Robyn Fenty known by the world as Rihanna is a legend in her field. Born February 20, 1988, the Barbadian pop and R&B star is known for her distinctive and versatile voice and not to mention her fashionable appearance. The artiste is known not only for her music catalog but also her beauty and fashion lines.
Growing up in the Caribbean was no easy feat for Rihanna. Her childhood was deeply affected by her parents’ marital problems as well as her dad’s battle with drug and alcohol addictions, which eventually led to their divorce when she was 14.
Turning to music to escape the troubles at home, Rihanna formed a musical trio with two classmates in 2003. Rihanna got her big break when the group auditioned for American music producer Evan Rogers, in which Rihanna prevailed before her two companions with her voice, singing Emotion, of the band Destiny’s Child, and Hero, by Mariah Carey.
Evan Rogers then arranged a second audition, but this time without her partners and with the presence of her mother. Pleased with what he heard, he invited Rihanna to record a demo in the United States, which was sent to different record companies. This led to an audition with the rapper Jay-Z, who at the time headed the Def Jam record label, and he soon signed the budding vocalist. For her professional career, she adopted her middle name, Rihanna.
With her dancehall infected single Pon de Replay released in 2005, Rihanna captured the hearts of an international audience. The song was a great success after which she released her debut full length recording Music of the Sun. Rihanna soon followed with the album A Girl like Me in 2006, featuring the up-tempo club oriented S.O.S. The song, which was built around a sample of Soft Cell’s 1981 new wave hit “Tainted Love,” became Rihanna’s first to top the Billboard singles chart.
On May 31, 2007, Rihanna released her third album Good Girl Gone Bad. It was with this that she achieved global recognition because beyond the numerous sales of the album made all over the world, which today totals more than six-and- a-half million copies. In addition to giving her the nomination of several Grammy Awards in 2008, of which she won the Best Collaboration of Rap/Sung.
By November 2009, released her fourth album, Rated R, with which she began her tour The Last Girl on Earth, which featured 57 shows that started in Europe and ended in Australia. The following year she collaborated with Eminem on the song Love the Way You Lie, which was the best-selling song of 2010 in the United Kingdom. That same year, she released her fifth album, Loud, which contained the single Only Girl (In the World), with which she won the Best Recording Dance Award at the Grammys. In 2011, she released another successful album, Talk That Talk, and in 2012 she collaborated with Coldplay on Princess of China and with Drake on Take Care.
Rihanna was also chosen as the best international artiste at the Brit Awards for the second consecutive time and won the MTV Music Award for the best video of 2012, being the first woman to receive it several times. In September, she released her seventh album Unapologetic, and in 2013 she won the Grammy for Best Short Music Video thanks to We Found Love. By 2015, the Recording Industry Association of the United States revealed that the artiste had sold more than 100 million copies. In 2016, Rihanna released her eighth and last album so far, Anti.
Beyond her musical career, Rihanna participated in 2006 as an actress in Bring it On All or Nothing, Battleship (2012) and This Is the End (2013).
She also voiced one of the main characters in the animated adventure Home (2015). Rihanna later appeared as a hacker in Ocean’s 8 (2018), a female-driven reboot of the Ocean’s Eleven franchise from the early 2000s. In 2019 she starred with Donald Glover in the musical Guava Island.
After collaborating on several cosmetics collections, Rihanna launched her own line Fenty Beauty in 2017. The brand is highly praised for its inclusivity, offering 40 shades of foundation. In 2019, Rihanna partnered with LVMH Moët Hennessy- Louis Vuitton to create the fashion line Fenty. Rihanna became the first woman of color to head a fashion house at LVMH. Fenty’s first collection was released later that year.
In 2021, Rihanna was named the 11th national hero of Barbados. Prior to receiving national hero status, Rihanna was one of Barbados’s cultural ambassadors in 2008, doing promotional work for its tourism ministry. To date, she is the youngest person to receive the honor and has joined Sir Garfield Sobers as the island’s second living national hero.
Rihanna’s personal life continues to attract media attention. In 2021 it was confirmed that she was in a relationship with rapper A$AP Rocky. The couple welcomed a baby boy in 2022.
The music and beauty icon recently released a soundtrack for the highly anticipated Marvel sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The song, Lift Me Up is a tribute to the extraordinary life and legacy of Chadwick Boseman, the star of the first Black Panther film who died from cancer in 2020 at the age of 43.
