pop confection
with a heavy
hip-hop backbeat, a breezy love
song enriched by those unexpectedly goth-sounding keyboards and by
the incongruous hint of anguish in Rihanna’s girlish voice.
Her debut album featured a refreshing touch from pop veterans
Evan Rogers and
Carl Sturken of Syndicated Rhythm productions,
who first discovered her. Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers have
collaborated with Rihanna many times, including with her debut
single "Pon de Replay", which helped launch her career with the
tradition of reggae and dance pop and also collaborated on her
sophomore album. Rihanna then
enlisted into the pop and contemporary R&B working with
music producer Stargate and
singer-songwriter Ne-Yo on "
Unfaithful"
and sampling the key section, bass line, and drum beat from
Soft Cell's 1981 single "
Tainted Love" on "
SOS". The concept of her third
studio album was to head in a new direction
with the help of music producers Timbaland, will.i.am and Sean
Garrett, and also to re-imagine her album compositions with fresh,
uptempo dance tracks. While recording the album, Rihanna stated
that she wants to keep people dancing but still be soulful at the
same time. She then commented "You feel different every album, and
[at] this stage I feel like I want to do a lot of uptempo [songs]."
She also began taking voice lessons from
Ne-Yo
for the third album. With songs like "Kisses Don't Lie" and
"
Shut Up and
Drive", her music style became more pop rock oriented. Unlike
Music of the Sun or
A Girl Like Me, her third
album contained a more dance-pop sound and less of the dancehall,
reggae and ballad styles of her previous albums. She has included
various styles of music from uptempo pop-reggae with "Pon De
Replay", to an
80's new wave fueled
club banger "SOS" to the whiff of gothic horror in a love song
"
Unfaithful". Most of her love
subject
ballads contain a mid-tempo
pop sound, with an R&B influences that uses of a gently
strummed
acoustic guitar with the
production of Stargate and the songs written by Ne-Yo. Some of her
up-tempo dance-pop songs include production from Carl Sturken and
Evan Rogers,
Christopher "Tricky"
Stewart and J. R. Rotem. She has also taken to the
music industry tradition of sampling songs from other artist like
Soft Cell's "
Tainted Love" on "SOS",
New Order's "
Blue Monday" on "Shut Up and
Drive" and 70's original song "
Soul
Makossa" of
Manu Dibango with a
part of the chorus from
Michael
Jackson's "
Wanna Be
Startin' Somethin'" on "Don't Stop the Music".
Influences
One of Rihanna's major influence and idol is
Mariah Carey, whose song "
Hero" she covered while performing
at a school talent show. She says, "I looked up to [Mariah] a lot
and I still do. I admire her as an artist, and to [compete with
her] was a moment I will never forget for the rest of my life." She
then stated that her song, "
Vision of
Love" made an impact on her. Rihanna has also named
Beyoncé Knowles a major influence,
citing that she was inspired to start her career after watching
Knowles on
television as part of a
Destiny's Child performance . Her
other musical influences include
Bob
Marley,
Alicia Keys Whitney Houston,
Destiny's Child,
Celine Dion,
Brandy, and
Gwen
Stefani. Her music also contains strong influences of
caribbean music and says that it has
influenced her tremendously. Her friend and former Island Def Jam
record label artist
Fefe Dobson was
someone that she admired and looked up to, having a fellow artist
writing, singing, and performing the music she truly loves.
In a
interview, Rihanna stated, that while growing up in Barbados, she grew up listening to reggae music and when she
came to the United States she was exposed to many different types
of music. Rihanna also considers
Madonna as one of her biggest
influences. She mentioned that she respects her ability to reinvent
herself and aspires to be just as successful. Of
Janet Jackson, Rihanna expressed: "She was one
of the first female pop icons that I could relate to ... She
was so vibrant, she had so much energy. She still has power. I’ve
seen her on stage, and she can stand there for 20 minutes and have
the whole arena scream at her. You have to love Janet."
Videography
Jon Bream of the
Star Tribune
commented "[i]n the tradition of Madonna and Janet Jackson, Rihanna
has become the video vixen of the '00s ... Rihanna has
perfected the pout, the long-legged strut and trend-setting hairdos
that keep women and men alike checking her out on
YouTube." George Epaminondas of
InStyle considers Rihanna's music videos to be
"cinematic" due to her "blend of lush island rhythms and swinging
pop and ... mischievous sensuality." Rihanna commented that
Marilyn Monroe and
vintage clothing served for visual
inspiration for the
music video
"
Hate That I Love You" and
"
Rehab"; in contrast, the
"dark, creepy" scenes of "Disturbia" have drawn comparison to
Michael Jackson's
Thriller. The music video
also ranked number five on the "Top Five Most Paranoid Music
Videos" published by
MTV Buzzworthy.
Style and image
The
New York magazine
described Rihanna's early look as a cookie-cutter teen queen and
that she has the ability to shift looks so dramatically and with
such ease. Since the release of her third album,
Good Girl Gone Bad, [Rihanna's] has
become a sex symbol and also set herself apart from other
R&B starlets, opting for designer couture over
belly-baring crop tops. Sonya Magett of Black Voices reported that
Rihanna's style has become quite risqué since she burst on the
scene 4 years ago. In 2008, she constantly surprised, switching
from pretty and sweet in pastels on the
red
carpet to dominatrix-leaning wear on stage and at awards shows.
Rihanna's fashion and style also landed her on the list of
People's 10 Best Dressed
Stars of 2008.
Glamour
also awarded Rihanna with the seventeenth most glamorous woman of
2009 out of fifty.
Glamour also commented on Rihanna's
style saying "rockstar of leading ladies" and "She almost can’t
make a style mistake right now.” They also said her
"little-bit-punky, very-much-girly look still entrances readers."
They also commented on Rihanna's fashion risks saying "If style
risks could be measured in miles, Rihanna would have criss-crossed
the globe a thousand times over already."
Rihanna's image has also been identified as a
sex symbol. Regal of the
Associated Content stated that
Rihanna quickly garnered a more mature and definitely sexier look.
In 2007, she ranked #8 in
Maxim's 2007 Hot 100 list; she then
ranked #15 on 2008 Hot 100 list the following year. In June 2007,
Rihanna was named 2007 Venus Breeze’s “Celebrity Legs Of A Goddess”
by
Gillette. Margeaux Watson of
Entertainment Weekly
wrote an article entitled "Rihanna: Diva of the year" which he
refers to her breakout success of 2008. In 2009,
Maxim awarded Rihanna as the number 8th
most sexiest woman on earth. This made Rihanna the only female of
African descent in the top ten or top twenty for that matter.
Rihanna's
tattoos have drawn much media
attention. She has a total of twelve known tattoos, including a
music note tattoo on her ankle, a Pisces sign behind her right ear,
a Sanskrit prayer going down her hip, a star in her left ear, the
word "love" on her left middle finger, an Arabic phrase on her
ribcage area, meaning "Freedom is God", a trail of stars going down
the back of her neck, a skull with a pink hair bow, the phrase
’shhh…’ on her right index finger, the date ‘11.4.86′ on top of her
left shoulder and a henna-style dragon claw, complete with Hawaiian
hibiscus flowers. Her most recent gun tattoo was planned to be just
below her shoulders but changed it to her ribcage. Although, she
was likely to be criticised for her tattoo, BangBang, the tattoo
artist, was quick to explain that the image simply “represents
strength and power”.
Relations with Barbados
Rihanna is heavily involved in the marketing of her native country
of Barbados. She began by including the flag and trident in many of
her videos, also shooting her album packaging for
A Girl Like
Me there. In September 2007, she became the official face of
tourism for Barbados, being included in many of their ad campaigns.
She currently holds an honourary title of Ambassador for Culture
and Youth in Barbados.
She additionally was honored by the Prime
Minister David
Thompson, who presented her several gifts at a national concert
on 20 February 2008 in Barbados, called "Rihanna Day". Regardless, In
February 2008, Rihanna thanked her country and honoured them during
the acceptance speech for her win of "Best Rap/Sung Collaboration"
at the Grammy Awards. Although Rihanna is heavily involved in the
promotion of her country and works with the government in Barbados
to do so, she is constantly criticized and ridiculed for everything
from her music, her successes and for wearing "skimpy clothes".
Rihanna speaking on the incident, "I went to the beach and I had on
a one-piece swimsuit with jeans, They took the picture and they
made it look like a top that was really revealing. There were radio
programmes about it. It was a big deal for, like, three weeks
straight - talking about I'm not setting a good example.".Rihanna
also states she was bullied at school She states Having lighter
skin wasn’t a problem in my household, but it was when I went to
school - which really confused me at first, The harassment
continued to my very last day of elementary school.
They also mentioned that Rihanna was too young for
Def Jam to push her as a "
sex symbol", making a plea that she cover up. The
media and
The Nation
newspaper constantly make personal attacks and have shown
lack of support and encouragement. Rihanna spoke out against the
scrutiny to
Entertainment
Weekly stating, "They all hate me. I didn’t have to talk
about them. I didn’t have to even mention that I’m from Barbados.
But I do and people kind of take it for granted. They hate me. They
talk shit about me all the time. But I’m like, ”Whatever. I’m still
doing this cause I love to do it and you’re not going to stop me".
Media fought back with letters to Rihanna publicly via a Barbadian
newspaper, "[what she said] sounds as if though she is doing us a
favour. If God didn't give us a Rihanna, he would have given us
someone else. So don't ever for a second get to thinking you are
irreplaceable, Rihanna" and "Her putting Barbados on the map is
nonsense. Barbados was well on the map before she came along; and
will be when she is gone". Her mentor and music producer
Evan Rogers spoke out to the media stating that
Rihanna subsequently "formed her impression of any Bajan dislike
from the reception she received at the recent Barbados Music Awards
where," according to Rogers, "It was disappointing the way some
people reacted as if they were almost rooting against her".
Other ventures
Products and endorsements
In October 2005, Rihanna struck her first endorsement deal with
Secret Body Spray for them to sponsor her first tour.
In 2006, Rihanna
participated in several endorsement deals, including Nike
sportswear for the launch of her "SOS" and J. C.
Penney. In 2007, Rihanna signed with
CoverGirl and became a celebrity
spokesperson which included appearances on TV commercials and in
the Barbados Tourism Authority's tourism commercials. She also
received an endorsement deal from
Clinique
in 2006 to promote their Happy fragrance. She recorded a song
written by
Ne-Yo entitled "Just Be Happy" as
part of the deal to promote their Happy fragrance. Rihanna also
recorded a song called "
Winning Women"
with Pussycat Doll
Nicole
Scherzinger for P&G's female deodorant
Secret. In December 2008, Rihanna
contracted with
Gucci to appear in their ads
for the Tattoo Heart Collection, a special-edition line. In the
Gucci handbag ad, Rihanna is seen hanging from a giant hoop,
scantily clad in a barely-there white bodysuit and wearing an
oversized white Gucci purse. The success of her single, "
Umbrella" also inked an endorsement deal
with
Totes. Her handlers pitched her hit
"Umbrella" to Totes and the song became the soundtrack for
commercials in which she starred. On April 8, 2009 it was announced
that Rihanna inked a fragrance deal with
Jay-Z’s licensing company Iconic Fragrances. Iconic
Fragrance will launch the fragrance in the summer of 2010.
Film projects
In 2007, Rihanna began showing interest in making film appearances.
She made her acting debut in a
cameo role to the film
Bring It On: All or
Nothing, released on August 8, 2006. During this time, she
stated that singing was always the bigger picture, but she
definitely wants to get into acting as well. Rihanna also made an
appearance as the central character in
Kanye
West's music video "
Paranoid".
According to the
Daily News, Rihanna
has been taking acting classes during her time in New York
, and will make her acting debut in Personal
Protection, due to start filming later this year.
Philanthropy
Rihanna created her Believe Foundation in 2006 to help terminally
ill children. Rihanna explained her reasons for starting the
Foundation saying, "When I was young and I would watch television
and I would see all the children suffering, I always said: when I
grow up, I want to help." Rihanna has also performed a number of
concerts to raise funds for both charities and the Foundation and
is also a 2008
Cartier Love Charity
Bracelet Ambassador. She performed at
Madonna’s
Raising Malawi fundraiser on February 6, 2008
in New York City .
After becoming an honorary cultural
ambassador for Barbados, Rihanna became involed with DKMS, an international
donor network based in Tübingen
, Germany
, to try to find a donor for Lisa Gershowitz
Flynn. She was diagnosed in November with acute myelogenous
leukemia.
In January 2008, Rihanna contributed in the fight against
AIDS when she visited the
H&M in New York to support Fashion Against AIDS
by presenting her t-shirt design and signing autographs for a
limited time with slogans like "Believe" and "Stop and Think." The
collection features t-shirts and hoodies designed by Rihanna,
Timbaland and other well-known designers, musicians and artists.The
line, called Fashion Against AIDS, was launched in February 2008 to
raise awareness of the disease among teens and spread awareness
about
HIV/
AIDS. In August
2008, Rihanna and other pop, rock, R&B and country singers such
as
Carrie Underwood,
Ciara,
Beyoncé
Knowles,
Leona Lewis,
Mary J. Blige,
Mariah Carey, and
Fergie recorded the charity single,
"
Just Stand Up!", the theme song to
the anti-cancer campaign
Stand Up
to Cancer and its theme song. The singers performed the
song live on September 5, 2008. In 2008, Rihanna was selected as
the spokesmodel for Gucci’s first
United Nations Children's
Fund ad campaign. She appeared in the fashion house’s Tattoo
Heart campaign, which premiered in December 2008. Rihanna was
photographed in series of special edition print ads with United
Nations Children's Fund items, twenty-five percent of sales will
benefit the children’s charity.
On
November 19, 2008, Rihanna was enlisted by Gucci's Frida Giannini along
with Madonna to light the
United Nations Children's Fund Christmas snowflake in New York City
at the Grand Army Plaza
. In 2008, she became the global
representative and the face of the 4th annual Gucci Campaign to
Benefit United Nations Children's Fund. The campaign aimed to raise
funds for children in Africa through the sale of its Tattoo Heart
collection of bags, which launched worldwide on November 19, 2008.
Rihanna has also been apart of many benefit concerts to help raise
money for various illnesses, such as cancer for Hope Rocks. Rihanna
performed on January 20, 2009 at the Recording Industry Association
of America's Presidential Inauguration Charity Ball to raise money
for the world largest anti-hunger organization. On April 2, 2009,
Rihanna visited the
NYU Medical
Center to help look for another bone marrow donor for a young
girl named Jasmina Amena. Rihanna first learned about Jasmina's
plight in February 2009, when she saw the moving video Jasmina's
best friend, Isabelle Huurman, and her mother, Karen Detrick, made
appealing for donors to save Jasmina. Rihanna honored Jasmina's
best friend, Isabella for her efforts for trying to save her best
friend at a DKMS Gala on May 7, 2009. Jasmina eventually received
her transplant on June 11, 2009, and is in recovery. In September
2009, Rihanna performed at
Jay-Z's "Answer to
Call" concert, which paid tribute to the police officers and
firefighters who died on the
September 11 attacks.
Discography
Awards
See also
References
- Katie Hasty, "Mims Puts The 'Hot' In The Hot 100 At No. 1",
Billboard.com, March 1, 2007
-
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/10/20/rihanna-teams-with-ne-yo-for-ominous-rated-r-single-russian-roulette/
-
http://celebrities.ninemsn.com.au/blog.aspx?blogentryid=156665&showcomments=true
- "Rihanna's Charity Work"
Looktothestars.org Retrieved on 2009-06-27.
- Associated Press, ""A NIGHT TO BENEFIT RAISING MALAWI AND UNICEF"
hosted by Gucci and Madonna with special performances by Alicia
Keys, Timbaland and Rihanna" unicefusa.org Retrieved
on 2009-06-27.
- "Just Stand Up” Star-Studded Charitable Single Sets Pace
For Stand Up to Cancer Fundraising Campaign Stand Up to
Cancer Retrieved on 2009-06-06.
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