Rihanna topped Billboard’s Hot 100 for nine consecutive weeks this spring with her Drake-featuring single “Work” — but in a new interview, one of the song’s co-writers says the Barbadian pop star nearly passed on the chart-topper. Singer and producer PartyNextDoor told the New York Times that Rihanna’s “label didn’t care for Caribbean music at the time.”
PartyNextDoor added that he thought about keeping the song for himself and frequent collaborator Drake, or passing it along to Alicia Keys. But when the tune “was all that [Rihanna] could sing around the house … she fought for it” and her label reassessed the situation.