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Rihanna · S1 E1
Bridgetown
Robyn Rihanna Fenty is born on February 20, 1988, in Saint Michael, Barbados. Her mother Monica is an accountant from Guyana, her father Ronald works in a warehouse, and the island's music is everywhere
Westbury New Road, Bridgetown, Barbados, February 1988. A baby girl is born into a house where soca shakes the walls and the radio never stops playing.
Rihanna -- Pon de Replay (official music video). Her debut single, built on a dancehall beat that could have come straight from the sound systems on every Bridgetown street corner.
Pon de Replay (2005)
From Music of the Sun, produced by Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers. The title is Bajan slang for "play it again," and the track layers Caribbean dancehall rhythms with pop hooks designed for American radio. Listen for how naturally Rihanna rides the beat. She is not performing a style she studied; this is the music that raised her.
The Fenty Family
Monica Braithwaite is an accountant from Guyana. Ronald Fenty works in a warehouse and sells clothes at the Bridgetown market. Their daughter Robyn grows up in a small bungalow with two younger brothers, Rorrey and Rajad, in a neighborhood where every house seems to have its own soundtrack.
“That was the funnest part of my life, my childhood. Just running around outside, barefoot, free. You don't get to do that anymore.”
— Rihanna
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Music of the Sun (Rihanna)
The title track from her 2005 debut album, a love letter to the Caribbean rhythms she grew up hearing. The production mixes dancehall, reggae, and R&B in a way that sounds like a Bridgetown sunset.
Westbury New Road, Bridgetown, Barbados
The street where Rihanna spent her childhood, in a small bungalow in one of Bridgetown's working-class neighborhoods.
Behind the music and the sunshine, the Fenty household is falling apart. Ronald's crack addiction is destroying the family, and the girl who sings all day is learning to build walls that will take decades to come down.
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