Rihanna

Rihanna ranks among the foremost figures in contemporary music of the new millennium, distinguished by an uncommon versatility that enabled her to weave together pure pop, dancehall, R&B, EDM, and adult contemporary sounds across her recordings. Her breakthrough arrived in 2005 via the exuberant debut single “Pon de Replay,” an international success that kept her in the upper echelons of global pop charts until she paused new releases in the late 2010s. By 2017 the Barbadian native had amassed 11 number-one hits, among them “Umbrella” and “Only Girl (In the World),” two of the tracks that contributed to her collection of nine Grammy Awards. Beyond her prowess with singles, Rihanna advanced her artistic range on each album, most notably the audacious Good Girl Gone Bad (2007), the unflinching Rated R (2009), and the measured Anti (2016), all of which defied expectations, reached the Top Ten of the Billboard 200, and ultimately earned multi-platinum certifications. Her auxiliary work as a featured performer during those years produced major crossover successes led by appearances with Jay-Z on “Run This Town,” Eminem on “Love the Way You Lie,” and Kendrick Lamar on “LOYALTY.” She reentered the Top Ten in 2022 via the restrained ballad “Lift Me Up,” her first solo outing in six years and a contribution to the soundtrack of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty in Saint Michael, Barbados, she displayed star presence from childhood, repeatedly triumphing in beauty and talent competitions. Residence on a relatively isolated West Indian island nevertheless left her without anticipation of the worldwide fame she would later achieve. Opportunity arose through a pivotal encounter with Evan Rogers, the songwriter and producer behind pop successes for *NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, and Rod Stewart. While vacationing in Barbados with his wife, a native of the island, the New Yorker met an aspiring vocal group that included Rihanna. The three performed for Rogers, who promptly expressed interest in developing her as a solo act. After she laid down tracks with him in the United States and signed to SRP (Syndicated Rhythm Productions), the venture run by Rogers and partner Carl Sturken, she drew the attention of the Carter Administration—specifically, newly installed Def Jam president Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter. An audition led to an immediate contract offer from the major label.

In May 2005 Def Jam issued “Pon de Replay,” Rihanna’s inaugural single and the energetic lead-in to her debut album Music of the Sun. Almost entirely produced by Rogers and Sturken, the track fused Caribbean rhythms with pop-R&B structures. It ignited quickly, climbing to number two on the Billboard Hot 100, where it was blocked from the summit by Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together.” Music of the Sun, released that August, yielded a Top 40 entry with “If It’s Lovin’ That You Want” and spanned styles from a reinterpretation of Dawn Penn’s rocksteady crossover “You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)” featuring dancehall queen Vybz Kartel to the Beyoncé-inspired “Let Me” co-produced by the rising duo Stargate. Only eight months later, in April 2006, Rihanna delivered A Girl Like Me, proving her initial success was no accident and demonstrating further range through three contrasting hits: the glossy dance-pop “SOS,” built on a sample of Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love,” which topped the Hot 100; the ballad “Unfaithful”; and the electro-dancehall “Break It Off” with Sean Paul, her third and fourth Top Ten pop singles respectively.

Stardom solidified with Good Girl Gone Bad, an album that capitalized on her commercial traction and grew into a phenomenon. Issued in May 2007 and later “reloaded” with extra tracks the following June, its extended campaign generated multiple chart-topping singles and featured high-profile partnerships with Jay-Z, Ne-Yo, Timbaland, and Justin Timberlake. The lead single “Umbrella,” co-written by the-Dream and Christopher “Tricky” Stewart, stood apart from prevailing radio fare and ascended to number one, joined by “Take a Bow” and “Disturbia,” while “Hate That I Love You” and “Don’t Stop the Music” swelled the roster of Top Ten placements. “Umbrella” earned Rihanna her first Grammy, for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. The project approached triple-platinum standing by October 2009, when she introduced the brooding and confrontational mood of fourth album Rated R through “Russian Roulette,” another Ne-Yo collaboration and Top Ten single. Perspectives of an abused partner, dominatrix, and killer surfaced among the album’s narratives, released that November. Even the additional Top Ten cuts “Hard” and “Rude Boy”—the latter her fifth number one—carried a stern edge that revealed a more intricate artist than her earlier hits had suggested. While Rated R thrived, Jay-Z’s “Run This Town,” featuring Rihanna on the intro and hook, captured Grammys for Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.

A sequence of yearly studio albums, each appearing in November and traversing a wide spectrum from EDM and contemporary R&B to adult contemporary, dancehall, and straightforward pop, persisted well into the next decade. In 2010, shortly after Eminem enlisted her for the diamond-certified “Love the Way You Lie,” Loud arrived. Anchored by the Stargate-crafted “Only Girl (In the World),” later honored with a Grammy for Best Dance Recording, it continued with further Hot 100 leaders “What’s My Name?” featuring Drake and “S&M.” Talk That Talk emerged in 2011 behind Rihanna’s most resounding single, “We Found Love,” a Calvin Harris collaboration. After securing another Best Rap/Sung Collaboration Grammy for her contribution to Kanye West’s “All of the Lights,” the run concluded with the 2012 release Unapologetic. Her first album to top the Billboard 200—following six prior Top Ten entries—it also became her first to receive a Grammy for Best Urban Contemporary Album. “Diamonds,” the uplifting anthem amid some of her most assertive statements, marked her tenth number-one pop hit and 18th Top Ten peak.

Over three years Rihanna issued her fourth through seventh albums. A comparable interval elapsed before her eighth full-length appeared. In 2013 she extended her featured-artist achievements by joining Eminem on “The Monster,” her 25th Top Ten entry as lead or guest, which reached number one and brought her fourth Best Rap/Sung Collaboration Grammy. No longer affiliated with Def Jam—following a new arrangement with Roc Nation through Jay-Z, who had departed the label years earlier—she issued standalone singles throughout 2015, beginning with the stripped-down “FourFiveSeconds,” an unexpected pairing with Paul McCartney and Kanye West that peaked at number four. “American Oxygen” achieved modest commercial results yet stood as one of her most striking recordings, a stately ballad carrying a personal, pro-immigration message.

Eighth album Anti, notable for its poised execution, became Rihanna’s second consecutive Billboard 200 number one upon its January 2016 release. Reuniting with Drake yielded another chart-topper in “Work.” “Needed Me,” a simmering slow jam crafted with a production team that included DJ Mustard and Kuk Harrell, and “Love on the Brain,” a retro-soul powerhouse involving Harrell and Fred Ball, also reached the Top Ten. Listeners who noted the relative absence of exuberant energy on Anti found compensation across 2016 and 2017 through her guest turns on Calvin Harris’ “This Is What You Came For” and N.E.R.D.’s “Lemon.” Drake, Future, DJ Khaled, and Kendrick Lamar similarly benefited from her featured contributions, with Lamar’s “LOYALTY.” securing Rihanna a fifth Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration and establishing a record for female artists in the category.

Beyond a featured role on PartyNextDoor’s 2020 single “Believe It,” Rihanna released no new music for several years while concentrating on her Fenty cosmetics and fashion ventures and beginning a family. She reemerged in October 2022 with “Lift Me Up” from the soundtrack of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The ballad, co-written by Rihanna with producer Ludwig Göransson, Tems, and Coogler, debuted at number two on the Hot 100.