In 2012, American songwriter and record producer Benny Blanco met with Norwegian production duo StarGate at a recording studio in New York City to write new songs, including one for Rihanna. According to Blanco, he and StarGate wanted to deviate from Rihanna's usual sound and produce as though the song would be for a rapper such as Kanye West: "It's the one that we weren't thinking Rihanna ... that turned into the Rihanna record ... But that's how it always happens like with me". They produced the song's beat after the music was recorded.
In an interview for The New York Times, StarGate's Mikkel S. Eriksen said that Blanco took a recorded snippet of Eriksen's singing, altered it electronically, and made it sound "dirtier". He then applied timbre and used audio software to create ghostly accompaniment lines. Eriksen described Blanco's style as "unorthodox, as he almost never plays the keyboards but throws in weird samples and alters them to the right pitch to go with the song." Australian singer-songwriter Sia later joined them and wrote the lyrics for "Diamonds". Sia later revealed that she wrote the lyrics in 14 minutes.
After the song was completed, they wanted to play it to Rihanna, but Blanco was skeptical about the reaction towards the song because of its slow sound. After StarGate played it to her, they called Blanco from London and told him that she liked the song: "She's flippin' out. She played it like seven times in a row. It's her favorite song." Phil Tan and the assistant Daniela Rivera, mixed and mastered "Diamonds". Recalling it, in an interview with The Huffington Post, Blanco commented, "we needed to have it recorded, the beat finished, mixed and mastered in 24 hours. She was recording in a separate part of the world, sending back the files, we're finishing the music and then we're mixing and mastering it, and then it was out in a few days. It's ****ing amazing and incredible." Kuk Harrell produced Rihanna's vocals on the song and recorded them together with Marcos Tovar.
Peak Positions
Australia : 6
Germany : 1
France : 1
Italy : 3
Canada : 1
UK : 1
US : 1
Estimated WW sales : 8,000,000
Estimated US sales : 3,009,000
Estimated UK sales : 1,001,000
Estimated Austr sales : 350,000
American songwriter and producer Christopher "Tricky" Stewart convened with Terius "The-Dream" Nash and Kuk Harrell in January 2007 at the Atlanta-based Triangle Studios to create new material. In the studio, Stewart was "messing around with a walloping hi-hat sound", which he found in the free music software GarageBand, which is included in all Mac computers. With his attention caught by the sound, Nash asked Stewart what he was doing: "Oh, my Gosh, what is that beat?". When Stewart incorporated chords onto the hi-hat, "immediately the word popped into [Nash's] head"; he went to the vocal booth and started singing. Nash wrote the first two verses and the chorus over Stewart's skeleton track. They quickly wrote the lyrics, completing the first verse in 60 seconds. They continued into writing, adding the hook while "Tricky would put the next chord". In a matter of hours, they had recorded a demo of the track. The song was written with American pop singer Britney Spears in mind, with whom Stewart had previously worked with on her 2003 single "Me Against the Music". Stewart and Nash thought that Spears, who had "her personal life ... a little out of control" at the time, needed a hit as musical comeback. Spears was working on her fifth album, Blackout, so they sent a copy of the demo to Spears' management. However, Spears did not hear of the song because her label rejected it, claiming they had enough songs for her to record.
Following the management's rejection of the track, Stewart and Nash dealt it out to other record labels. It was also given to UK R&B Singer/Song Writer Taio Cruz, who failed to convince his record company to release it. It was then opted by Island Def Jam chairman Antonio "L.A." Reid, a friend of Stewart who established his first studio. By early February 2007, the demo was sent to Reid's right-hand woman, A&R executive Karen Kwak, who passed it along to Reid with a message confirming that they had found a song suited for Rihanna, who was working on her third studio album, Good Girl Gone Bad, at the time. Reid immediately sent the demo to Rihanna, who was also positive of it: "When the demo first started playing, I was like, This is interesting, this is weird. ... But the song kept getting better. I listened to it over and over. I said, 'I need this record. I want to record it tomorrow."
Tricky Stewart, MTV News : When [Rihanna] recorded the 'ellas,' you knew it was about to be the jump-off and your life was about to change if you had anything to do with that record.
However, since it was the Grammy season of 2007, Stewart and Nash eyed American R&B singer Mary J. Blige for the demo. Upon calling them to set the record aside for Rihanna, Stewart had played it to an associate of Blige, subsequently promising the song to her. Having heard the move of the writers, Kwak began calling Stewart and his manager, Mark Stewart, incessantly. Meanwhile, considering Blige's nominations at the Grammys, Stewart and Nash agreed to wait for her response. However, Blige failed to hear the song in full due to her obligations to the Grammys at the time and "had to sign off on the record before her reps could accept it". Finally, Reid "stepped in, trading on his power-broker status and longstanding relationship with Stewart", and admits, "I made the producers an offer they couldn't refuse." By the time Reid had successfully persuaded Stewart's camp, they "just couldn't say no". On giving up the record to Reid's camp, Mark Stewart comments, "We knew Rihanna's album would be out in a few months. Mary wasn’t even in an album cycle yet. We made the sensible business decision."
Rihanna recorded the song, with vocal production by Thaddis "Kuk" Harrell, in a Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles. Initially, Stewart admitted he was still reluctant as to whether Rihanna was the right artist to record the song, but following the recording of the "ella, ella" catch phrase, he felt they were onto "something". Following Rihanna's recording, Def Jam CEO-rapper Jay-Z added his rap. However, Jay-Z rewrote his verse without the awareness of Stewart and Nash. Stewart could not understand it, but later realized it made "sense" instead of the first version. Stewart noted that "from a songwriter's standpoint, he just really made it more about the song, with the metaphors about umbrellas and about the weather versus what he had before".
At the 2008 Grammy Awards, "Umbrella" earned Rihanna and Jay-Z a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in addition to receiving nominations for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. The song serves as the lead single to the album, and was released worldwide on March 29, 2007 through Def Jam Recordings. "Umbrella" was a commercial success, topping the charts in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the United Kingdom, where the song's chart performance generated controversy when the country was experiencing excessive flooding and large amounts of rain at the time, it was one of the most played songs on radio in the 2000s (decade). It managed to stay at number one on the UK Singles Chart for ten consecutive weeks, the longest run at number one for any single of that decade. The single was one of the highest digital debuts in the United States and remained at the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 for seven consecutive weeks.
Peak Positions
Australia : 1
Germany : 1
France : 6
Italy : 3
Canada : 1
UK : 1
US : 1
Estimated WW sales : 10,500,000
Estimated US sales : 4,300,000
Estimated UK sales : 820,000
Estimated Austr sales : 350,000