Saying it's really only down to their race is selling things a bit short, don't you think? The comparisons were heavy from the jump because their lives were just linked too closely together, and it was the only incentive the media needed. There were so many angles to play.
- Jay-Z (her mentor, the torrid affair, Bey being irate because he was trying to make competition for her with Rihanna)
- Rihanna being a carbon copy of Beyoncé (and quite literally being marketed as "the Bajan Beyoncé") + saying Bey was her all-time biggest inspiration.
- Rihanna 'emancipating' from the aforementioned image + carving her own path, which then lead to the 'student schooling teacher' diatribe + finding consistent hit success, thus outlasting the 'one-hit wonder' stigma (which, for that period, Bey was really the only black female pop artist to do) in the process.
Since then, it's always been a back-and-forth over who has the slight edge over whom, and with Rihanna playing catch-up in such a short span of time, everyone seems to be interested in who crosses the finish line first in this 'race'.
