1 Rihanna - Work (feat. Drake) 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000
2 Flo Rida - My House 0.5991
31 Rihanna - Work (feat. Drake) 0.1216
538 Rihanna - Work (feat. Drake)
80 Rihanna - Needed Me
144 Rihanna - Sex With Me
197 Rihanna - Bitch Better Have My Money
223 Rihanna - Kiss It Better
279 Rihanna - Desperado
299 Rihanna - Consideration (feat. SZA)
371 Rihanna - Love On The Brain
429 Rihanna - Yeah, I Said It
441 Rihanna - FourFiveSeconds
469 Rihanna - Stay (feat. Mikky Ekko)
655 Rihanna - Same 'Ol Mistakes
665 Rihanna - Diamonds
704 Rihanna - Higher
720 Rihanna - Close To You
938 Rihanna - Umbrella (feat. Jay Z)
1125 Rihanna - Woo
1141 Rihanna - Disturbia
1172 Rihanna - Only Girl (In The World)
1213 Rihanna - What's My Name? (feat. Drake)
1274 Rihanna - Take A Bow
1323 Rihanna - Dancing In The Dark
1362 Rihanna - Pose
1422 Rihanna - S&M
1432 Rihanna - Rude Boy
1434 Rihanna - We Found Love
1466 Rihanna - Pour It Up
WTF I didn't realize she had THIS much of a lead.
Holy **** at all of these songs charting from literally no US promo besides Ellen.
The Chess Move.
(a story of how Rihanna's career ended)
PART 1
Barbie
For 6 years, Rihanna lived craftily on the opposite end of the spectrum from the only female popstar that reminds her, her team, and everyone else that she is painfully mediocre. It's hard to convincingly be the best when you're naturally, most times, excelling at being below average. But it's a little bit worse when there's always someone singing better, looking better, performing better, and honestly, living life as a human-being better right in your peripheral. Yet she skated on by. Rihanna dwelled in the darkest, scummiest, foul smelling crooks & crannies of a, by definition, popular artist - but it absolutely has not been by choice. We've all watched the puppet masters dress and undress this Barbie doll. Telling her what to think, what to drink, what to wear, what to say...
2005
The fresh faced island girl with a big dream that loved and idolized Beyonce.
2006
If you can't beat 'em. Join 'em. The sexier island girl exchanged her baggy jeans, Skechers, and Converse kicks for high heels, tights, and booty shorts. Sprinkled in pop music & Beyonce styling, Rihanna followed trend and got her Beyonce on... Even using some of her team.
But this wasn't working. She scored a couple hits, stayed on TRL, but no one could really remember her name. In her defense, it's hard for any black female artist chasing mainstream success to escape Beyonce comparisons. Especially those attempting choreography in pumps, clad in sexy stage ensembles, and using left over Dangerously In Love concepts passed down from Frank Gatson and Anthony Burrell for the first 2 singles of her sophomore album. Like many after her, she went right to the source. Hired Bee's team and they dolled her in Beyonce drag for an entire year. Shout out to J.Lo.
2007-2008
Mariel Haenn. The stylist responsible for this transformation. Look. No shade. By all means, I am not a hater. A lot of the times she would look on trend, fresh, young, and cute. Over styled like a mother****er -- a mannequin in the junior teens section of a department store, but from 2008-2009, Rihanna kept her ***** on fleek in Balmain and her boot in a good Gareth Pugh. Mariel has went on record to say, in an indirect-yet-direct way, that the style and hair transformation was a result of Beyonce comparisons. Mariel mentiond the golden brown long hair was called "too Beyonce" by someone in her camp, and personally, the drastic style change was pushing her into a region the Beyonce monopoly was not reigning. Smart.
While every other record label and management team was turning their black roster female entertainers into light haired-high heel clicking "entertainers", Def Jam and SRP took a chance on re-imaging what they felt was the answer to Sony and MusicWorld's artist known as The Beyonce Experience. Oh, and did it work!
AMA's...
Grammy's....
Endorsements...
Finally! The hard work to create Robyn Fenty into someone else entirely paid off. Countless #1 singles and top 10's. So many that she left all of her pop peers in the dust -- specifically Beyonce. Because that was, ultimately, the goal. Remember? This theme would become a recurrent one for the rest of her career. Every album would be accompanied with a new wig, a new wig color, a new personality, a new extreme, and a new drug of choice a new controversy. And one statement would work its way into each annual makeover - "This album really represents the real me. Finally, I feel I am inviting everyone into who I am."
2009
2010
2011
2012
PART 2
Second Best
What was forgotten in all of this focal point on image, social media foolishness, and everything other than progressing or excelling at Rihanna's craft, was simply... the message. What is it you are trying to say? What is it that you are trying to push musically? Who are you as an artist? Skating by on being easy to digest is easy when some of your biggest competitors are actually taking real & legitimate risks musically, artistically, and pushing the art of performance or any other avenue much further than you. In 2011, while her, her label, and her management's biggest obsession & competitor Beyonce was saying "**** radio! I want to just make music that I love! I want to sing! I want to growl! I love R&B and soul!", it was the opportune time to cash in on mainstream attention by doing mainstream ****. Simple. The road was completely clear for Rihanna to finally be that top bitch she always wanted to be with no interruption from Mrs. Carter - who was having a lukewarm reception from Top40 for going against the grain, and unbeknownst to everyone at the time, was with child.
EDM plagued radio for nearly 5 years relentlessly, and Beyonce just didn't want to play. So, as Rihanna and crew peeped Beyonce's direction, they cut "Cheers" mid-chart run and ******* out another album in time for November. Rihanna ran to some of the biggest dance DJs - David Guetta and Calvin Harris - for the same techno garbage everyone from Katy Perry to Usher to Black Eyed Peas was serving on cold platters. And because the genre was selling, making hella money, and being played on the radio, it was an easy and probable expectation that a record like "We Found Love" would absolutely dominate. And it did. Sitting atop the Billboard Hot 100 for 10 straight weeks! It needs to be noted that during this time, it marked the first time in Rihanna's quest for becoming "bigger than Beyonce", that it felt she had succeeded. Beyonce's music flopped at Top40, and most importantly, for the next year or more, she would be busy taking care of a newborn. The coast was clear! And clear at a time that Rihanna was seeing the biggest hit of her career span across the entire world.
Unfortunately, too early, Rihanna rested & relied on image carrying her into the stratosphere. It was that image and an approach to recording music, that she compares to shoe shopping, that launched her into one of the world's biggest stars. So, why change the game plan? Every year since the landmark bob and "Umbrella", she has had a Madonna-like style reinvention and annual album release formula, but forgot that beyond the MAC, fake lashes, lip liner, and fishnets, you have to have something to say eventually! When your back is against the wall and the chips are down, or when you have to truly pull from a place no one knows you have, it is imperative to be able to hit the money shot. That's what separates the good from the excellent. When your 1 point down, 5 seconds left on the clock, and you're at half court blindfolded with a broken arm, can you make the basket? Are you Michael Jordan?
Of course not.
Going back to what I stated early on in this assessment, she is painfully mediocre. Only excelling at being average.
Comfortable.
You can be comfortable or courageous, but you cannot be both.
Oh, and did she get comfortable. Jumping a year ahead to the end of 2012, she comfortably rushed out another annual release written by songwriter Sia. And not only did she sing Sia's lyrics. She took on Sia's Australian accent and sang it exactly like her. Even called the album Unapologetic as a way to force feed a certain "bad girl image" and lazily describe who she is as a person. For the next year, we would watch her smoke more weed than normal, get back together with the man that punched and bit her in the face, fight with high school kids on Twitter, be a mean girl to Ciara, and fumble her way through a World Tour mostly remembered for unprofessionalism and showing up 1-3 hours late on average per city. But all of this was okay, right? She is unapologetic and unconcerned with your time or opinion.
But what was challenging her to do anything different? She was the top bitch, remember? Beyonce "fell off", and there were no other black women having even half of the success she was having in Pop and Urban markets.
The world is Rihanna's.
2013
But before we get there. It is important to note that there was a warning. Not a premonition. Not someone playing around to get attention for an upcoming release. A straight-to-the-****ing-point very direct gunshot to the head warning.
It came in the form of a declaration of independence, freedom, and slave-freeing called "Bow Down/I Been On".
We all have our own opinions of this track. Its meaning. Its intentions. Its message. But to me, from day one, the answer was very apparent. "I'm the ****. My **** inspired your ****. And without me, you wouldn't be able to do this ****."
"I know when you were little girls, you dreamed of being in my world. Don't forget it. Don't forget it. Respect that. Bow down, bitches."
I don't like to explain the self explanatory, but this was a general statement to any bitch that wanted it. No names necessary. All that slick **** on Instagram, in interviews, retweets on Twitter, etc. makes it back to a savvy woman who keeps her ear to the streets and is very much in touch with the landscape of music and pop culture.
And the message was received.
Shortly following the release...
I always laugh at "*****youandyourtimedifference". That line about "I know when you were little girls..." really hurt her feelings.
"I'm bigger than life. My name in the lights. I'm the #1 chick. I don't need no hype!"
While everyone in Pop music was:
See, what Beyonce does by just breathing, is what Rihanna and her team sit in board rooms discussing and trying to plan. When you're an interesting, somewhat reclusive mega star, that is as A-List, as talented, and as beautiful as it gets, headlines come to you like milkshakes and boys to the yard. When Beyonce drops a warning, it's broadcasted on CNN. When she goes on a romantic getaway to Cuba with her husband, it's broadcasted on CNN and addressed to Congress. When she plays around with her bangs or posts an Instagram post of a short haircut -- you know, like Rihanna does every album -- it breaks the internet and makes CNN breaking news. When she calls herself a feminist..... do you get where I'm going with this? While others have to calculate their existence down to what they decide to wear each day, others just exist. I hope you are realizing the trend and very theme of what I'm writing.
This fact is what has driven the insecurity of Rihanna and her team since Day 1. Even the team before the team that was admittedly planting stories about her sleeping with Jay Z to keep her name in the same breath as Beyonce's. Google that. ...It takes a lot of work to be even half as big as Beyonce.
PART 3
December 13, 2013
I'm not about to talk about the success of the album. The way it dropped in the middle of the night. The record breaking iTunes numbers worldwide. The universal critical acclaim.
Let's focus on how it single-handedly dismantled the Rihanna brand.
I like to put a lot of blame on this particular track. Another area where Rihanna was thriving was making these tracks that n-ggas in the club could love. Records like "Pour It Up" and "Loveeeeee Song" were big in the strip clubs and hood clubs (I'm a witness to both), and one had a big remix with Jeezy, 2 Chainz, and TI. Rihanna's team is very strategic at the type of image they project out there. I feel while copying Beyonce's blueprint for everything business, they also like her to kind of live in these corners Beyonce isn't currently dominating. Being the bad girl, making records for the streets, smoking weed, being explicit, talking **** on Twitter, etc. It's easier to cover spectrums Beyonce couldn't be bothered with, because she was too busy trying to experiment and be the biggest & best version of herself.
Drunk In Love" put Bee back in the clubs, back in the hood, and in the conversation of "ratchet pop culture". The VINEs, Facebook videos, and Instagram videos from all the ratchet bitches and the ratchet ****** who love them don't lie. And Jay on it just automatically gives it that ultimate stamp. "Pour It Up" was simply just a "Bandz" remake with a generic Mike Will beat and a catchy melody. Bee's singing, flowing, and talking ****. Explicit ****. "On the mic 'til my voice hoarse", "Ride it with my surfboard", "Can't keep your eyes off my fatty", "We woke up in the kitchen saying how the hell did this **** happen?"....As "bad" of a girl that Rihanna has tried to be since 2007, find one track as sexually explicit and mature as "Drunk In Love"? There isn't one.
It's just one gigantic **** on what Rihanna thought she was championing for the last few years.
And it didn't stop there. Yonce upped the ante on any "Birthday Cake", "Pour It Up", or strip club anthem by not only stripping for her man in the video, but also spitting the most sexually suggestive lyrics of her career. There is a Monica Lewinsky reference recalling the infamous *** stain Bill Clinton put on her dress. Again, what song by the self-proclaimed "bad girl" goes this far? And to make matters for Rihanna's bad girl image worse, Beyonce asked the driver of the Maybach to roll up the window, because she doesn't want to be seen on her knees. Doing what on her knees is up to the listener. In the video, Beyonce had eyes widen by giving a risque performance for her husband while pushing her ass in the camera in lingerie, sliding down a pole between her cheeks, and getting freaky in the backseat. There's something exciting about watching someone like Beyonce open the door to let us peek at what it's like in her bedroom as opposed to someone like Rihanna who has had her bedroom door open daily on Twitter.... and in real life.
The very image that Rihanna pretended to portray and used as a clutch to be shocking and vulgar was completely ripped to shreds by the one artist they banked on never going that far. And to add major insult to injury, it was met with universal acclaim, praise, and old school 90's shock & awe gasps that feel absolutely thrilling (even a little uncomfortable) to witness your favorite artist you thought you knew so well doing the unthinkable.
Beyonce had the audacity to include the warning we discussed earlier, "Bow Down", but flipped it into some grandiose socio-political message called "***Flawless" about feminism that had every soul sista with a blog mashing their keyboard good or bad. And every round table panel dissecting the message would explode with passionate arguments & opinions. This takes us back to what I asked about Rihanna. What is it that you are trying to say? What is is that you are trying to push musically? Who are you as an artist? While "Flawless" was blaring in every car & club in the hood, it was being hashtagged on social media, and discussed relentlessly around the world. It is important to make sure you have something to say. And this is where Rihanna loses. 8 albums in, and you have never had anything to say. Ever.
This one definitely hurt some feelings, and it's barely 2 minutes long. One word: Fashion. Beyonce nabbed Joan Smalls (the #1 working model at the time) as the lead with homo erotic undertones and sexy cameos from Jourdan Dunn and Chanel Iman. The 4 of them together flooded Tumblr and Twitter timelines, and all of the models involved gushed and made over their own social media accounts to show honor to the video. The "fashion icon" had to have wished she had done it first. Is that why she spent the next year doing so many editorials with nothing to say and having Jay Brown pay for top honor from the CFDA? Hey! Who knows? But it's very telling a shoot with Naomi and Iman didn't even make half as much noise as the Yonce girls.
And that's only 4 songs. The album, visually & sonically, is packed with so much punch from the Beyonce perspective. From the outside in, starting with the cover, it has a consistent darkness that pulls you in. There's ballads, club bangers, funk, dance-y moments, love songs, sex songs, relationship problems, but through it all, it felt like the true story of a 32 year old woman being completely candid and honest. You can smoke weed, get tattoos, and clap back at bloggers, but does your music reflect your truth? Or are you still singing generic lyrics on David Guetta beats? What critics, stans, casual fans, and even haters appreciate about Self Titled, is the rawness that makes you feel that some of the lyrics or topics are glimpses or cliff notes of real conversations Beyonce has probably had in her real life. You can get on Twitter and say "#phucyofav", but the extent of your provocative conversation can't last in 140 characters forever. Remember the first time everyone heard "And all this **** I hear is boring. All this **** I do is boring. All these record labels boring. Don't trust these record labels..." ?
Beyonce had real **** to say.
So, 14 #1's and 26 top 10's later, who are you? I ask again. What is it that you are trying to say? What is it that you are trying to push musically?
For awhile, the answer to Self Titled was this:
And this:
And this:
Team Rihanna was in a state of emergency. Instead of realizing the full package and message of December 13, all they saw was a disrespectful bitch veering into their lane without turning on her signal first. The basic bitch impulsive reaction wasn't to step her game up. It was to take off her clothes and focus on what? Image!
But then the 2014 Year End Lists looked like this...
Facebook's Most Talked About Entertainers 2014:
1. Beyoncé
2. Pharrell Williams
3. Nicki Minaj
4. Taylor Swift
5. Jimmy Fallon
6. Iggy Azalea
7. Katy Perry
8. Pitbull
9. John Legend
10. Kim Kardashian
Bing's Most Searched Musicians 2014:
1. Beyoncé
2. Miley Cyrus
3. Katy Perry
4. Britney Spears
5. Justin Bieber
6. Jennifer Lopez
7. Selena Gomez
8. Taylor Swift
9. Nicki Minaj
10. Carrie Underwood
Bing's Most Searched Entertainers 2014:
1. Kim Kardashian
2. Beyoncé
3. Miley Cyrus
4. Katy Perry
5. Justin Bieber
6. Joan Rivers
7. Jennifer Lopez
8. Kendall Jenner
9. Kaley Cuoco
10. Robin Williams
Twitter Most Mentioned Celebrities 2014:
1.Justin Bieber
2.Niall Horan
3.Harry Styles
4.Liam Payne
5.Ariana Grande
6.Demi Lovato
7.Lady Gaga
8.Beyoncé
9.Louis Tomlinson
10.Taylor Swift
And none of her desperate attempts over the past few years seemed to make a dent on the general public. The numbers don't lie. For the first time since 2007, Rihanna did not put an album out that year. I reckon Jay Brown received intel the new Beyonce album was dropping and wanted to stay completely out of her way. Good decision... But over 2 years after Unapologetic, there still wasn't a follow up. What stopped the annual November releases? Jay Brown once compared her to an iPhone and explained the importance of a yearly release or people will move on to something else. What happened?
This happened.
And after losing the Super Bowl to Katy Perry, and not being able to figure out the look, the angle, the release platform, and simply just being afraid, we are witnessing Rihanna's machine when there isn't years of momentum preceding it. The surefooted, usually confident & aggressive team that we've watched roll out album after album is... scared. Where's the bad girl?
Paul and Kanye? Why so many people? A blatant attempt at being seen as an artist, but failed to make the cut as an actual writer on the track among 9 different writers! Embarrassing.
I imagine it went a little something like this... Kanye asked Rihanna to feature on his album. She went to cut the chorus for the track, and after hearing it, Jay Brown begged for the song from Kanye and talked her into releasing it as her first single. "It's The Beatles! It's a big pop record! This is the song we need!" And what's even more funny, it was probably an 11th hour decision after hours of meetings with her team trying to figure out how to go up against The Visual Album.
But you can't come for a Checkmate.
For years, Rihanna survived existing at the opposite end of the Beyonce spectrum. She was never worried about or felt the need to prepare for the day when Beyonce would shatter the very thing Rihanna held so dear -- image. The flimsy and weak thing about "image" in the music industry is it is simply that. An image. Being the bad girl became boring for the general public coming from Rihanna. Everyone became numb. "Oh, she's naked again!" The same way we said, "Oh, she looks a ****ing fool again!" whenever we saw Lady Gaga. A "bad girl" coming through with a message and an opinion is more powerful than a "bad girl" with a hashtag and marijuana. That's the difference between badgalriri and Yonce.
PART 4
The Bank
An old friend used this analogy and I loved it. Let's pretend Bey's career was like banking. Everything we've watched Bey do over the years has been like a deposit into a bank account. Every iconic performance, every video, every great tour, every critically acclaimed moment.... They've all been hefty deposits. When she has moments where things don't pan out exactly the way she wants or a certain single doesn't meet certain expectations, she's good. Why? Because all the deposits over the years ensured that if "the check was short this week", she was still comfortable. Basing a career on singles and chasing cookie cutter radio formulas is like living check to check. You ain't worth **** but what's going on right now. There's nothing memorable. There's nothing iconic. You'll pinch off that "check" until your account is at a zero balance. And now what? You gotta go grind to get another check. Because you're broke!
18 years of healthy deposits. And now she's sitting back CHILLING. Doing what she wants on her own time, laughing, and every once in a while in the quietest part of the night, she just might snatch a bitch by the neck because she can.
Beyonce didn't need to get ****ed by anyone to make it. It is quite evident from the videos of her performing, as a 8 or 10 year old, that she was born to be a star. She is the epitome of talent.
She's talented at making borderline ghetto music. It's not hard to be the best when your going against women like Kanye and Nicki or the new Queen of soul, Cupcake. There's a reason why she always flops when she does pop..her voice is too tepid for pop.
PART 1
Fraud.