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Rihanna · S1 E3
The Island Sound
Barbados pulses with reggae, dancehall, soca, and calypso. Rihanna absorbs it all: the rhythms from the street parties, the melodies from the radio, the way Caribbean music makes every body move
A hair salon in Los Angeles, early 2007. Rihanna sits down, points to a photo of a sharp asymmetric bob, and tells the stylist to cut it all off.
Rihanna -- Don't Stop the Music (official music video). Built on a sample of Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," this is the track where the good girl disappears and the pop force arrives.
Don't Stop the Music (2007)
From Good Girl Gone Bad, produced by StarGate. The Michael Jackson sample loops under a four-on-the-floor beat designed for European dance floors, and Rihanna's vocal is cool, controlled, almost detached. She does not beg you to dance; she assumes you already are. The track hit number one in eleven countries and turned her from a singles artist into a global album seller.
Good Girl Gone Bad
Rihanna's first two albums sold respectably but positioned her as a Caribbean pop singer with a narrow lane. For the third album she demanded a reinvention. She recruited Timbaland, Ne-Yo, and StarGate, cut her hair into the bob that would define an era, and buried the sweet island girl image for good.
TAP TO REVEAL: Who almost got Umbrella instead of Rihanna?
Which producer duo worked on both "Don't Stop the Music" and "Umbrella"?
You Da One (Rihanna)
From Talk That Talk (2011). Five albums into a global pop career and the dancehall riddim is still right there underneath. The beat could have come from a Bridgetown sound system, proof that no amount of pop polish ever erased where Rihanna came from.
The Haircut That Changed Everything
The new Rihanna is fearless, famous, and moving at a pace nobody can match. But in February 2009, the night before the Grammys, everything is about to break apart.
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