Rihanna

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Robyn Rihanna Fenty (born February 20 1988), known by the mononym of Rihanna (2005-present), is a popular R&B/pop star who hails from Saint Michael, Barbados, although her mother was from Guyana. Discovered by Jay-Z, she gained fame in the music industry via her first single, "Pon de Replay".

Her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, is considered her breakout album, containing what many would call her Signature Song, "Umbrella." However, what catapulted her into mainstream worldwide focus was when she was physically assaulted by her then boyfriend, R&B singer Chris Brown, in February of 2009. The incident seemed to have changed her once upbeat and pop-laden image, as her works since that time, as well as her appearance, have become almost blatantly Darker and Edgier. Even her happy, upbeat songs have an edge to them that doesn't happen by accident...

Rihanna is notable for having released an astounding seven albums in eight years, leaving her in the public eye at all times in some form thanks to annual releases since 2005. That stopped after the 2013 tour for Unapologetic so that Rihanna could have a year-long break from music. Or at least, that was the plan...[1]

Rihanna announced her eight album in January 2014,[2] which was released in 2016 as ANTI. Three singles, "FourFiveSeconds" (featuring Kanye West and Paul McCartney), "Bitch Better Have My Money" and "American Oxygen", were released between that time, but were not included on the final album.

Discography:
Filmography:
Rihanna provides examples of the following tropes:
  • Abusive Parents: Her father was rather abusive.
  • Adrenaline Makeover / Break the Cutie
  • Alliteration: Talk That Talk, Rated R.
  • Author Appeal: Starting from "Disturbia", she seems to have a thing for BDSM and being dominating.
  • Boastful Rap: "Hard".
  • Bowdlerize: In "Unfaithful", the line "I might as well take a gun and put it to his head, get it over with" has the word gun bleeped out.
  • But Not Too Black: Some pictures of her show her like this. Not the one at the top of this page, though.
  • Broken Bird: Rated R and Talk That Talk show hidden issues and some of her workaholic choices show some kind of broken ness in her. See Heroic RROD for the worst case scenario
  • Censored Title: As a pathetic attempt at them trying to Think of the Children, "S&M" was retitled "Come On" by BBC Radio, in response to their ruling that the song could not be played on the air before 7 PM. The same edit of the song removed instances of the words "sex," "chains," and "whips," each with a Sound Effect Bleep in the form of a vinyl scratch. As well, the eponymous "S S S & M M M" hook was removed altogether.
  • Creator Backlash: She's mentioned several times that she really hates performing "Pon de Replay".
  • Creator Breakdown: Even before she went seriously Darker and Edgier, after Chris Brown assaulted her she appeared on a Vogue shoot bound and muzzled.
    • "Rated R" was her deciding to face her fears and deal with what happened with Chris. She was going to take a break but decided to do music instead.
    • "Talk That Talk" is like a second half of "Rated R" continuing to deal with the problems brought up by that album.
    • Then comes the "We Found Love" video, which features an Opening Narration about how sometimes you're willing to take the bad parts of a relationship because the good parts are just so good. Then the first half of the video depicts scenes of happy romance and misadventures of Rihanna and a Chris Brown lookalike, while the second half shows the fights that erupted after the happy parts of all those scenes.
  • Darker and Edgier: Her entire career after Chris Brown assaulted her, starting with Rated R. "Russian Roulette" is especially worth noting, as it is possibly her darkest song to date.
    • Rated R and Talk That Talk are much darker then the albums which came before them. Good Girl Gone Bad is very dark compared to her even earlier work.
  • Dark-Skinned Redhead: Her look for the "Loud" album.
  • Dream Team: She has collaborated well with Nicki Minaj, Britney Spears, Maroon 5, Kanye West, Coldplay, Avril Lavigne and Eminem.
  • Exhort the Disc Jockey Song: Her first big hit, "Pon de Replay."
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar:
    • "Shut Up And Drive" contains many, many, many double entendres, included the classic If You Know What I Mean "If you know what I mean".
    • "Only Girl (In The World)" seems steamy too.
    • "Rude Boy" and "Skin"
    • Averted with "S&M", as it's pretty explicit with what she wants.
    • "Birthday Cake" is... not about a birthday cake. (The original interlude version is about female sexual empowerment, the Chris Brown version is about aggressive sex)
    • In "Cockiness (Love It)", she wants you to suck her cock...iness. And lick her persuasion...
  • Good Bad Girl: If her music is any indication, she thinks of herself this way. She has an album called Good Girl Gone Bad. See also her song "S&M": "I may be bad, but I'm perfectly good at it!"
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: Talk That Talk and Rated R's artwork theme, S+M discusses it and generally been playing with it since 2007.
  • Heroic RROD: Many feel that Rihanna is heading into a Mariah Carey/ Britney Spears / Whitney Houston type breakdown, because of her constant work schedule; she has mentioned feeling extremely lonely, overworked and not as powerful as she should in recent interviews. Plus, there's much speculation regarding her current relationship status with her (ex?) Chris Brown, and they even did his-and-hers remixes of each other's songs. In the reworked "Birthday Cake."
  • Hotter and Sexier: Starting with Good Girl Gone Bad and, apparently, especially the case for Talk That Talk, which VH-1 called "the dirtiest pop record since Madonna's Erotica.
    • Cockiness (Love It) definitely proves this:

Suck my cockiness
Lick my persuasion
Eat my words and then
Swallow your pride down, down

  • The Illuminati: Much like Lady Gaga, she now uses a lot of Masonic and Illuminati symbolism in her videos.
  • Intercourse with You:
    • "Rude Boy" deserves special mention.
    • "Only Girl (In The World)", "Skin" "S&M" and many other songs
    • "Good Girl Gone Bad" and every single album after that point.
    • Shut Up and Drive
  • The Ladette: G 4 L (Titled together) is her gangsta side on show. (Gangsta for Life)
  • Last-Note Nightmare: A gunshot is heard at the end of "Russian Roulette"
  • Lighter and Softer: Loud has more upbeat songs than Rated R.
  • Love Is a Drug: "Drunk On Love"
  • Love Nostalgia Song: A Million Miles Away, California King Bed and P.S. (I'm Still Not Over You)
  • Love Makes You Crazy: "Fire Bomb", "Rehab", "There's A Thug In My Life", "Stupid In Love", and really the greater Rated R and Talk That Talk projects.
  • Lyrical Dissonance: "Where Have You Been" is rather dark musically for a song about finding someone extremely special out of nowhere.
  • Mood Whiplash: On the album Loud, the tracklisting seems to be randomized. Point being that the slow, sad "Fading" is inbetween the upbeat "Cheers (Drink to That)" and "Only Girl (In the World)"
  • Nipple-and-Dimed: In "Love The Way You Lie Part II"
  • Non-Appearing Title: G 4 L (the phrase Gangsta For Life does appear though)
  • Obsession Song: "Rehab", "Roc Me Out", "Fire Bomb", "Drunk On Love".
  • Obligatory Bondage Song: S&M
    • And its remix featuring Britney Spears.
    • In "Cockiness" she calls herself a "Dominatrix"
  • Sanity Slippage Song: The lyrics of "Disturbia".
    • A theme of Rated R, for example G4L and Russian Roulette.
    • "Question Existing"
    • "Roc Me Out", "Drunk On Love", "Man Down".
    • "Where Have You Been".
  • Sarcasm Mode: Her chorus in Eminem's "Love The Way Lie"; in the music video, it's very clear that it is very sarcastic.

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
But that's alright because I like the way it hurts

Just gonna stand there and hear me cry

But that's alright because I love the way you lie

  • Surprisingly Gentle Song: "We All Want Love" and "Drunk On Love" on Talk That Talk.
  • Subdued Section: "Roc Me Out".
  • She's All Grown Up: Has possibly gone off the deep end trying to invoke this.
  • Spiritual Successor: It has been implied that "Talk That Talk" is the second half of the "Rated R" project even though the albums are technically and creatively unrelated, they both are edgy, deep and extremely personal.
    • Where Have You Been can be seen as a successor to Disturbia visually.
  • Silly Love Songs: "Fire Bomb" and "Where Have You Been".
  • Signature Song: "Pon De Replay", "SOS", "Umbrella", "Rude Boy", "Cheers", "We Found Love"
  • Shout-Out: "Roc Me Out" is named in reference to Roc Nation, the company that manages her.
  • Stripperific: Even more than you'd expect these days.
  • Title Drop: Good Girl Gone Bad, A Girl Like Me, Music Of The Sun and Talk That Talk.
  • Three Minutes of Writhing
  • Refuge in Audacity: She's reveled in this for the past few years.
  • Rockstar Song: Rockstar 101.
  • Rearrange the Song: As mentioned above, Birthday Cake (Interlude) on Talk That Talk is about female sexual empowerment and wanting to be pleased, the version with Chris Brown on it is about rough aggressive thankless make up sex after apparently a long time not being together.
  • The Unfair Sex: "Unfaithful" is a song about a woman who's cheating on her boyfriend, and she knows he knows, and she knows its hurting him terribly. At no point does she raise the possibility of stopping the affair. "Take A Bow" is about a woman kicking her boyfriend out because he cheated on her, and refusing to listen to his explanations.
    • Breakin' Dishes. If a guy did a song like that, he'd be scorned.
  • Wrench Wench: The first part of the music video for "Shut Up and Drive" is basically girls walking around in skimpy clothes or red jumpsuits fixing cars.
  • Woman Scorned: "Good Girl Gone Bad", "Breakin' Dishes", "Cold Case Love", "Coulda Been The One".
  1. ↑ “I wanted to have a year to just do whatever I want artistically, creatively,” she says. “I lasted a week.” (Vogue 2016 interview)
  2. ↑ MTV.com article
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