Rihanna Biography, Music, Movies, & Facts

It topped the charts in several territories, spending ten consecutive weeks at number one on the UK Singles Chart and seven at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 162,000 copies in its first week. Regarded as a turning point in her career, it marked a shift from the Caribbean-influenced sound of her earlier work, embracing a more contemporary pop direction driven by uptempo dance tracks. It became her first RIAA-certified double platinum album, surpassing one million units sold. Soon after releasing Music of the Sun, Rihanna began working on her second studio album in September 2005.
«Wood» and «Honey» capture the playfulness of true love, while songs like «WI$HLI$T» and «Elizabeth Taylor» see love not as a distraction from her life’s work but as the very thing that makes it feel meaningful. Many of the love songs on Swift’s more recent albums are brimming with anxiety, from Lover’s «Cornelia Street» («I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends») to folklore’s «Peace» («The rain is always gonna come if you’re standing with me»). One of the biggest takes by critics — betista casino that borderlines on sexist at times — is that Swift won’t be able to write good, reflective music that cuts deep like the songs that orbit around heartache and pain.

• Lover became Swift’s sixth No. 1 album in America, making her the first female artist to achieve the feat.
• The album was released exclusively on the streaming service Tidal on January 28, 2016.
• In her liner notes, she references Pablo Neruda’s poem «Tonight I Can Write,» stating that «Love is so short, forgetting is so long» is the overarching theme for the album.
• After coming out of the folklorian woods following folklore and evermore, fans and critics alike were intrigued to see what direction Swift would take on her next studio album.
• Rihanna has released numerous hits, including «Umbrella,» «Diamonds,» «We Found Love,» and «Disturbia.»
• Since then, the singer has released seven more albums, which are all platinum or multi-platinum, making her one of the best-selling artists in the world.

A New Island Girl In Town

The Tortured Poets Department proves that in the throughline of Taylor Swift’s many artistic eras is a commitment to exploration and a love of autobiographical lyricism. Celebrating her genre-defying and varied discography through The Eras Tour has resulted in old songs having a resurgence, new inside jokes and Easter eggs within the fandom, and a plethora of new listeners being exposed to Swift’s work. Country songs like «cowboy like me» and «no body, no crime» reaches back to Swift’s earlier work in narrative building, seamlessly crafting a three-party story with ease.
The thing that differentiated her from other writers — and still does to this day — is her songwriting. The world now knows Taylor Swift as a global pop superstar, but back in 2006, she was just a doe-eyed country prodigy. Despite its ghoulish title, artificial intelligence appears to be the object of terror in what many, including the GRAMMY voters who awarded it Best Pop Duo/Group Performance in 2024, regard as the highlight of SZA’s sophomore. But four years after the Team Edward vs Team Jacob saga wrapped up, folk hero Jason Isbell proved mythical bloodsuckers weren’t a barrier to awards success. David Bowie fans may well feel aggrieved that his post-punk classic «Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)» was entirely ignored by GRAMMY voters, while the bro-step banger it inspired was showered with awards. It’s a bold feminist act that helped power parent album CrazySexyCool to diamond status and was deservedly rewarded with Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal at the 1996 GRAMMYS (where CrazySexyCool was also crowned Best R&B Album).
She especially enjoyed singing and won a high-school talent show with a rendition of a Mariah Carey song. As a child, she listened to Caribbean music, such as reggae, as well as American hip-hop and R&B. Rihanna (born February 20, 1988, St. Michael parish, Barbados) is a Barbadian pop and rhythm-and-blues (R&B) singer who became a worldwide star in the early 21st century. In 2022, Rihanna advocated for reforming the global financial system to better address climate change and poverty, including providing aid to nations most affected by climate-related crises. In October 2019, she stated that she declined to perform at the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show in support of Colin Kaepernick following the controversy surrounding his role in the national anthem protests. Proceeds from the single supported the fundraiser, which ultimately helped raise $100 million for cancer research.

Midnights: Encapsulating Her Artistic Magic

Its win for Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 2014 GRAMMYs, however, proved that Rihanna’s reign wasn’t letting up anytime soon. «Mr. Jesus, I’d love to be a queen/ But I’m from the left side of an island/ Never thought this many people would even know my name,» she pleads in the seven-minute two-parter. Her swagger is boisterous in «Phresh Out the Runway,» «Jump,» and strip club anthem «Pour It Up,» but «Nobody’s Business» really drives home the album’s theme of being unbothered. Vocally, Rihanna’s strength lies in her ability to evoke raw emotion à la «Stay.» Featuring Mikky Ekko, the stripped-down, slow-burning piano ballad narrowly missed the top spot on the Hot 100 but gave Rihanna her 24th top 10 hit, surpassing Whitney Houston’s record of 23 in 2013. One of Rihanna’s most precious offerings to date, «Diamonds» emerged as a self-love mantra due to its uplifting «Shine bright like a diamond» chant. Its lead single «Diamonds» resonated in an equally major way, giving Rih her 12th No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Rihanna has faced personal challenges, including a highly publicized incident of domestic violence with former boyfriend Chris Brown. With these endeavors combined with her musical empire, Rihanna has not only cemented her legacy in music but also positioned herself as a powerful icon in the world of entrepreneurship. The singer launched her makeup line, Fenty Beauty, in 2017, gaining instant popularity for its extensive range of shades catering to all skin tones. This wealth is a result of her multifaceted career, which extends beyond music to include ventures in fashion, beauty, and film. Rihanna, one of the most successful pop stars of her generation, has amassed an impressive net worth estimated to be around $1.7 billion, according to Forbes. Rihanna’s romantic life has often made headlines, with notable relationships sparking both admiration and intrigue.

A$AP Rocky returns to a life of music, fashion, film and Rihanna with his acquittal

Off stage, though, she was falling in love again — this time with someone who championed her just as much as the fans did in the areas. It’s apt that she would turn to Max Martin and Shellback, her 1989 and reputation collaborators, to bring that same captivating pop soundscape to The Life of a Showgirl and to capture some of the energy Swift was experiencing. And after two decades in the business, the 14-time GRAMMY winner is giving everyone a glimpse of what she describes as «the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic» chapter of her life thus far.

Talk That Talk

• Midnights helped further solidify Swift’s larger-than-life status at the finale of the 2024 GRAMMYs, too, as she became the only artist in history to win Album Of The Year four times.
• She scored another No. 1 hit with the single “Rude Boy,” while the tracks “Hard” and “Russian Roulette” landed squarely in the top 10.
• Although Jay-Z initially thought «Pon de Replay» was too big for a new artist, he invited her to audition.
• As a child, she listened to Caribbean music, such as reggae, as well as American hip-hop and R&B.
• In the United States, it is currently more popular than Come and See but less popular than Shutter.
• After hearing Nancy on Hot 97’s «Ebro In The Morning,» Jay-Z flew the legend to Jamaica to sing and feature in his hybrid music video-documentary.
• In contrast to the fairytale motifs and happy endings of Fearless, evermore saw Swift become fixated on «unhappy» endings — stories of failed marriages («happiness»), lifeless relationships («tolerate it»), and one-time flings («‘tis the damn season»).

The lead single, «Work», topped the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, with the third and fourth singles, «Needed Me» and «Love on the Brain», peaking within the top ten. With an eclectic blend of genres such as pop, dancehall, and psychedelic soul, Anti peaked at number one on the Billboard 200, marking her second chart-topping record in the US. It spent ten non-consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making it both Rihanna’s longest-running chart-topping single and the longest-running number one song in the US in 2011. To support the album, Rihanna launched the Loud Tour in June 2011, which included a record-breaking ten sold-out shows at The O2 Arena in London—the most by a female artist in the venue’s history.

Rihanna on A$AP Rocky: ‘I chose right!’

On the Life of a Showgirl track directly named after the late icon, Swift circles back to the themes she touched on with folklore’s «Peace» and the tension between her private reality and her public persona. While half of The Life of a Showgirl’s 12 tracks peer into the darker corners of fame and explores the loneliness, scrutiny and fractures that used to come with it, the other half are dedicated to falling completely head over heels. And on The Tortured Poets Department’s «The Prophecy,» she pleaded for someone to change what she believed to be her predestined future of being alone and what she’d give up to find someone she loves.
Adopting a more mature image, Rihanna rose to stardom and transitioned to dance-pop and R&B with the album Good Girl Gone Bad (2007) and its reissue, subtitled Reloaded (2008). Known for her artistic reinventions, she is an influential figure in both music and fashion. She’s closing a chapter of her life — saying goodbye to the heartbreaks, pleading and scrutiny — and embracing a new, well, era that was quietly created during the behind-the-scenes of The Eras Tour. At its heart, The Life of a Showgirl goes beyond the fame, accolades, praise, and anything else Swift has been awarded in her 20-year career. Swift herself has long embodied independence through redefining over and over what it means to be a pop star for over two decades.
She first gained prominence in 2005 with her debut album «Music of the Sun,» which quickly established her as a force in the music industry. Known for her unique style and chart-topping hits, she has influenced music and fashion worldwide. She told Winfrey that Brown may have been the love of her life and she has developed “a very close friendship” with him. The pair worked together on the song “Birthday Cake,” released that year.
Swift’s now-frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff credits her as the first person to take a chance on him as a producer with «I Wish You Would» and «Out Of The Woods»; both tracks exemplified how future Antonoff-produced songs would sound on albums like reputation, Lover and Midnights. The night Red lost the GRAMMY for Album Of The Year in 2014, Swift decided that her next album would be a full-on pop record. Commercially, Red debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold 1.2 million copies in its first week, becoming the fastest-selling country album and making Swift the first female artist to have three consecutive albums spend six or more weeks at the top of the chart. Following the more country-influenced Speak Now, some critics and fans found the pop songs on Red were too pop and the lyrics were too repetitive, possibly indicating that she might be selling out.

Rihanna has released numerous hits, including «Umbrella,» «Diamonds,» «We Found Love,» and «Disturbia.» Rihanna began her music career at the age of 16 when she signed with Def Jam records. In addition to her chart-topping hits, Rihanna has capitalized on her fame with lucrative endorsement deals and her own successful brands, including Fenty Beauty, which revolutionized the beauty industry with its inclusive products. As a pioneer of the music industry, her earnings from album sales, touring, and streaming have consistently placed her among the top earners in entertainment. As an expectant mother, Rihanna continues to inspire her fans, demonstrating a balance between her music career and her personal life.
From becoming the first woman and only artist to win a GRAMMY for Album Of The Year four times, to dealing with heightened media scrutiny, to breaking records with her Eras Tour, no one understands the highs and lows of being a showgirl like Swift. Fans rejoiced at having songs to comfort them during difficult times, and artists like Maya Hawke, Gracie Abrams, and Sabrina Carpenter credit folklore for inspiring them to create and be even more emotionally honest in their songwriting. Other songs, including «Death By A Thousand Cuts» and «Cornelia Street,» are Swift at her most vulnerable, reflecting on a love lost and grappling with the extreme worry that comes when you could potentially lose someone. When Swift released the lead single «Look What You Made Me Do,» a song she initially wrote as a poem about not trusting specific people, many assumed the album would center on vengeance and drama. The album also earned Swift several awards — including her second Album Of The Year GRAMMY, which made her the first female artist to ever win the award twice.
Through her fashion ventures, Rihanna has become one of the wealthiest musicians; in 2021, she became the richest female musician at the time, with a net worth of $1.7 billion. Around the time of her second album A Girl Like Me (2006), critics often compared her style and sound to that of Beyoncé. She credits that song with sparking her passion for music and partly attributes her presence in the industry to Houston. She also mentioned that one of the earliest songs she developed an affection for was Houston’s rendition of «I Will Always Love You» (1992). As a child, she sang Whitney Houston songs and «A Whole New World» (1992) into her hairbrush so frequently that her neighbors started calling her «Robyn Redbreast». She deemed him one of her all-time favourite artists, crediting him with «paving the way for every other artist out of the Caribbean».
It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for seven consecutive weeks and peaked at number two in the UK; it was also the latter country’s best-selling song of 2010. In June 2010, she collaborated with rapper Eminem on the single «Love the Way You Lie». In support of the album, Rihanna embarked on the Last Girl on Earth tour from 2010 to 2011. The single «Rude Boy» peaked atop the Hot 100 for six weeks, while «Russian Roulette» and «Hard» both peaked within the top ten.
Rihanna became the youngest and fastest solo artist in Billboard Hot 100 history to accumulate ten number-one singles. In late 2008, she released «Rehab», the fifth and final single from Good Girl Gone Bad; it peaked within the top 20 of the charts in both the US and UK. The following singles, «Shut Up and Drive» and «Hate That I Love You», saw moderate success, while the album’s fourth single, «Don’t Stop the Music», peaked at number three in the US.