Rihanna - Carribbean Barbie TM

It’s raining Rihanna, or as she is known to her close friends, Caribbean Barbie TM. The cameraman’s wet dream, with her pretty doll-faced features and petit albeit juicy figure, is a photogenic goddess with all the aesthetic appeal of a Disney princess. Perhaps that's was caught megastar producer Evan Rodgers eye when he was introduced to the aspiring entertainer in 2005 while on holiday in Barbados with his family. Rihanna was fifteen, with bronze skin, plump, expressive lips and sea-green eyes. She was a frequent winner of local beauty and talent contests and on meeting her, the dollar sign cha-chinged behind Rodger’s eyes and he brought her back to the States to make her the billboard empress she is today. With the help of the man who produced such acts as N*SYNC, Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson, it’s no wonder she so stylishly broke into the pop scene. Jay-Z signed her to his record label Def Jam Recordings and the rest is history.

Her debut hit Pon de Reply, in 2005 was an instant success. It’s a salty dance hit with Caribbean rhythm and has Rihanna in all her glittering glory, introducing the world to her spectacular torso tricks and her characteristic know it all smirk. Her second album, Girl Like Me, was released in 2006. S.O.S. has our tiny dancer begging to be rescued from her tropical hip hop island of mediocrity. Unfaithful, written by R&B golden boy Ne-Yo, is a tragic ballad with melodramatic harmonies. Rihanna plays the part well, her timber, nasal voice conveying guilt, pity and the inner pain of a teenager trying and failing to sing Rhythm and Blues. In 2007, the Gods of Pop put their heads together to produce Good Girl Gone Bad. Jay-Z enlisted Ne-Yo, Timberland and Stargate. Even Justin Timberlake got in on the action, co-writing and providing backup vocals for Rehab. Rihanna is portrayed in all her pseudo-mechanic class, swooning over car hoods and alternating between baby-doll dresses and bad-ass leather ensembles. But most of the album was outshined by the billboard earthquake that is Umbrella. The song, originally written for Britney Spears, spent seven consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard 100 and lorded over charts worldwide. It invaded countries, ransacked radio stations and pillaged tween pockets like a Caribbean Pirate. It’s Raining, It’s Pouring has been replaced as the weather’s national anthem, and yes, the artist has even sprouted her own line of designer… umbrellas. It's considered Rihanna’s best effort to date, with its epic scale and a chorus that inserts itself into your head and never. Lets. Go. Rihanna was born for stardom, and she glitters in silver paint, grinning wickedly to herself because she knows it. The world is her umbrella.

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