Rihanna (4 page)

R
ihanna began 2007 by collaborating with the Jamaican band J-Status on their track, ‘Roll It’. This was an updated version of ‘Roll It Gal’, which was written by Shontelle Layne and Sheldon Benjamin for the singer Alison Hinds. Layne and Benjamin changed the lyrics especially for J-Status and Rihanna (Shontelle helped with the vocals, too).

J-Status and Shontelle were acts signed to SRP, Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken’s label. J-Status stands for ‘people of Jamaican Status’. The band first worked with Rihanna on her
Music of the Sun
album, providing the male vocals for ‘Here I Go Again’. ‘Roll It’ was the first single from their debut album,
The Beginning.

It was released in Germany, Finland, Switzerland and Portugal, but only made the Top 10 in Finland, where it got to No. 8.

Around this time, Rihanna was still a single lady and went on a date with
Transformers’
actor Shia LaBeouf, but they didn’t connect in the right way. Shia explained to
Playboy
magazine: ‘It never got beyond one date. The spark wasn’t there. We weren’t passionate about each other in that way, so we remain friends.’

For her third album Rihanna wanted to show the world what the
real
Rihanna was like. She didn’t want people to tell her how she should look, what she should sing or the kind of person she should be: she wasn’t a 16-year-old girl anymore; she was a women and ready to show off her rebellious side. She didn’t want to be the same-old girl next door.

When fans bought their own copies of
Good Girl Gone Bad
, they saw a new side to Rihanna, and she was glad of it. She told Bang Showbiz: ‘[Before
Good Girl Gone Bad
was released] I had a ridiculous schedule. It was kind of unfair. But I kept going. I was focusing on getting people to respect me as an artist, making my stamp in the industry.

‘I wasn’t 100% or even 75% in control of my image or my sound. I said, “If you guys keep this perfect image of me, people will never notice me.” I kind of blended in. It was safe, the blonde, curly hair. It was a formula. I didn’t want to be like all the other artists. I wanted to stand out. And the only way I could do that was by taking charge of my image and sound. And it worked.
Good Girl Gone Bad
was a big turning point for me.’

People think that being a world-famous singer must be the best job in the world, but it does have its downsides.
Rihanna has had to work very hard, and while growing up, she has missed out on many things that normal teenagers get to do. However, she knew she had to make sacrifices so her dreams could come true, and revealed to
GQ
magazine: ‘Nothing in life comes easy. Everything comes with a sacrifice. If this is what I love to do most then I have to put up with the s**t, that I don’t love, that comes with it.’

Ne-Yo contributed to
Good Girl Gone Bad
, along with Justin Timberlake, Timbaland and Tricky Stewart, as well as Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken. Justin Timberlake wrote ‘Rehab’, and he told
Entertainment Weekly
: ‘She’s a young artist stepping into the adult world. To me, that song (“Rehab”) is the bridge for her to be accepted as an adult in the music industry.’

Jay-Z, too, could see that Rihanna had changed, commenting: ‘She’s found her voice. That’s the best thing for any label, to have an artist step in and take control of their own career – she’s left the nest.’ He drew comparisons with Janet Jackson’s
Control
, which was the star’s breakthrough album, back in 1986.

Jay-Z is Rihanna’s friend as well as her mentor, and because he is famous too, he can offer her good advice about handling fame. He told journalist Margeaux Watson: ‘The biggest advice I can give her is to keep her circle tight, because she can’t control anything else outside of that. She can’t control people’s opinion of her records or what’s being said on the blogs, but if she has the proper friends, she won’t get caught up in the wild-child lifestyle.
They will bring her back [down to earth] and be like, “You might wanna pull your skirt down.”’

As well as changing the type of music she wanted to make, Rihanna also altered the way she looked, and ditched the girly Caribbean style she used to have, instead picking clothes that showed off her womanly figure. She also rebelled by cutting her hair, something she had wanted to do for ages but had never been able to because the people around her liked her to have long hair. Rihanna wanted to express herself with her hair, rather than having the same style as Beyoncé and many of the other female artists who all wore their hair long and straight.

She worked with Ne-Yo again and together they wrote ‘Hate That I Love You’. He also penned ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’, ‘Question Existing’ and ‘Take A Bow’ (for
Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded
). Ne-Yo gave her some singing lessons, too. She wanted to make sure that her vocals were as good as they could be, and Ne-Yo was certainly up to the challenge of teaching Rihanna. She had a raw ability but didn’t understand some of the things he asked her to do, as she confessed to MTV: ‘He is such a genius. I’ve never had vocal training so when I’m in the studio, he’ll tell me how to breathe and stuff. And I’m like, “What?” Like, he’ll call out these big fancy words: “OK, I want you to do staccato.” And I’m like, “OK, I don’t know what that is.”’

Good Girl Gone Bad
was released in May 2007, while
Good Girl Gone Bad
: Reloaded
was released the following June. The original album was a big success for Rihanna as it sold 162,000 copies in the first week alone, and entered the US
music charts at No. 2. It also topped the music charts in Europe, UK, Ireland, Canada, Hungary and Poland, and reached No. 2 in Australia and Denmark.

While writing and recording tracks for the album, Rihanna was constantly listening to
Afrodisiac
by Brandy. She loved every track on that album – there wasn’t a single one that she didn’t want to listen to over and over again. This made her eager to produce an album that her fans would be able to say exactly the same thing about: she wanted every track to be just as strong as the others.

Good Girl Gone Bad
has a more up-tempo vibe than
A Girl Like Me
and has more pop tracks on it, without neglecting the R&B and dance elements. Before it came out, Rihanna told MTV: ‘You feel different every album and [at] this stage I feel like I want to do a lot of uptempo [songs]. I want to keep people dancing but still be soulful at the same time.’

She revealed the new Rihanna to the Star Phoenix: ‘I basically took the attitude of the bad girl and I really got rebellious and just did everything the way I wanted to do it – I didn’t want to listen to anybody, I didn’t consult with anybody. I just want to have a little more fun with my music and be a little more experimental in terms of my image and my sound. I just reinvented myself. It’s all about the attitude that you take toward things. I’m not being careful, I’m just having fun – I’m taking risks because bad girls take risks.’

The tracks on
Good Girl Gone Bad
are as follows:

1. ‘Umbrella’ (featuring Jay-Z)
   
2. ‘Push Up On Me’
   
3. ‘Don’t Stop the Music’
   
4. ‘Breakin’ Dishes’
   
5. ‘Shut Up and Drive’
   
6. ‘Hate That I Love You’ (featuring Ne-Yo)
   
7. ‘Say It’
   
8. ‘Sell Me Candy’
   
9. ‘Lemme Get That’
   
10. ‘Rehab’
    
11. ‘Question Existing’
    
12. ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’
    

On the UK version, ‘Cry’ was added as a bonus track, and for the Japanese version, ‘Haunted’ was added.

The extra tracks on
Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded
are:

1. ‘Take A Bow’
   
2. ‘If I Never See Your Face’ (with Maroon 5)
   
3. ‘Disturbia’
   

The
Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded
album was accompanied by a DVD documentary of Rihanna performing in Manchester. It was a huge hit with fans and many outlets sold out.

For the
Good Girl Gone Bad
album cover art, Rihanna wears a white dress and leans back into the shadows, which gives the impression that she is both good (white dress) and bad (shadows). The image is taken from the side and she
looks slightly downwards at the camera; her arms cross her body, with her hands placed on top of each other. Her name is written in a large green type that runs across the middle of the image, with the title in lower case white text below. The R
eloaded
version of the album uses the same image but with a green background and her name in red.

The cover for ‘Umbrella’ has become one of Rihanna’s most iconic covers. It shows her wearing Wellington boots and holding onto her umbrella, which is the wrong way up on the floor. She’s got her head back and her right hand is running through her hair. She is standing next to a pool, with a huge water swirl behind her. Her name and the title are in the top left-hand corner.

For the ‘Shut Up and Drive’ cover, Rihanna chose a more intimate photo of her on a purple couch, with her sweater pulled down to reveal a black bra. She’s got her back to the camera, but looks back over her shoulder, and her expression is seductive. Her name is written in green, as on the album cover, and the song title is once again in lower case.

On the ‘Hate That I Love You’ cover, Rihanna is shown kneeling in a bedroom, looking straight at the camera. Her hair is covering her left eye and she wears a black dress that shows off her curves. Her left hand touches her right shoulder, and she’s wearing black gloves. This image shows her sexy but vulnerable side. The bedcovers are yellow and the walls of the room are purple: the contrast with Rihanna’s black dress makes her stand out more. Her name runs across the bottom half of the image and
is in purple this time. The song title is still white, though it is now in capitals.

The cover art for ‘Don’t Stop the Music’ was very similar to the album cover. Rihanna wears a white dress, and the background is black with a white spotlight on the singer, who is facing the camera and looking straight ahead. Her left eye is covered by her hair and she is leaning slightly on her left leg (which accentuates her curves), with her right forearm just touching her hip. Rihanna’s name is in green in the top left-hand corner, with the single name in white text underneath.

For ‘Take A Bow’, Rihanna chose a simple image of herself with her head bowed. She isn’t wearing a lot of make-up and the only jewellery she wears is a simple gold necklace and studs in her left ear (the star tattoo in her ear is also visible). Below her face is her name written in black and the song title in pink.

The ‘Disturbia’ cover art was also subtle, as it was just a head-on close-up of Rihanna’s face. Her make-up is minimal, with nude coloured lips, and the only background that is visible is black. This is one of the least memorable of Rihanna’s covers.

For ‘Rehab’, a more colourful cover art was chosen to reflect the desert setting of the video. Rihanna’s head and shoulders are shown at an angle, with the singer looking to the right of the image. Had it been shot in black and white the image might have appeared harsh, but the colourful green shoulder straps, her sparkling, dangly earring and the green tinge as the light hits her forehead make the image
feel warm and inviting. The sun is shining and the blurred backdrop adds even more colour to the image. Her name and the song’s title are written in white in the bottom right-hand side of the cover.

When ‘Umbrella’ was released on 29 March 2007, people went crazy for the song and it soon topped the US Billboard Hot 100 charts. Altogether, it stayed at the top for seven weeks and even caused iTunes to crash at one point because so many people wanted to download it. The track was No. 1 in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Sweden and Switzerland. It actually stayed at the top of the UK charts for 10 consecutive weeks.

‘Umbrella’ might be seen as Rihanna’s signature track, but it wasn’t originally meant to be sung by her. The song was written and composed by producer Christopher ‘Tricky’ Stewart and songwriter The-Dream, who originally wanted Britney Spears to record it. When Britney’s people declined on her behalf because they already had tracks for her album, they decided they wanted Mary J. Blige to record the song instead. They sent her people a copy and at the same time sent L.A. Reid a copy, then quickly found themselves part of a bidding war, because both sides wanted it. Luckily for Rihanna, Mary was too busy with her Grammy commitments to listen to the track, as she had been nominated for eight awards. Her people couldn’t say they definitely wanted it until she herself had approved it, and so they had to wait for her approval.

Tricky explained what it was like to MTV: ‘In a two-day period, we were in the bidding war of our lives between
Mary J. Blige’s camp and Karen Kwak (Island Def Jam’s executive vice president of A&R), and L.A. Reid’s camp.

‘At the time, if you heard Mary’s name and you heard Rihanna’s name, you’d want to hold out,’ Stewart continued. ‘Mary’s coming off “Be Without You”, she’s nominated for all these Grammys, the whole thing. So the plan with us, really, was to hold the record to get a response from Mary. By the time L.A. Reid and his team got done beating us up, we just couldn’t say no. They’re calling every 20 minutes for the entire Grammy weekend. Every time we see him, everywhere we see him, they were just applying all kinds of pressure.’

Once Rihanna heard the track and was allowed into the studio to record her interpretation, she made the song completely her own with her ‘ellas’. Having Jay-Z collaborating on the song moved things up another notch, and he re-wrote his rap from the original rap penned by Tricky and The-Dream. In addition to writing ‘Umbrella’, The-Dream was one of the writers of ‘Sell Me Candy’, ‘Lemme Get That’ and ‘Breakin’ Dishes’ on the album.

As well as Rihanna becoming a bigger star as a result of ‘Umbrella’, The-Dream became much higher-profile, and he has released several albums since then, including ‘The Love IV’ in 2011. He has continued to write and produce great tracks with Tricky, and together they wrote the Beyoncé track ‘Single Ladies’, Mariah Carey’s ‘Touch My Body’ and many more great songs.