Artist: Rihanna
Bio
Robyn Rihanna Fenty (born February 20, 1988), known by her stage name, Rihanna, is a Bajan singer. Her song Umbrella was one of the highest-selling songs of 2007 and her 3rd album Good Girl Gone Bad was critically acclaimed, helping propel her to superstar status. She has attained eleven Billboard Hot 100 number ones thus far and is the second Bajan artist to win a Grammy Award. She is also a cultural ambassador for Barbados.
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 Bajan 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
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Concert Dates
| Date | City | Venue | Tickets | ||
| Mar 24 |
Cincinnati OH |
Procter & Gamble Hall |
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| Apr 11 |
Cleveland OH |
House Of Blues |
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| Jul 08 |
London |
Hyde Park |
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News
Rihanna - "We Found Love [Star Slinger remix]" - Pitchfork (Track reviews)
On his "We Found Love" reworking, UK producer Star Slinger buries Rihanna's emotional Talk That Talk mantra under a layer of expansive glitch, which elsewhere replaces all of the song's verses. Note Slinger's own commentary: "Ha! Guilty pleasure innit." Hear it below, via Pretty Much Amazing.
Rihanna - Talk That Talk - Pitchfork (Album reviews)
Heavy on filler even though it's only 11 tracks long, Rihanna's sixth album feels not only slight but muddled, an assortment of half-baked ideas that never bloom.
Music Review: Rihanna - Talk That Talk - blog critics
Music Review: Rihanna -Talk That Talk - blog critics
Rihanna, 'Talk That Talk' (Def Jam) - Spin (reviews)
With Aubrey "Drake" Graham ushering in a new era of complicated, emotion-drenched man-swag, it's only natural for Rihanna — the woman he claims once broke his heart — to emerge as his inverse, a tough-skinned, roost-ruling power lover. Stuffing her music with subversive sexuality and straight-up freakiness, she simultaneously puts up a wall, brassily challenges suitors to please her, and assumes they'll fail. On Talk That Talk's "Roc Me Out," she coyly dares a dude to sex her up, but then hits him with the punch line: "I'll let you in on a dirty secret / I just wanna be loved." From another artist, this might be a song about self-doubt. From Rihanna, it's like she's willfully withholding faith and throwing it back just to tantalize. The Jay-Z reference (and collabo!) does not go unnoticed.
The occasionally perfect pop on Talk That Talk softens the concept. Where last year's Loud had a hefty helping of unshakable singles, this album's arc, however simple — sex, love, sex, repeat — is cohesive and sweet. And for someone whose persona is so "bad-girl rock star," Rihanna sure loves techno music. Of all the dubstep-savvy starlets rolling out recently, she was the first by several years (2009's underrated Rated R), and this album doesn't skimp on 4 A.M. synths: "Where Have You Been" is tailor-made for a Coachella pool rave, while "Birthday Cake" and the Bangladesh-produced "Cockiness (Love It)" deliver elated, global-bass super-boom.
Even the requisite tinny StarGate ballad, a grandiose reinterpretation of the xx's "Intro," is doused with lusty passion, analogizing love to liquor. Still, it's alpha-chick sexual power that wins out; as she sings on the lush highlight "Watch and Learn": "If you learn how / I'll stay." It's Rihanna's game and there's very little chance you'll win — but she'd love it if you tried.
Talk That Talk by Rihanna - ArtistDirect
Rihanna - Talk That Talk - bbc (Reviews)
Drearily sexual lyricism over showy but shallow production dominates RiRi’s sixth LP.
Album Review: Rihanna - 'Talk That Talk' - NME (Reviews)
Video: Rihanna: "We Found Love" - Pitchfork - News
Rihanna has posted the new video for the clubby, Calvin Harris-featuring "We Found Love" over on her website, and it finds the songstress at her grittiest and artiest. Directed by Melina Matsoukas (who also did the video for "S&M") and shot in Northern Ireland, the clip revolves around a tormented, drug-addled couple living in a seedy UK underworld-- one in which Rihanna rocks Doc Martens, pops pills, and lights cigarettes by the fistful.
Rihanna: "Man Down" - Pitchfork (Upcoming releases)
This Anthony Mandler-directed clip for Rihanna's "Man Down", latest single from last year's Loud, is set in Jamaica. (via Missinfo.tv)
Rihanna, Loud Album Review - Contact Music (Reviews)
Multi-award winner and having sold over 60 million records worldwide, Rihanna has come far from her
Rihanna - 'Cheers (Drink To That)' (Oke Shameless Retouch) - Pop Justice
Rihanna - "Only Girl (In the World)" - Pitchfork (New Tracks)
The hook on "Only Girl (In the World)" is the unimpeachable, fist-pumping part of this Loud standout, but it's also the point where Rihanna gets vulnerable-- and gets real. A crucial, humane complement to the man-eater verses and the overt, "make it last all night" sexuality of the bridge, the hook requests, no, demands her emotional needs be fulfilled. Producer Stargate's relatively minimalist approach-- an electro take on "Funkytown"-style riffing on the verses, Euro-pop catharsis everywhere else-- moves "Only Girl" into classic disco territory, which is a nice relief from modern dance pop's congested take on four-to-the-floor thump. And Rihanna sounds like a confident, vulnerable disco diva here. She's Donna Summer or, at least, Alicia Bridges. The nothing-but-hook style and updated disco influence may even invoke Lady Gaga, but Rihanna sounds especially sincere over this propulsive production, as she coos through the gamut of emotions, blending raw feeling with thoughtful sentiment.
[from Loud; out now via Def Jam and Roc Nation]
Rihanna - Loud - Pitchfork (Album reviews)
After responding to staggering emotional and physical trauma with the melodramatic Rated R, Rihanna returns to making effervescent pop. [Ryan Dombal]
Music Review: Rihanna - Loud - blog critics
Video: Rihanna: "What's My Name [ft. Drake]" - Pitchfork - News
Rihanna's flaming-red Kool Aid mall-goth hair is proudly on display in the new video for the Playlisted uber-pop jam "What's My Name", currently the #1 song in the country. The clip features some truly gorgeous New York cinematography and guest rapper/rumored Rihanna ex-thing Drake showing off those "Degrassi"-honed acting chops. Watch it below.
Rihanna, 'Loud' (Def Jam) - Spin (reviews)
Oh, lady, you just earned our 15 bucks. Rihanna will sell millions of copies of Loud, her fifth album, and she'll deserve every penny of it -- not because it's a dependably excellent club-shaker, though it is, but because no woman should have to endure the kind of pick-up line Drake shoots her way on "What's My Name," the record's second single. "I heard you good with those soft lips / Yeah you know word of mouth," purrs the Canadian rapper (and Ri-Ri's rumored fling). "The square root of 69 is 8 something, right / 'Cuz I been trying to work it out."
Woof. But while Casanova rolls over in his grave, Rihanna smirks and takes it in stride. Drake may open the track, but she reigns in their shared world -- with a coquettish flip, she glides into a chorus that leaves no doubt: "Hey boy, really wanna see / If you can go downtown with a girl like me." In the video, she struts happily around New York's Lower East Side in a zebra-striped jacket, a nod to the actual animal she sat atop in the video for last year's "Rude Boy" -- with her bodysuit covered in Keith Haring-esque graffiti to match the floor and walls, like Haring himself was bodypainted to melt into his own squiggly backdrop in Annie Liebovitz's 1986 portrait. "Rude Boy," from last year's defiantly terse but uneven Rated R, was released when the young pop star was still struggling to overcome her well-documented romantic difficulties with boyfriend Chris Brown, and seemed about to melt into the tabloid stories.
One year later, at just 22 years old, the remarkably sharp Barbadian-born pop star is now a woman with full, healthy claim to her sexuality, someone who'll trill the sauciest lines while making damn sure her company is worth her while. None of the salacious hooks are a promise to any man, because they're delivered for her own empowerment, and Loud offers a confident female ethos on par with the best of Beyonce or Shakira. Even in Rihanna's darkest moments, she asserts that she deserves the best because she offers it in return.
Vocally and production-wise, lead single "Only Girl in the World" sets the album's tone -- Loud is nothing if not a literal title. Rihanna is at full-scale belt, and each track seems alchemized to induce the backing harmonies of hundreds of tipsy dancers. On the lasciviously bass-heavy opener "S&M," the singer's voice goes stratospheric over an electro pulse; "Man Down" forays into dancehall with poppy pep. "Cheers (Drink to That)" inexplicably samples Avril Lavigne's "I'm With You" (just the "yeah-yeah" yawps) and the thin track, produced by Runners, can't support Rihanna's forceful verses. But "California King Bed" is a wrenching ballad about the waking death of a relationship, the stage of limbo before the final crash; it's so well-delivered, in fact, that it's hard to hear.
"Raining Men" is the album's highlight, a gloriously eccentric collaboration with Nicki Minaj that entwines their minor-key hyperventilating, air sirens dissolving into mind-melting bass, and the scene-stealing Minaj's breathless contortion of the simple word "really" into its own fully demented sideshow.
Loud is a hard-won battle, and for that, it almost makes sense that it doesn't contain any tracks as effortlessly bright as Rihanna's 2007 zeitgeist smash "Umbrella." This is a more mature nod to the bubbly pop that established her fame. And it's a statement from a woman who's come into her own, and who won't be going anywhere that isn't worth her while. We could all do worse than to follow her lead.
Rihanna - Loud - bbc (Reviews)
Album Review: Rihanna - Loud (Def Jam/Mercury) - NME (Reviews)
Overly tiresome fetish-flirting can't drag the brilliantly adventurous and masterfully measured pop queen down
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Rihanna - "What's My Name" [ft. Drake] - Pitchfork (Track reviews)
The definitive moment on Rihanna's underrated Rated R ended up being the dancehall-flavored pop hit "Rude Boy", a song that had more in common with Rihanna's big-room-at-the-club bangers than the rest of Rated R's less radio-ready deep cuts. "Rude Boy" did more to exorcise the ghost of Chris Brown from Rihanna's career than any of Rated R's dark ballads.
On "What's My Name", from upcoming album Loud, Rihanna doesn't have to tell us how desirable she is-- it is a given. What she really wants is a man up to the challenge of impressing her, and she's not afraid if that makes you feel emasculated (from "Rude Boy"'s "Can you get it up?/ Is you big enough?" to "What's My Name""s "Knows how to make me want it... I really wanna see if you can go downtown with a girl like me"). There is never any doubt in her delivery that Rihanna really might as well be the only girl in the world.
Drake's verse is serviceable but coasts on the dregs of his signature summer hits. He's mostly doing drawn-out Auto-Tuned ends of phrases and wordplay that both his mentor Lil Wayne and Young Money labelmate/fictional spouse Nicki Minaj do much better, including a "square root of 69" joke that would get groaned at in any middle school math class.
"Rude Boy" marked a transition, from the hyper-catchy but ultimately faceless 1980s-sampling pop tunes Rihanna made her name on, to music befitting a genuine pop star with a real personality of her own. She hardly invented sexually aggressive female R&B (see: Adina Howard, TLC, Vanity 6, et al.) but she has led the modern radio revival. When Rihanna channels her Caribbean influences, she transforms into the dancehall queen it turns out she was all along.
[from Loud; out 11/16/10 via Island/Def Jam]
Rihanna: "Rude Boy (Blondes Remix)" [ft. Mariah Carey] - Pitchfork (Upcoming releases)
Pop off your dome and get your mind correct with this ultra-chopped remix of Rihanna's car-stereo standby "Rude Boy", courtesy of Rising hypno-beat outfit Blondes. The remix is part of Merok Records' Autumn Feelings sampler, which you can grab here-- and, yes, you read that right, there is a Mariah Carey sample located somewhere on this track as well.
MP3: Rihanna: "Rude Boy (Blondes Remix) [ft. Mariah Carey]"
Rihanna: "Rude Boy (TC Remix)" - Pitchfork (Upcoming releases)
When Diplo noticed a striking similarity between the videos for Rihanna's "Rude Boys" and M.I.A.'s "Boyz", he went ahead and mashed the songs together, creating a double-time Riri/Maya's blend. Now Bristol's TC takes a shot, blasting "Rude Boys" with wobbly synths and blistering percussion and taking it to a hugely unexpected and awesome direction. The TC track comes from last Friday's Annie Mac mini mix, and it's been put with the original "Rude Boys" video below.
Rihanna: "Rude Boy (Diplo Rudeboyz Remix)" - Pitchfork (Upcoming releases)
Yesterday, Diplo took to his Twitter to point out the obvious similarities between Rihanna's new "Rude Boy" video and M.I.A.'s "Boyz" video. But the similarities don't end with the videos, which Diplo made all the more obvious when he posted something else on his Twitter: A blend of "Rude Boy" and "Boyz".
MP3:> Rihanna: "Rude Boy (Diplo Rudeboyz Remix)"
Loud by Rihanna - ArtistDirect
Rihanna - Rated R - Exclaim! (Reviews)
We all know what Rihanna went through in February. Even before the dust-up with Chris Brown, Rated R was primed to be a triumph capitalizing on the superstardom she found with 2007's Girl Gone Bad. But one listen to album number four and it ...
Read | Go To Exclaim.ca | Digg This
Album review: Rihanna - 'Rated R' (Mercury) - NME (Reviews)
Her torrid personal life firmly behind her, the R&B vixen comes out all guns blazing
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Rated R (Remixed) by Rihanna - ArtistDirect
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Rihanna - We Ride
Music video by Rihanna performing We Ride. (C) 2006 The Island Def Jam Music Group
Rihanna We Ride- [lyrics]
Ride when we ride we ride It's 'til the day that we die When we ride we ride It's 'til the day that we die [Verse 1] It's real late 'Bout a quarter to 1 Thinking about everything We become And I hate it I thought we could make it But I'm ready to jet this Just wanna forget about it I saw her pictures And the letters she sent You had me thinking You were out we your friends I'm so foolish Play me like I'm stupid 'Cause I thought it was just you and I (oh) [Hook:] Now I look back on the time That we spent and I see it in my mind Playing over and over again 'Cause boy right now You got me breaking down And I just can't figure out why But this is what you say [Chorus x2] [Verse 2] Visions in my mind Of the day that we met You showed me things That I'll never forget Took me swimming In the ocean You had my head up in the clouds Made me feel like I'm floating (yeah) You think I'm playing When you know it's the truth Nobody else can do it Quite like I do All my kisses And my loving But ain't nobody Better than us [Hook] [Chorus x2] [Verse 3] I guess it's over Indefinitely But you and I know It's not that easy To let go Of everything (everything) that we planned And start all over again Just blame yourself cause you blew it I won't forget how you do it Sweet baby This is where the game ends now Somehow wanna believe you and me We can figure it out [Chorus] You finna make me say boy I wish that you come hold me When I'm lonely When I need someone to talk to You would phone me Just ...
