Rihanna

It’s hard to believe that two years have passed since the sultry voice of Rihanna first took radio airwaves and nightclub dance floors by storm. The song Pon de Reply, which first made that sultry voice famous, remains an iPod favorite. But time has passed, and now with new songs like shut up and drive rihanna has taken radio airwaves by storm time and time again. Though the seductive songstress currently lives in San Diego, California, she’s actually of Barbadian descent. Rihanna, a.k.a Robyn Rihanna Fenty, was born on February 20, 1988 in Saint Michael, Barbados. Mom Monica is of Guyanese descent, while dad Ronald is a mix of African and European descent. Two younger brothers, Rorrey and Rajad, round out the Fenty family. Rihanna is only nineteen years old, and has been riding a high-speed train to stardom for most of her teenage years. While studying at the Combermere School in Barbados back in 2004, she and two classmates formed a musical trio. That same year, Rihanna won the Miss Combermere Beauty Pageant and performed Marian Carey’s Hero at a school show. Shortly after, at the age of fifteen, Rihanna got her first big break. Rihanna might not have been the only beautiful teenage girl in the world with a beautiful voice, but she did have the advantage of living in a favorite vacation spot for rich American people. When music producer Evan Rogers was on vacation in Barbados, Rihanna was introduced to him by a friend. Under the wing of Rogers and partner Carl Sturken, Rihanna recorded a demo that soon caught the attention of Jay-Z. Soon, rihanna was part of the Def Jam records lineup. Late August 2005 saw the release of Rihanna’s deubt album, Music of the Sun. Its first single was the dance anthem Pon de Replay, which hit all kinds of #1 positions on music charts worldwide. Sadly, Music of the Sun got only so-so reviews – but it didn’t matter. It sold well, and listeners loved rihanna music. It even got Rihanna a gig touring as the opening act for another well-established female singer, Gwen Stefani. The next two singles of rihanna, If it’s Loving that you Want and Let Me were commercial flops. Let Me was a big hit in Japan, but no other country considered it worthy of single-hood. Rihanna obviously has a very good management team, however, because before anyone had time to notice the failure of her first album, she was putting out a second. If you weren’t following rihanna’s career closely, it might have been possible to never have even noticed that she’d put out a second album. Rihanna explained this swift follow-up by pointing out that her CD releases had mirrored her life: she’d been a small girl from a small town (shown in her musically mediocre debut album) and had grown up fast, so fast that she was ready to put out a second album right away. That second album, A Girl Like Me, hit the stories in April 2006 – not even a full year after the release of its predecessor. This was the album that made rihanna sos and rihanna unfaithful top music charts worldwide. Another famous song from this album was Break it Off, a duet with reggae superstar Sean Paul. It was released as a digital download, and proved the popularity of digital downloading when it leapt from number fifty-two to number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 in a mere week. Rihanna has also done endorsements for the makeup company Clinique, in which she sings a song called Just Be Happy to promote their perfume, appropriately titled Happy. She has also recorded a song for the female deodorant Secret. This song, called Winning Women, is a duet with Nicole of the Pussycat Dolls. Around this time, Rihanna landed several endorsement deals. You probably remember her from ads for Nike and for J.C. Penney. Rihanna’s SOS song even appeared in the Nike ads. Rihanna has also been dabbling in acting. Astute viewers may have noticed her in Bring it On: All or Nothing; Las Vegas; or an episode of All My Children. It’s 2007, which means that – you guessed it – Rihanna is on to album number three. This album bears the naughty and suggestive title Good Girl Gone Bad. The first single, Umbrella, has had the name rihanna umbrella topping the U.K. singles chart for a whopping ten weeks – the longest running #1 single since Wet Wet Wet topped the charts back in 1994 with teir single, Love is All Around. It’s also the longest running #1 hit by a female artist since Whitney Houston’s legendary ballad I Will Always Love You. The second single, shut up and drive, has also done well for rihanna. The up-tempo Don’t Stop the Music is the third single. Today, Rihanna is a top recording artist. It’s not unusual to walk into a music store or peek at a top music list and find names like rihanna sos, rihanna stup and drive, rihanna umbrella or rihanna unfaithful at the top of the list. So just where does Rihanna’s ultra-fun music come from? We can thank Alicia Keys, Beyonce Knowles and Canadian Fefe Dobson for Rihanna’s contribution to the music scene: these are the artists rihanna cites as being her major influences. She also says Caribbean music has influenced her tremendously. And no, for those of you wondering, Good Girls Gone Bad has nothing to do with suburban college girls at a sorority rush. Rather, the album title reflects the changes happening within rihanna herself: “Bad means cool, bad means funky, bad means having an attitude, bad means being edgy,” she explains in Australia’s Daily Telegraph. “This album is definetly a great representation of who I am now, and where I am in my career.” Rihanna has won several Barbados Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, and various other awards. She has yet to win a Grammy, but she did recently receive an equally prestigious honor: Gillete’s 2007 Venus Breeze 'Celebrity Legs of a Goddess'. This award inspired Rihanna to insure her legs for $1,000,000.