Currently certified sextuple Platinum, ANTI also remains the longest-charting album by a Black female artist on the Billboard 200, with more than 508 weeks and counting. Despite the success of singles here and there and a buzzy Super Bowl halftime performance in 2023, she has focused her attention on her beauty brand Fenty Beauty and lingerie brand Savage X Fenty. Twenty years after she released her debut album, Rihanna is back with new music. Yes, Rihanna has won multiple awards, including several Grammy Awards and MTV awards for her outstanding contributions to music.
- Multiple sources consider it the most sampled reggae song ever (WhoSampled.com counts 155 samples), with Beyoncé, Madlib, Run D.M.C., Lauryn Hill, Chris Brown, Alicia Keys, Ariana Grande, and Buju Banton and many others pulling from Nancy’s crisses lyrics.
- Just months later, Rihanna released her first single, «Pon de Replay,» which quickly climbed the charts and established her as a formidable newcomer in pop music.
- Rihanna exclusively uses her surname for ventures outside of music to keep her business and artistic identities separate.
- She stayed away from public appearances, didn’t do any press, and missed the album schedule fans became accustomed to.
- These albums contained the US number-one singles «Rude Boy», «Only Girl (In the World)», «What’s My Name?», «S&M», «We Found Love», «Diamonds», and «Work».
- Both larger-than-life productions won GRAMMYs for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in 2010 and 2012, respectively.
- Announced in November 2015, the Anti World Tour was launched in March 2016 in support of the album.
Released on November 20, Rated R marked a shift away from the upbeat sound of Rihanna’s earlier albums, embracing a darker, more introspective tone with rock influences. The case garnered widespread media attention, particularly after TMZ published a leaked police photograph showing Rihanna with visible injuries. In 2008, she announced her romantic relationship with singer Chris Brown and topped the Hot 100 once again with a feature on rapper T.I.’s song «Live Your Life». Having sold nine million copies as of 2023, Good Girl Gone Bad is her best-selling album worldwide. In support of the album, Rihanna embarked on the worldwide Good Girl Gone Bad Tour in September 2007, performing 80 concerts across five continents.
Songbook: An Era-By-Era Breakdown Of Taylor Swift’s Journey From Country Starlet To Pop Phenomenon
Janelle Monáe featured Nancy not once but twice on 2023’s Album Of The Year-nominated The Age Of Pleasure, and sampled «Bam Bam» on “Water Slide.» In further recognition of her impact, Burberry asked Sister Nancy to participate in their spring/summer 2024 campaign, which was shot in Jamaica. She’s performed on global stages and can be seen regularly at New York hotspots such as Union Pool, Public Records, and S.O.B.’s. After hearing Nancy on Hot 97’s «Ebro In The Morning,» Jay-Z flew the legend to Jamaica to sing and feature in his hybrid music video-documentary. Kanye West prominently sampled «Bam Bam» in the Rihanna-featuring «Famous»; Nancy’s chorus comes in midway through the song, adding an ethereal quality to West’s braggadocio. With her rights restored, Sister Nancy’s trajectory changed dramatically in the latter half of the 2010s — due in no small part to nods and samples from two of hip-hop’s biggest artists. «I just couldn’t take no more. I just say it’s time for me to be compensated, and I just did what I had to do,» the icon says of her legal battle for royalties.
Swift’s now-frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff credits her as the first person to take a chance on him as a producer with «I Wish You Would» and «Out Of The Woods»; both tracks exemplified how future Antonoff-produced songs would sound on albums like reputation, Lover and Midnights. The night Red lost the GRAMMY for Album Of The Year in 2014, Swift decided that her next album would be a full-on pop record. Commercially, Red debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold 1.2 million copies in its first week, becoming the fastest-selling country album and making betista casino Swift the first female artist to have three consecutive albums spend six or more weeks at the top of the chart. Following the more country-influenced Speak Now, some critics and fans found the pop songs on Red were too pop and the lyrics were too repetitive, possibly indicating that she might be selling out.
This initial success paved the way for her subsequent albums and chart-topping singles, solidifying her status as a pop powerhouse. Just months later, Rihanna released her first single, «Pon de Replay,» which quickly climbed the charts and established her as a formidable newcomer in pop music. The pop star has an impressive 64 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, including 14 No. 1 hits and 32 tracks in the top 10.
From becoming the first woman and only artist to win a GRAMMY for Album Of The Year four times, to dealing with heightened media scrutiny, to breaking records with her Eras Tour, no one understands the highs and lows of being a showgirl like Swift. Fans rejoiced at having songs to comfort them during difficult times, and artists like Maya Hawke, Gracie Abrams, and Sabrina Carpenter credit folklore for inspiring them to create and be even more emotionally honest in their songwriting. Other songs, including «Death By A Thousand Cuts» and «Cornelia Street,» are Swift at her most vulnerable, reflecting on a love lost and grappling with the extreme worry that comes when you could potentially lose someone. When Swift released the lead single «Look What You Made Me Do,» a song she initially wrote as a poem about not trusting specific people, many assumed the album would center on vengeance and drama. The album also earned Swift several awards — including her second Album Of The Year GRAMMY, which made her the first female artist to ever win the award twice.
Songbook: The Ultimate Guide To Rihanna’s Reign, From Her Record-Breaking Hits To Unforgettable Collabs
The doo-wop-infused ballad soared to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 back in 2017, and its new certification helps Rihanna extend her record as the female artist with the most Diamond singles in RIAA history. In 2007, Rihanna transformed from a teen pop star into a serious artist with her groundbreaking album «Good Girl Gone Bad,» which featured the iconic single «Umbrella,» featuring Jay-Z. Notable songs from her early career, including «Pon de Replay,» «Unfaithful,» and «SOS,» showcased her versatility and unique sound, quickly establishing her as a prominent figure in the music industry. Incorporating an assortment of genres, the record featured the singles “Pour It Up,” “Stay” with Mikky Ekko, and “Diamonds,” which topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for three weeks. Debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, the pop and R&B album produced her longest-charting No. 1 hit, “We Found Love” with Calvin Harris, which topped the song chart for a whopping 10 weeks straight. The album, which mixed pop and electronic music, peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart.
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An interpolation of Toots and the Maytals’ 1966 song of the same name, Sister Nancy’s in-studio freestyle was laid over sparse rub-a-dub production, allowing her declaration of ambition and skill to ring loud and clear. In addition to her status as a rare female voice in a sea of male performers at the dawn of dancehall, Sister Nancy is recognized for her influential, highly sampled single «Bam Bam.» While Sister Nancy needn’t be reminded of her influence — «I’m the woman who created dancehall … on the mic system, around the sound system. I’m the one who did all of that, first» — the past 15 years have seen the artist receive her flowers on a global stage. «I will never be your ordinary thing. When you come to see me, it doesn’t matter the time or the space, it’s always going to be good.» «People love what I stand for. I always give the audience something they can think about,» Sister Nancy tells GRAMMY.com, Zooming in from a car in Midtown Manhattan.
She scored another No. 1 hit with the single “Rude Boy,” while the tracks “Hard” and “Russian Roulette” landed squarely in the top 10. Good Girl Gone Bad remains her best-selling album with over 10 million copies sold worldwide. Her lead single “Umbrella,” featuring Jay-Z, lead the Billboard Hot 100 for a whopping seven weeks and later won the Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in 2008. Her sophomore effort, A Girl Like Me, followed in April 2006, incorporating reggae, rock, and pop influences.
- «Wood» and «Honey» capture the playfulness of true love, while songs like «WI$HLI$T» and «Elizabeth Taylor» see love not as a distraction from her life’s work but as the very thing that makes it feel meaningful.
- Released on November 20, Rated R marked a shift away from the upbeat sound of Rihanna’s earlier albums, embracing a darker, more introspective tone with rock influences.
- «She continued to make incredible art and so this is a love song kind of through the lens of the motif of what she had to go through in her life and sort of the parallels that I feel in my own life.»
- «I just couldn’t take no more. I just say it’s time for me to be compensated, and I just did what I had to do,» the icon says of her legal battle for royalties.
- Her longing continues in «Where Have You Been,» which flaunts Rihanna’s versatility, flipping Geoff Mack’s 1959 country song «I’ve Been Everywhere» into an infectious EDM banger.
- Proceeds from the single supported the fundraiser, which ultimately helped raise $100 million for cancer research.
Following the career-pivoting Rated R, 2010’s Loud offered a welcome return to the West Indian artist’s earlier sound. Rated R showcased Rihanna’s undeniable star power, and allowed her to shed her good-girl image once and for all. Badgal RiRi returned to her dancehall roots on her fifth No. 1 «Rude Boy,» which offsets the album’s harrowing motif. The singer had grown in leaps and bounds while taking musical risks, even penning nine of Rated R’s 13 tracks (she had no writing credits on Good Girl Gone Bad). Following three multi-platinum albums in a three-year span, Rihanna’s rebranding as a rebel at heart reached its apex.
And yet, she has still come out the other side, sparkling, self-assured and ready to revel in a career built on resilience and reinvention — something only a true showgirl could achieve. When she announced the album, she declared, «And baby, that’s showbiz for you.» No one knows that better than someone who has been through the ringer in the industry like Swift has. What is most apparent on the album, though, is just how much Swift embraces every aspect of who she is.
She’d see visceral images in her mind — from battleships to tree swings to mirrored disco balls — and turned them into stories, sometimes weaving in her own personal narrative throughout, or taking on a narrator role and speaking from the perspective of someone she had never met. Crafting a world with characters like the folklore love triangle between those in «betty» and «august,» as well as Rebekah Harkness from «the last great american dynasty» (who once lived in Swift’s Rhode Island mansion), was Swift’s way of venturing outside her typical autobiographical style of writing. Without exactly setting out to create an album, she began dreaming of fictional stories and characters with various narrative arcs, allowing her imagination to run free. But Lover was more than any accolades could reflect — it was Swift’s transitional album in many ways, notably marking the first album that she owned entirely herself following leaving Big Machine Records for Republic Records in 2018. This evolution is mentioned throughout Lover, particularly in a direct callback to 2012’s Red, «Daylight,» which sees her describe her love as «golden» rather than «burning red.»
Rihanna brings sons to A$AP Rocky trial
In the United States, it is currently more popular than Come and See but less popular than Shutter. The movie has moved up the charts by 179 places since yesterday. The pair meet and fall in love on the Titanic, the greatest ship to sail the oceans. Rose is a high-society young woman who is being forced into a loveless marriage with a wealthy man.
“If you listen to the lyrics to that song, you know the depth and how far she’s come.” “The minute Rihanna walked into the room, it was like the other two girls didn’t exist,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2007. The post featured a photo of Rihanna holding her new daughter, Rocki Irish Mayers, who was born on September 13. Rihanna is a Grammy-winning singer known for such No. 1 pop hits as “Umbrella,” “SOS,” “Diamonds,” and “Work.” In 2023 Rihanna revealed she was again pregnant by performing at the Super Bowl halftime show with a visible baby bump; her representatives subsequently confirmed that the singer was expecting her second child. Rihanna’s personal life attracted intense media attention.
Though it’s been close to a decade since Rihanna’s last studio album, 2016’s ANTI, she reminded the world of her reign with her 2023 Super Bowl halftime show — which also marked her first time taking the stage in five years. She has sold over 60 million albums worldwide, landed 14 Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers, and won nine GRAMMY Awards. As Rihanna’s debut album, ‘Music of the Sun,’ turns 20, take a deep dive into the superstar’s catalog and her evolution from teen idol to beloved icon. Though a new album still eludes the Rihanna Navy, their fearless leader hasn’t been completely musically absent in the years since ANTI‘s release.
Rihanna
On the Life of a Showgirl track directly named after the late icon, Swift circles back to the themes she touched on with folklore’s «Peace» and the tension between her private reality and her public persona. While half of The Life of a Showgirl’s 12 tracks peer into the darker corners of fame and explores the loneliness, scrutiny and fractures that used to come with it, the other half are dedicated to falling completely head over heels. And on The Tortured Poets Department’s «The Prophecy,» she pleaded for someone to change what she believed to be her predestined future of being alone and what she’d give up to find someone she loves.
Streaming details for Titanic on Starz Roku Premium Channel
In 2015, Rihanna became the first artist in history to have 100 million singles digitally downloaded and streamed. Interestingly, Unapologetic was the first Rihanna album to hit No. 1 on the pop charts. “Umbrella” topped the Billboard singles chart and earned Rihanna her first Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. In 2007, Rihanna effected a transformation from teen pop princess to superstar and sex symbol with her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, fueled by its smash hit lead single “Umbrella,” featuring Jay-Z. In early 2011 the album’s sexually provocative single “S&M” became her 10th number one Billboard hit—which made her, at age 23, the youngest artist ever to reach that milestone.
Content on this site does not reflect an endorsement or recommendation of any artist or music by the Recording Academy and its Affiliates. And with that tour having celebrated her life’s work up to now, The Life of a Showgirl feels like the exhale before a brand new beginning. «That always chokes me up because it transports me right back to that actual memory of standing on that stage for the last time on that tour that was so important to me, and the tour that really inspired this album. So it’s the last track of the album and a really special one to me.» For a project about being a showgirl, introducing people to the concept of the album at the end was puzzling for some. For her, finding a balance between her career and love, and realizing that they can coexist, makes this album one of Swift’s most — if not the most — romantic to date. Yet these songs admit that she doesn’t want to carry it all alone; she wants partnership, to build something with someone else.
