Rihanna - From Barbados with Fury

No popstar quite like Rihanna has managed to move through the last fifteen years of music and pop culture without ever losing her role as a central figure. Born in the heart of the Caribbean, starting out as the interpreter of perfectly crafted hits, Robyn Rihanna Fenty has grown as an artist and as a public figure alongside her growth as a singer, eventually developing a strong and distinctive personality of her own. Tracing the records and singles of Rihanna in order, from her debut with "Pon De Replay", through "Umbrella" and "Diamonds", up to the maturity of ANTI, is like tracing the history of pop music over the last fifteen years and, with it, the evolution of culture itself. Not to mention that the singer is by now a universally recognized icon of fashion and style, as well as a strong voice in service of current and necessary causes, chiefly those tied to overcoming gender stereotypes and weight-based discrimination.

As if permanently lost in jet lag between one flight and the next, Rihanna never seems to have truly "arrived": she always appears to be on the verge of discovering a new image of herself, a new way of presenting herself, an unprecedented shade to her voice - something hidden, perhaps more morbid, about her personality. Maybe this is what makes her so genuinely interesting as a singer, entrepreneur, actress, model, activist: you can never know how she'll wake up tomorrow. Her music and her persona always seem to be in constant flux, perpetually restless, eager to move forward as quickly as possible, beyond.

It would come as no surprise if a new album suddenly dropped tomorrow, perhaps radically different from her previous work; nor would it cause a stir to hear she'd abandoned the music scene altogether to pursue some new discipline.

In an era when a tweet from Kanye West causes more of a stir than one of his albums, when a concert on Fortnite becomes the most significant live event of the year, and when building solid commercial success transcends the coordinates that until recently seemed sufficient, Rihanna remains on the front line as a multifaceted, high-profile figure, ready to ride the next wave of change. That's why, despite effectively having been on hiatus as a musician for several years now, she remains one of the defining faces of 2000s pop. And the numbers speak for themselves: with over 250 million copies sold between singles and albums, there's little doubt she is the greatest pop star of the 21st century.

The beginnings: from Barbados to Def Jam

Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born on February 20, 1988 in Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados. She is the eldest of three children, with two younger brothers, Rorrey and Rajad; her mother Monica worked as an accountant, while her father Ronald worked as a supervisor in a clothing warehouse.

Her childhood was far from peaceful, marked by her father's struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction, which were often the source of intense family tension. As a result, young Robyn grew up introverted, prone to isolating herself and suppressing negative emotions. "I don't have good memories, but they helped me grow and made me stronger," she would state years later. "I didn't want to cry, I didn't get angry. I kept everything bottled up in my head." At the age of eight she began suffering from chronic headaches, which only went away when her parents divorced, when she was fourteen.

In the meantime, as an outlet, she began cultivating a passion for music, particularly reggae, along with a love of singing, harboring a secret dream of becoming a famous singer. At fifteen, she overcame her shyness and formed a vocal trio with two school friends, performing in various contests around town. During one of these, she took on a cover of "Hero" by Mariah Carey (a recording of which can be found on YouTube), which earned her an audition with veteran producer Evan Rogers (Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson), who happened to be on vacation in Barbados with his wife at the time.

Robyn went to the audition along with her two bandmates, but it was clear from the start which of them was destined to become the future star. "The moment Rihanna walked into the room, it was as if the other two girls didn't exist. She carried herself like a star even at fifteen," Rogers recalls. During the audition, Robyn sang "Hero" again, but it was her cover of "Emotion" by Destiny's Child that truly won the producer over. "Her voice was still a bit raw, but it had an absolutely unique tone."

Robyn and her mother then left for Connecticut, in the United States, to join Evan Rogers and work on the singer's future. Once she turned 16, Robyn moved to America permanently. "When I left Barbados, I never looked back. I just wanted to do what I had to do."

Under Rogers' guidance, and having adopted the stage name Rihanna, Robyn put together a four-track demo, which included "Pon De Replay," her future first hit. The demo was sent to Jay-Z's Def Jam, earning her an audition in New York during which the singer impressed both the rapper and record executive Antonio 'L.A.' Reid. Struck by Rihanna's commercial potential and by a single like "Pon De Replay," that very night Jay-Z and L.A. had the seventeen-year-old sign a six-album deal with Def Jam. Thus began Rihanna's career as a pop star.

"Pon De Replay" and her first successes

In the spring of 2005, the team around Rihanna began working on a debut single capable of breaking through. Jay-Z and Def Jam's goal was clear: come up with a hit in time for summer. And what better candidate, then, than "Pon De Replay" itself?

Rihanna's recording debut came on May 24, 2005, when that very single was released and sent to radio stations. After a lukewarm start, the track quickly caught on, climbing to number two on the charts by the end of June.

While the promotional video, in which a very young Rihanna brings the dancefloor to its knees the moment she walks into the club, surely played its part, it's equally true that "Pon De Replay" may be the best possible single the Barbadian singer could have landed: an impactful dancehall track true to the singer's roots, eminently danceable, with a seductive vocal line weaving through the kick drum hits, while Rihanna, singing in Bajan slang, urges the DJ to "play it again," to put her favorite song back on.

Come Mr. Dj song pon de replay

Come Mr. Dj, won't you turn di music up?

All di gyal pon di dance floor wantin’ some more

Come Mr. Dj, won't you turn di music up?

It would take almost five years – with the release of “Rude Boy” – for Rihanna to have another Caribbean single this hot. Riding the wave of success from “Pon De Replay,” Music For The Sun, her debut album, was released at the end of that summer.

Essentially, the album serves as a simple backdrop to the lead single, and the only song with any real personality is the gentle “If It’s Lovin’ That You Want” – which, if you squint, anticipates by almost a year the balearic moods of Paris Hilton's “Stars Are Blind”. For the rest, there's plenty of cut-rate reggae-pop, half-hearted R&B ballads, and a blatant imitation of early Beyoncé (“Let Me”).

It's 2005, different times: pop is often little more than a disposable, use-and-throw-away commodity, serious music lives elsewhere, and all things considered, seventeen-year-old Rihanna has already done her job, cashing in on one of the biggest songs of the year; it hardly matters that her album can't withstand even a single listen. It's nothing more than the standard treatment the record industry reserves for a young singer just launched onto the market.

But it's immediately clear that Music Of The Sun only served as a launching pad; by early 2006 it's already a forgotten chapter. Def Jam's intention is to strike while the iron is hot, and so, less than a year after her debut, while American radio is still vibrating with the riddim of “Pon De Replay,” it's already time for the second album, titled A Girl Like Me. The record hits stores on April 10 and immediately reaches number five on the charts (while the previous one had stalled at number ten).

It's preceded by the single “SOS,” which will become Rihanna's second major hit and make the Barbadian singer a household name in Europe too (Italy included, where that summer she'll even appear at Festivalbar). Built on a sample of Soft Cell's “Tainted Love,” “SOS” is a dance track that doesn't shine as brightly as the genuine “Pon De Replay,” but it's crucial in introducing some of the elements that will make Rihanna one of pop's most distinctive faces. The syncopated, robotic melody highlights the less-than-sweet timbre of her voice, turning a flaw into a trademark, and thus into a strength. And for the first time, the singer's sensuality comes into play – something that will be explored in increasingly varied, and increasingly murky, forms in the years to come, and which here surfaces in the longing soaked into the lyrics (“I'm obsessive when just one thought of you comes up”), as well as in the aesthetic of the video and the look Rihanna adopted while promoting the album.

The song succeeds where “Pon De Replay” fell short, reaching number one on the Billboard chart. With “SOS,” Rihanna proves she's far more than just another one-hit wonder, an impression reinforced by the strong success of the second single, “Unfaithful,” a melodrama-drenched ballad in the Evanescence mold. The impact of the third single, “We Ride,” a soul track driven by a propulsive hip-hop beat, will be smaller but still notable. While the first three singles push toward more contemporary territory, the remaining tracks on the album stay largely anchored to Rihanna's reggae roots (“Kisses Don't Lie,” “Dem Haters,” “Selfish Girl”). The only track to escape anonymity is “Break It Off,” a duet with international dancehall star Sean Paul, which – not coincidentally – will be released as the fourth and final single, again hitting the top 10 (number nine).

Overall, although we're dealing with an album with no real ambitions, A Girl Like Me holds up better than its predecessor, but its greatest legacy is certainly not artistic in nature: it will go down in history as the first true bestseller from a popstar who, from this point on, will never again fall from pop's Olympus.

“Umbrella”: the good girl gone bad

2007 is the turning-point year: in March, “Umbrella” comes out, the song that will forever carve Rihanna into the collective imagination. From here on, nothing will be the same. In a sense, the history of contemporary pop changes with the release of “Umbrella,” a song whose success becomes so overwhelming that everyone is forced to take notice: Rihanna, just like Madonna, Britney Spears and Robbie Williams, becomes part of everyone's life.

Between umbrella dance choreography and nude scenes in silver paint, the video is an event that will turn the singer into a worldwide sex symbol. That summer, “Umbrella” is everywhere, all the time, at any hour and on any radio station (which dutifully cuts Jay-Z's rapped intro): it boasts a balanced, catchy crossover of pop melodies, rock arrangement and R&B sensuality, culminating in one of the stickiest choruses in history (“ella-ella-eh-eh”: never forget it). It has a bit of everything in it, it's flirtatious without being vulgar, and it appeals equally to teenagers and their mothers. In 2007, being a popstar also meant having to be on TV, in magazines, on everyone's lips – nothing like today's giant online bubbles, where you can cultivate your own transgression alongside your thirty million fans. And in 2007, “Umbrella” had it all: a sound, a face, a video, an industry machine behind it, Mtv still relevant, and a huge untapped audience ready to be won over.

At least until the release of “Diamonds,” “Umbrella” will remain the Barbadian singer's signature song. But it's merely the calling card for the album that will shake up charts worldwide over the following two years. The young prospect has become a star, then, and she's no longer the same as before: Good Girl: Gone Bad.

Put together with a top-tier team that includes – among others – the golden duo of Justin Timberlake/Timbaland (fresh off the critical and commercial triumph of the epic “FutureSex/LoveSounds”) and the R&B talents of Ne-Yo and The-Dream (authors of “Hate That I Love You” and “Umbrella” respectively), the album debuts straight at number two, in the same week that “Umbrella” tops the singles chart.

It's the first album in which Rihanna seems to wear a more mature, better-fitting persona, where the arrangements are more carefully crafted and the songs, even the less convincing ones, still retain that glamour touch that makes Good Girl: Gone Bad one of the hottest mainstream records of 2007. The problem remains the same as ever, namely that the filler tracks are lacking in songwriting terms; but the singles, this time, have something extra.

“Don't Stop The Music” appropriates the classic mamasay-mamasa-mamakusa from Michael Jackson and turns it into a pulsing party anthem driven by electro bass, disco rhythms and new dancefloor mantras (“let's escape into the music,” “please don't stop the music”). It's a tribute to the past that keeps just the right contemporary edge, and it will become one of the biggest hits of that autumn.

"Shut Up And Drive", with its samples of screeching tires and the video shot in a garage, seems to have been written purely to get truckers worked up, but somehow it holds together, even if it remains one of the Barbadian singer's blander hits. The two R&B ballads do better: the sweet "Hate That I Love You" with Ne-Yo, and the soft, airy "Rehab", written by Justin Timberlake, which for the first time has Rihanna singing about the end of a relationship with a less teenage, more disillusioned edge.

The album's resounding success then hits a new peak in June 2008, with the release of the deluxe edition – Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded – updated with three new tracks: "Take A Bow", a graceful R&B love song dotted with gentle piano showers, the duet with Maroon 5 on "If I Never See Your Face Again", and above all that little dark gem "Disturbia", an explosive, unsettling dance journey weaving together themes of desire and mental illness.

Your train of thought will be altered

So if you must falter be wise

Your mind is in disturbia

It’s like the darkness is the light

Disturbia, am I scaring you tonight?

Disturbia, ain't used to what you like

But fate's cruel irony would have it that Rihanna would face the most painful and cowardly chapter of her career just as the song, partly written by her then-boyfriend Chris Brown, was climbing the European charts. On the night of February 8, 2009, in Los Angeles, shortly before the Grammy Awards ceremony, Rihanna was involved in a heated argument with Brown himself, which ended in a merciless, violent beating of the singer. The exact sequence of events has never been entirely clear – it seems the argument started over an alleged infidelity on his part, and that the fight took place in a limousine where Brown, under the influence of drugs, reportedly lost control. What is certain is that the photographs documenting the violence speak for themselves, and they are horrifying, revealing to the world the battered face of a twenty-year-old nearly beaten to death by her boyfriend.

From that night on, Chris Brown's career as a pop star was effectively over. In an instant, Rihanna's innocence as a teenage star was shattered in full view of the world. The episode marks a drastic break between who the singer had been up to that point and who she would become from then on. The public rallies around yet another woman who has suffered abuse, a successful young woman irreparably wounded and humiliated, and grows attached to her story. From this moment on, Rihanna as a woman and as an artist begins to represent something different, something bigger and more significant; and every song, every stance she takes, begins to carry greater depth and a louder media echo.

Over the years, the singer has spoken several times about what happened and its intense repercussions on her mental health, eventually admitting, after a long process of inner reflection, that she had forgiven Brown. A forgiveness that came only after she had granted another one, to her father. Interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in 2012, Rihanna said: "For a long time I was angry. I was dark, and it affected my music, the way I dressed. I forgave Chris, and to do that I first had to forgive my father. He struggled with an addiction, and as terrible as he could be at times with my mother, that doesn't erase how extraordinary he was as a father. I had to come to terms with what he did, I closed the distance, until it all started to make sense. For a long time I believed I hated Chris, then I realized that what I felt was a kind of 'clouded' love, which looked like hate because it was 'angry', 'twisted'. I had to forgive Chris, because I still loved him. Only then was I able to start living again. I can't tell the public how to feel about all this, they have every right to be angry. But I have forgiven him."

Rated Adults Only

In the seven months following the Grammy incident, Rihanna essentially retreats into private life. No TV appearances, no concerts; she'll even skip the now-legendary 2009 MTV Video Music Awards – yes, the one where Kanye jumps onstage and interrupts Taylor Swift. Her return to the public eye is a grand one, coming during Jay Leno's Tonight Show on September 14, where she performs alongside Kanye West and Jay-Z on the mega-hit "Run This Town" (in the same episode where the notorious host brings Kanye to tears by asking him what his late mother would have thought of his stunt at the VMAs). The Rihanna who appears is different; more private, but not shy because of it. If anything, she's bolder, darker, more adult, more provocative, starting with her look and extending to the warmth and timbre of her voice.

The same aesthetic would carry over into the promotion of her new album, due out in November, with the telling title Rated R. Short hair with a blonde streak, black, glossy outfits, a dark, vaguely cursed mood. A new personality and a more melancholy gaze, the fruits of a trauma still raw and burning, exorcised through a harder, more worldly and sexually explicit bearing. A continuation of the "Disturbia" style, but with a stronger sense of ownership.

The lead single sees Rihanna plunge into the depths. The tragic, pulsing "Russian Roulette", a ballad wrapped in an atmosphere of despair, falls in line with the mood of the year the singer has just lived through. We are witnesses to a high-tension game: “Puoi vedere il mio cuore battere/ puoi vederlo attraverso il mio petto/ sono terrorizzata, ma non cederò/ so che devo superare questa prova/ quindi premi quel grilletto”. Never has Rihanna's return been more anticipated, and never has her music sounded darker.

It's the prelude to one of the Barbadian singer's most interesting albums, in which her voice, wrapped in a dark, controversial atmosphere, takes on a new three-dimensionality: before, she seemed to merely perform her songs, now she seems to live them. And while "Stupid In Love" sounds very much like an outburst against the man responsible for so much darkness, on "Cold Case Love" (Timberlake's hand again, his beatboxing unmistakable), amid icy beats and bleak string melodies, Rihanna sings like a sorrowful priestess. The sapphic "Te Amo", also released as a single, embraces the same decadent mood in a dance shot through with flamenco flourishes and strobing keyboards, but with hindsight it's one of her less solid hits.

But Rated R, fortunately, also reveals a bolder side, which comes through in the rough "Hard", the brash "ROCKSTAR 101" (with Slash on guitar), and above all the irresistible "Rude Boy", one of her best songs ever. Blunt, brazen, pounding: it's no longer a sensual song, but a sexual one, and almost obsessively so. Lines like "Give it to me baby like boom boom boom" are fired off over a dancehall beat glossed with R&B polish. Released as a single in February 2010, a year after the violence she suffered, "Rude Boy" sounds regenerating, like an intense jolt of dopamine, a liberation of body and mind; it would also become the album's most successful single.

The new queen of pop

Rated R was something of an outlier, an album that saw Rihanna immersed in her search for light beyond pain. At the same time, however, the competition wasn't standing idly by. With "The Fame/Monster", Lady Gaga quickly established herself as the new mainstream sensation thanks to a bolder, more theatrical approach to the chart hit, while the emerging trend of applying house music to pop - championed by French DJ David Guetta - became the guaranteed recipe for success: just think of "Tik Tok" by Ke$ha, "California Gurls" by Katy Perry, and Guetta's own "Sexy Bitch", all global hits built on the simple combination of lightweight melodies and poolside-party keyboards.

In autumn 2010, once her world tour had ended, while her voice was echoing on the radio thanks to Eminem's "Love The Way You Lie", the time came for Rihanna to reclaim the carefree spirit of her twenties. She dyed her hair a flaming red, adopted a more youthful look, went back to smiling and strutting around in shorts in her videos, and her music shed its dark clothing to take on, now more than ever, warm, sun-drenched colors. She was no longer the dark lady wrapped in unsettling sensuality, but once again the sexy bombshell turning the heads of the hottest boys around. And with Loud, her fifth album, she returned ready to fight it out in the chart-pop arena.

The single that preceded its release was "Only Girl (In The World)", which found Rihanna back on the dance floor with an explosive dance-pop anthem. It kicks off at a gallop with a light, contagious groove, building toward a chorus where the keyboards start crackling like fireworks as the singer throws herself into the boldest vocal performance of her career. In the video, she's seen dancing free and alone across the prairie, her thick red mane blowing in the wind.

Want you to make me feel like I’m the only girl in the world

Like I’m the only one that you’ll ever love

Like I’m the only one who knows your heart

Only girl in the world

Love it or not, it's undeniably a winning attempt to ride the EDM wave, followed moreover by the almost simultaneous release of "Who's That Chick?", a David Guetta single on which RiRi lends her voice. Equally successful would be her collaboration with Drake on "What's My Name?", released in the very weeks when rumors of a relationship between the two were swirling. It's one of the Barbadian singer's silliest hits, but also one of her most charming and beloved, buoyed by a well-judged, buoyant electro-R&B texture that still sounds catchy today.

At twenty-two, after every kind of struggle and success, Rihanna had already done and experienced everything a pop star could expect in a lifetime, except for two things: failing, and singing a sadomasochistic single. While the first seems to grow more distant by the day, the second happens right at the start of Loud with "S&M", released as a single in January 2011 and accompanied by an instantly iconic, "scandalous" video - latex just about everywhere, pop perversion in every frame, kitsch as the watchword. It's the perfect representation of a song that confesses fantasies like "sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me", all wrapped up in pure electro-pop arrogance. Nothing revolutionary, in the end, but it supplies exactly the spice needed to finally establish Rihanna as the bad gal of global pop. If nothing else, "S&M" has the merit of hiding no ulterior motives or subliminal critique: it's pure provocation, entirely an end in itself, and all the sharper and more exciting for it.

Loud is without a doubt the right album at the right time, and it's no coincidence that it would become her second best-selling album of all time, behind only the unbeatable Good Girl: Gone Bad. It's a record that manages to maintain a liberating lightness throughout, as if you could feel the fun and ease with which Rihanna performs these songs. Just run through the tracklist: "Cheers (Drink To That)", "What's My Name?", "California King Bed", "Raining Men", "Complicated" are all pieces of a solid, carefree pop record. Not to mention "Man Down", with its ram-pa-pa-pam and contagious offbeat rhythm, a disorienting confession in reggae form in which Rihanna, leaning hard into her Bajan accent, sings of having killed a man just outside the station: “Non volevo fargli del male/ potrebbe essere il figlio di qualcuno/ e mi sono presa il suo cuore/ quando ho estratto quella pistola”.

Meanwhile, as her success with the general public solidified, RiRi began to gain broader credibility. She is in fact the featured voice on "All Of The Lights" by Kanye West, the lead single from the celebrated "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy", a delirious song in which Kanye raps "I sent my girl to the hospital, I just hit a bitch" (or rather "I beat my girlfriend"), choosing the Barbadian singer, of all possible voices, as his counterpart. At the end of 2011, she then sang the hook on the icy title track of "Take Care", the best album Drake has ever released; that same year, she also duetted with Coldplay on their "Princess Of China".

Throughout 2011, Rihanna quickly regained the universal popularity that had been somewhat hindered by the dark atmospheres of Rated R. And with the arrival of autumn came the start of a new phase, leading, as had now become tradition, to a new album by year's end.

Preceding it was "We Found Love", a collaboration with English DJ Calvin Harris that would turn out to be one of the biggest pop hits of the decade. It's a perfect EDM song, romantic and as airy as a car ride with the windows down; a festival anthem with a chorus that bursts into a shower of house keyboards. And with the essential "signature" mark provided by Rihanna's voice, by now ever more iconic as a singer.

We found love in a hopeless place

The album that followed in late November, Talk That Talk, tried every which way to consolidate her renewed success, but despite the variety on offer, both on the romantic front and the swagger front (evident already from the provocative cover art), it would prove to be one of her least successful efforts. Aside from "We Found Love", the other singles didn't land with the same impact, starting with "Talk That Talk" (a duet with Jay-Z) through to "Cockiness (I Love It)", passing through "Where Have You Been", an ambitious dance song that squanders a glorious chorus with an electro-house drop that's badly out of step with the times (it'll be one of many post-"Party Rock Anthem" tracks that haven't aged well). The one that comes off best, in the end, is the simple "You Da One" with its genuine Caribbean vibes.

In any case, Talk That Talk would once again be a commercial triumph for the singer, and "We Found Love" would become her best-selling single of her career (over 13 million copies). The following year, Rihanna would complete her long recording tour de force - four albums in four years, all released in November - with the release of Unapologetic, a record that arrives at the peak of her success and would also mark the end of a chapter. Preceding it, in September, was a song destined to leave its mark.

We’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky

Few songs of the 2010s have remained as deeply etched in memory as "Diamonds". It's still the track that best defines Rihanna as a singer and artist, as well as being her most romantic and elegant hit. Written by a pre-"Chandelier" Sia - already a top-tier songwriter by then - it rises dramatic and solemn, marked by mournful piano chords and embellished by the distant echo of synthetic pulses. In an atmosphere of total solitude, words of peace and a sense of weightlessness ring out loud and clear: “So shine bright/ tonight, you and I/ we’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky”.

A year on from the "rude" tones of Talk That Talk, the twenty-four-year-old returned with class, revealing her more sensitive side, the same side that also drives the second single taken from Unapologetic, the stripped-down, lovestruck "Stay", sung as a duet with singer-songwriter Mikky Ekko: just two voices, a piano phrasing off the beat, and a need for love filling the room. The two songs define a new expressiveness in Rihanna the singer, ever more invested in her delivery, ever more in command of her voice.

While it doesn't display as clear an identity as Rated R or Loud once did, Unapologetic turns out to be the best album the Barbadian star has released to this point, showing a pop star at the peak of her powers and in full command of her songs. Songs that draw liberally from the kaleidoscope of 2012 pop and almost all of which land. There's the trap arrogance of "Pour It Up" and there's the soft, melodious autotune-pop duet with Future on "Loveeeeeee"; orchestral flourishes drift through "Get It Over", while "No Love Allowed" leans into a more contaminated dub approach; and there's no shortage of the obligatory dubstep ("Jump") and EDM nods ("Right Now", with David Guetta), both less garish and more on-point than one might expect.

Not even Chris Brown's guest spot on "Nobody's Business" manages to spoil a record that still delivers gems like the purely melodic "What Now", and the nearly seven minutes of "Love Without Tragedy/Mother Mary", an R&B mini-suite traced by melancholy guitars and glittering keyboards, probably the finest Rihanna song among those that never became singles - at least so far.

Unapologetic would become Rihanna's first chart-topping number one, fitting reward for a record that would receive less critical favor than it deserved.

Once promotional duties wrapped up, continuing through all of 2013, Rihanna decided to take a break from her music. No more annual November appointment with a new album; it wouldn't happen in 2013, nor in 2014, nor even in 2015. "I wanted to take a year to be able to do what I wanted artistically, creatively."

In 2013, she teams up with Eminem on "The Monster", a track that would lead the two of them on a six-date American tour in August of the following year. Still in 2014, Rihanna guests on Shakira's Latin-flavored "Can't Remember To Forget You"; and in June of that same year, she was crowned "Fashion Icon" at the CFDA Fashion Awards held in New York, wearing for the occasion a dress studded with 216,000 Swarovski crystals.

Bitch Better Have My Money!

After two years spent mostly focused on fashion and entrepreneurship, 2015 is once again a pivotal year in shaping the Rihanna-as-artist we know today. In February comes the unexpected "FourFiveSeconds" with Paul McCartney and Kanye West, a song that in just over three minutes best condenses the individual talents of this curious, unprecedented trio: there's Rihanna's scorching delivery, there's Macca's brilliant melodic simplicity, and there's Kanye experimenting by crushing his voice through autotune. Accompanying it all, just an acoustic guitar and an organ.

The credits list around eleven writers, for a song that has more layers of production than should legally be allowed, and yet still manages to sound as raw and genuine as a jam session among friends. While it isn't the best track in any of the three artists' careers, it remains one of the most interesting and pleasingly successful experiments in 2010s pop, enhanced by the striking video shot by Danish photographers Inez and Vinooh in a sleek black and white. If the song certainly helps raise Rihanna's standing even among more discerning listeners, it's only with the following track that RiRi tells us something more about her new self.

Bitch better have my money!

Y'all should know me well enough

Bitch better have my money!

Please don't call me on my bluff

Pay me what you owe me

Ballin' bigger than LeBron

Bitch give me your money!

Who y'all think y'all frontin' on?

Like bra, bra, bra

Released on March 26th, "Bitch Better Have My Money" is Rihanna fully immersed in her gangsta trip. "Shit, your wife in the backseat of my brand new foreign car / Don't act like you forgot": RiRi plays the part, but with such conviction that, were she not already massively famous, you might actually believe her. She sings with an aggression and brazenness never heard from her before, roughing up the chanted trap beat - Kanye West and Travis Scott among the producers - like a safe she's cracking open. She practically screams, and does so with the mic confidence of a seasoned rapper. Reinforcing the song's impact is the video, a short film in which Rihanna plays a gang leader who kidnaps and tortures a woman purely for the thrill of it.

The song will divide fans between those disappointed by the excesses of its content and those electrified by the Barbadian star's "bad girl" turn. Meanwhile, having landed yet another low blow against political correctness and laid another fundamental building block in the construction of her persona, Rihanna continues to revel happily in controversy: she's never been further from the accommodating image of "Umbrella", and at the same time she's never been freer, more self-assured and more true to her nature. With "Bitch Better Have My Money", today's Rihanna is born: a worldly, unshakeable popstar, a woman of power firmly in control of her image and her empire.

Riding this wave of success, April brings the Barbadian star's first patriotic song, "American Oxygen", which flew somewhat under the radar compared to what were probably the expectations surrounding it. It's an interesting track, but not enough to hold its own against the personality and power of the two previous singles: Rihanna aligns herself with the great tradition of the political song, embracing the theme of the American Dream and the possible New America, but her take doesn't offer particularly brilliant insights. The most interesting aspect remains the production (again helmed by Kanye), massive in its means yet understated and evocative in its results.

Rihanna's "first" album

At the end of 2015, the first dates of a world tour planned for the following year are announced, out of the blue. It's a sign that something big is brewing: three years have now passed since Rihanna's last album, a considerable stretch for a singer who, throughout the first part of her career, consistently dominated the pop market, accustoming her audience to the relentless pace of one album a year. News soon spreads of the imminent (though not yet scheduled) release of her new work, titled ANTI.

Preceded by just a few hours by the release of "Work", the new single featuring Drake, ANTI is finally released as a Tidal exclusive on January 28, 2016. None of the songs released the previous year make the tracklist, and the reason is immediately clear: this is Rihanna's first album with a genuine vision, one where commercial interest takes a back seat to artistic concerns. The singer herself is credited as co-writer on every track, a sign that, by her eighth album, RiRi has finally gained full creative control over her music. It's also her first album not released through Def Jam, but through Roc Nation, the label founded by her mentor Jay-Z.

ANTI is the first album in which Rihanna truly manages to tell her own story — her fantasies, her tensions, her feelings, her body. It's her most explicit record, especially on the sexual front, but at the same time it's also her most mysterious. And it's also her most complete and important work, free of the usual pre-released hits but held together by a common thread of carnality and seduction.

It was clear from the moment "Work" came out that we were looking at a decisive step forward, a vibrant dancehall masterpiece that only Rihanna could have pulled off, one that exists purely in service of her voice and charisma. In the chorus, sung entirely in Bajan slang, the words lose their shape to become percussion, fire, rhythm in the service of a razor-sharp musicality. Rihanna's two verses and the third one sung by Drake are flawless, their flexible melodies smoothing out a groove that seems to twist in on itself. "Work" brings the atmosphere of Rihanna's music back from the arena to the neighborhood club, trading open-air breadth for a more intimate, intoxicated, warm dimension, ready at any moment to lose its inhibitions. It's without doubt the definitive triumph for an artist who has internalized her cultural roots and is now able to reinterpret them in a personal, distinctive way. "Work" is Rihanna more than any other song of hers.

Work, work, work, work, work, work

He said me haffi

Work, work, work, work, work, work

He see me do mi

Dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt

So me put in work, work, work, work, work, work

ANTI is an "artistic" album from every angle, from its compositional choices to its aesthetic ones: it includes a cover of Tame Impala ("Same Ol' Mistakes") and a duet with SZA, while the cover art is the work of Israeli artist Roy Nachum, and the spectacular video for "Needed Me" is directed by Harmony Korine (the behind-the-scenes footage is wonderful, revealing that Rihanna is a huge fan of the director; who knows whether she's seen "Trash Humpers").

The songs draw on a wide spectrum of influences which, in the Barbadian star's own words, reflect her taste and her calling: we move from cutting-edge R&B to hip-hop, by way of electronic music, soul and alternative rock. Not forgetting, of course, the dub that soaks the opening "Consideration", a declaration of independence in which Rihanna deploys a cadenced flow before giving way to the catchy chant of SZA's chorus. Romanticism and nostalgia, meanwhile, permeate "Kiss It Better", a soft, retro-tinged rock ballad carried along by an aching electric guitar riff.

The main point of reference remains rhythm 'n' blues, tackled with an approach that is at times elegant (the jazzy "James Joint"), at times neurotic (the semi-industrial "Woo"), and at times brazen ("Desperado" with its country echoes). "Needed Me", with its vibrating basslines and scalar melodies, shows a Rihanna that's more emancipated and unfeeling than ever: “Andavi bene per una scopata da fatti/ di che cazzo ti lamenti?/ Sei solo un altro della lista/ che cerca di risolvere i suoi casini interiori con un cattiva ragazza/ So che odi confessarlo/ ma, baby, avevi bisogno di me”. In the video, shot in breathtaking slow motion, we see her gun a man down in cold blood. Even more explicit is the eloquent "Sex With Me": “Il sesso con me, così fantastico/ vodka e acqua e un limone/ e un paio di altre cose che non posso dire”.

But equally significant is the second half of the album, where the bad-gal energy settles down to make room for a more romantic side. "Never Ending" and "Close To You" simply get the job done with two ordinary love songs, but "Love On The Brain" — a doo-wop ballad built around a call-and-response between an explosive Rihanna and some graceful counter-melodies — and "Higher" — a lost-in-drink confession sung with fire in her throat — are nothing short of electrifying, setting a new emotional peak in RiRi's catalog.

ANTI is a great record, and with taste and style it puts Rihanna back on top of the pop world. It hardly matters that there's no new "Diamonds" on it. Released the same year as "The Life Of Pablo" and "Lemonade", it too represents a statement of personality so powerful, and at the same time so deeply tied to Rihanna as a person, that it's hard to imagine another album like it ever happening again. The 2016 Rihanna is simply an unstoppable popstar, at the peak of her form and her success. She would also appear on Calvin Harris's summer hit ("This Is What You Came For") and on the two biggest, most important rap albums of the year, Kanye West's (on which she reinterprets Nina Simone on the controversial "Famous") and Drake's (on which she duets on "Too Good"). It's no surprise that at the VMAs in September she was honored with the "Michael Jackson Vanguard Award", crowning a year of absolute grace.

From 2017 to today: little music, many new ventures

With ANTI, Rihanna seems to have drawn a temporary finish line in her career. After being for a long time a "singles artist", and having sold more records than anyone else (man, woman, or group) in the 21st century, RiRi proved to herself that she could pull off a superbly crafted album designed for immersive listening. As a musician, she can only feel fulfilled. Her career is currently on hold: everyone knows she'll return sooner or later, and that it could happen any day, but no one knows when. She, for her part, has never given much away. The impression is that she has other things on her mind.

Either way, 2017 still finds her near the top of the charts, as a guest on other artists' tracks. She sings on Future's "Selfish", on Kendrick Lamar's "Loyalty", on N*E*R*D's "Lemon", and above all on "Wild Thoughts", Dj Khaled's massive summer hit: all tracks where Rihanna's voice and presence are essential, absolute protagonists. In early 2020, after more than two years without new music, she makes a surprise appearance on "Believe It" by PARTYNEXTDOOR, Drake's protégé and a frequent collaborator of the Barbadian singer (he is the writer of "Work").

Today, Rihanna is also known for her work as an entrepreneur, actress and activist. In 2017 she founded Fenty Beauty, a cosmetics line focused on gender inclusivity, aiming to break down the stereotypes tied to the world of makeup. At the same time, she has become a curvy icon and a flag-bearer for body positivity. Consistent with her causes, in 2018 she founded Savage X Fenty, a lingerie line designed for all sizes.

And the new album? Little is known, apart from some rumors about the title (word has it it's called "R9") and the idea that it might be her reggae record. While staying vague, Rihanna has made a point of saying: "There will be reggae, but I didn't want to limit myself. In my career I've done everything: every kind of hit, every genre. I can do whatever I want." And also: "I can't say when it's coming out, but I'm working on it nonstop."

In 2020 she begins a relationship with rap star A$AP Rocky, with whom she will have her first child in 2021. After years of recording silence, in late 2022, just days apart, "Lift Me Up" and "Born Again" are released, two new Rihanna tracks for the soundtrack of "Black Panther (Wakanda Forever)", yet another Marvel box-office hit. She performs the first of the two songs on Oscar night 2023, on February 12, 2023, exactly one month after her celebrated performance at the Super Bowl Halftime Show, where she ran through her greatest hits while pregnant for the second time, wearing an oversized red outfit custom-tailored to the singer's figure by Loewe.

Ride the wave of great music

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