- Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded · 2007
- Talk That Talk (Deluxe) · 2011
- A Girl Like Me (Bonus Track Version) · 2006
- Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded · 2007
- Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded · 2007
- Unapologetic (Deluxe Version) · 2012
- This Is What You Came For - Single · 2016
- ANTI (Deluxe) · 2016
- Lift Me Up (From Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - Music From and Inspired By) - Single · 2022
- Talk That Talk (Deluxe) · 2011
- Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded · 2008
- Loud (Deluxe) · 2010
- Bitch Better Have My Money - Single · 2015
Essential Albums
- After giving the world a decade of nonstop hits, the big question for Rihanna was “What’s next?” Well, she was going to wait a little longer than expected to reveal the answer. Four years separated Unapologetic and her eighth album. But she didn’t completely escape from the spotlight during the mini hiatus. Rather, she experimented in real time by dropping one-off singles like the acoustic folk “FourFiveSeconds” collaboration with Kanye West and Paul McCartney, the patriotic ballad “American Oxygen” and the feisty “Bitch Better Have My Money”. The sonic direction she was going to land on for ANTI was still murky, but those songs were subtle hints nonetheless. When she officially unleashed ANTI to the world, it quickly became clear that this wasn’t the Rihanna we’d come to know from years past. In an unexpected twist, the singer tossed her own hit factory formula (which she polished to perfection since her 2005 debut) out the window. No, this was a freshly independent Rihanna who intentionally took time to dig deep. As the world was holding its breath awaiting the new album, she found a previously untapped part of her artistry. ANTI says it all in the title: The album is the complete antithesis of Pop Star Rihanna. From the abstract cover art (which features a poem written in braille) to newfound autonomy after leaving her long-time record label, Def Jam, to form her own, ANTI shattered all expectations of what a structured pop album should sound like—not only for her own standards, but also for fellow artists who wanted to demolish industry rules. And the risk worked in her favour: it became the singer’s second No. 1 LP. “I got to do things my own way, darling/Will you ever let me?/Will you ever respect me?” Rihanna mockingly asks on the opening track, “Consideration”. In response, the rest of the album dives headfirst into fearlessness where she doesn’t hesitate to get sensual, vulnerable and just a little weird. ANTI’s overarching theme is centred on relationships. Echoing Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope, Rihanna details the intricacies of love from all stages. Lead single “Work” is yet another flirtatious reunion with frequent collaborator Drake as they tease each other atop a steamy dancehall bassline. She spits vitriolic acid on the Travis Scott-produced “Woo”, taunting an ex-flame who walked away from her: “I bet she could never make you cry/’Cause the scars on your heart are still mine.” What’s most notable throughout ANTI is Rihanna’s vocal expansion, from her whisky-coated wails on the late-night voicemail that is “Higher” to breathing smoke on her re-recorded version of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Old Mistakes”. Yet the signature Rihanna DNA remained on the album. The singer proudly celebrated her Caribbean heritage on the aforementioned “Work”, presented women with yet another kiss-off anthem with “Needed Me” and flaunted her erotic side on deluxe track “Sex With Me”. Ever the sonic explorer, she also continued to uncover new genres by going full ’50s doo-wop on “Love on the Brain” and channelling Prince for the velvety ’80s power-pop ballad “Kiss It Better”. ANTI is not only Rihanna’s brilliant magnum opus, but it’s also a sincere declaration of freedom as she embraces her fully realised womanhood.
Albums
- Studio versions of the songs from Rihanna’s Halftime Show.
- A set of culture-shifting dance anthems.
- Let her show you how to work, with a set of her most upbeat tracks.
- RiRi at her most empowered and unapologetic.
- Party tracks with a Caribbean spin.
Live Albums
Compilations
Appears On
- How this 2023 Halftime Show highlight came together.
- Revisiting Rihanna’s Super Bowl Halftime performance.
- The record that proved Rihanna’s musical style is limitless.
- Rihanna joins Nadeska ahead of her Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show.
- Dotty explores Rihanna's unconventional and infectious, 'ANTI.'
- Jayde revisits Rihanna's supercharged seventh album.
- Sabi salutes an artist that walks the walk behind all the talk.
More To See
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About Rihanna
A report card for Robyn Rihanna Fenty, first issued by a school back in Barbados’ Saint Michael parish and later reprinted in a giant coffee-table book called RIHANNA, stated, in part, that the young Fenty was positive, sure of herself. She took a leading role in group activities. Most of all, she had ideas and seemed comfortable expressing them. Fast-forward to the present day and there remains something effortless about Rihanna, a sense of confidence that transcends any one narrative or style. Though her biggest tracks have tended toward some variety of dance pop (mixed with reggae, EDM, dancehall, R&B and so on), a closer listen reveals an artist willing to try just about anything—and the uncanny grace to sound good doing it. Describing the chameleonic nature of her clothing line, Fenty—the first female-created brand for LVMH, not to mention its first luxury label run by a black woman—Rihanna said the line didn’t have any fixed look, in part because her own was always changing. She was making things up as she went along, but when she went, she went full-steam ahead. Born in Barbados in 1988, she left high school to pursue music. Her 2005 debut, Music of the Sun, went Gold when she was just 17. By 2007’s Good Girl Gone Bad, she’d expanded the sunny Caribbean pop of her early work for sleek hybrids of hip-hop, R&B, club music and rock. The tracks were inescapable—“Umbrella”, “Don’t Stop the Music”, “Rude Boy”, “Work”—but also had genuine personality, not to mention a carnal sense of expressiveness that set her apart: Rihanna’s changes didn’t seem like the product of high-concept self-reinvention so much as gut feeling. After leaving Def Jam in 2014 for a spot with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, she took greater creative control for 2016’s ANTI, her most diverse album yet. In 2023, Rihanna became the first artist to headline the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show, performing while pregnant with her second child.
- HOMETOWN
- Saint Michael, Barbados
- BORN
- 20 February 1988
- GENRE
- Pop