Децл
Rihanna (full name — Robyn Rihanna Fenty; born February 20, 1988, Saint Michael, Barbados) is a Barbadian singer, songwriter, actress and entrepreneur, and one of the most successful and influential pop artists of the 21st century. Her musical career began with Caribbean pop, dancehall and R&B, and later expanded into electronic dance music, reggae, hip-hop, soul and alternative R&B.
Rihanna has released eight studio albums — from Music of the Sun in 2005 to ANTI in 2016. Her catalogue includes Pon de Replay, SOS, Umbrella, Don't Stop the Music, Disturbia, Rude Boy, Only Girl (In the World), What's My Name?, We Found Love, Diamonds, Stay, Work, Needed Me and Love on the Brain. She has achieved 14 number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and won 9 Grammy Awards from 34 nominations.
Barbados and the beginning of her musical career
Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born in the parish of Saint Michael, Barbados, and grew up on the island. Among the artists who influenced her in her youth, Rihanna herself and her official biography have named Bob Marley, Madonna, Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey.
In 2003, fifteen-year-old Rihanna met American producer Evan Rogers, who was visiting Barbados. After hearing her sing, he invited her to record demo material in the United States. The recordings included an early version of what would become her hit Pon de Replay.
The demos reached Def Jam, where Rihanna auditioned in front of Jay-Z and other company executives and received a recording contract. Her international career began shortly afterward.
Music of the Sun and Pon de Replay
Her debut album Music of the Sun was released in 2005. Its sound directly reflected the singer's Caribbean background: dancehall and reggae were combined with R&B and pop music.
The lead single Pon de Replay reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and made Rihanna internationally known. Even in this first major recording, several qualities that would repeatedly return throughout her career were already apparent: Caribbean rhythms, distinctive pronunciation and a voice that remained instantly recognisable even within dense dance production.
A Girl Like Me and her first US number one
Her second album A Girl Like Me arrived in 2006. Its biggest success was SOS, which uses the motif from Tainted Love. The song gave Rihanna her first number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
A different side of the singer appeared on the Ne-Yo-written ballad Unfaithful. The album retained its connection with reggae and dancehall but was already much more strongly oriented toward an international pop and R&B audience.
Good Girl Gone Bad and Umbrella
The real turning point came in 2007 with the album Good Girl Gone Bad. Rihanna changed not only her image but also her musical direction: the Caribbean foundation of her earlier recordings gave way to a stronger emphasis on contemporary pop, R&B and electronic dance rhythms.
The central song was Umbrella featuring Jay-Z. The track became one of the defining pop hits of the decade and earned Rihanna her first Grammy Award — for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.
The same album also produced Don't Stop the Music, Shut Up and Drive, Hate That I Love You and Rehab. The expanded 2008 edition Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded added Take a Bow and Disturbia, both of which also topped the Billboard Hot 100.
From this period onward, the ability to move freely between different musical styles became one of Rihanna's defining characteristics.
Rated R and a new level of creative control
In November 2009, Rihanna released Rated R — her darkest work up to that point. The album arrived after the assault she suffered in February at the hands of her then-partner Chris Brown, although its significance extends far beyond that event.
The music introduced heavier electronic and rock elements, while the lyrics became noticeably harder-edged. The album included Russian Roulette, Hard, Wait Your Turn, Rockstar 101, Te Amo and Rude Boy.
The latter returned the singer to Caribbean rhythms and became the album's biggest commercial hit. Equally important was the changing role of Rihanna herself: she received songwriting credits on nine of the thirteen tracks, whereas she had no songwriting credits on Good Girl Gone Bad.
Loud
After the dark aesthetic of Rated R, the 2010 album Loud returned Rihanna to bright pop and dance music. Its main singles were Only Girl (In the World), What's My Name? featuring Drake and S&M.
Only Girl (In the World) won the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording. Man Down once again drew on reggae and Caribbean vocal phrasing, while California King Bed revealed a more pronounced pop-rock side of the album.
By this stage, it had become increasingly difficult to associate Rihanna with a single genre: her voice and performance style were what provided the strongest sense of continuity.
Love the Way You Lie and major collaborations
At the same time, Rihanna became one of the most in-demand guest vocalists of her generation. She appeared on Live Your Life by T.I., Run This Town by Jay-Z and Kanye West, Love the Way You Lie by Eminem and All of the Lights by Kanye West.
Later collaborations included Take Care with Drake, Princess of China with Coldplay, The Monster with Eminem, This Is What You Came For with Calvin Harris, Wild Thoughts by DJ Khaled and Loyalty by Kendrick Lamar. The latter earned Rihanna her ninth Grammy Award.
Talk That Talk and We Found Love
Her sixth studio album Talk That Talk was released in 2011. Its biggest hit was We Found Love, recorded with Calvin Harris.
The song placed Rihanna's voice within an almost entirely electronic dance arrangement and became one of the defining pop tracks of the global EDM boom. We Found Love spent ten weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
The album also includes Where Have You Been, You da One, Talk That Talk featuring Jay-Z and Birthday Cake. During this period, electronic dance music occupied an especially prominent place in Rihanna's catalogue.
Unapologetic, Diamonds and Stay
In 2012, Rihanna released Unapologetic — her first album to top the Billboard 200. Its lead single was Diamonds, which gave her a twelfth number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
Another important track was Stay featuring Mikky Ekko. Its minimalist piano arrangement placed Rihanna's voice at the centre of the recording and presented her as a considerably more vulnerable performer than on most of her dance hits.
Unapologetic won the Grammy Award for Best Urban Contemporary Album. After seven studio albums released between 2005 and 2012, the pace of Rihanna's album career slowed dramatically.
The road to ANTI
In 2015, Rihanna released several stylistically different singles. FourFiveSeconds with Kanye West and Paul McCartney was built around acoustic instrumentation, Bitch Better Have My Money was much closer to contemporary hip-hop, while American Oxygen addressed the American dream and her own experience as an immigrant.
None of these songs appeared on the standard edition of her next album. The period demonstrated how far Rihanna was prepared to move away from her earlier model of producing radio hits on an almost annual schedule.
ANTI
ANTI was released on January 28, 2016 and became the major turning point of Rihanna's mature discography. While her previous albums often brought together several obvious potential singles, here atmosphere, voice and artistic cohesion became more important.
The album opens with Consideration featuring SZA. From there, Rihanna moves freely between alternative R&B, dancehall, rock, soul and minimalist electronic music.
The main commercial single was Work featuring Drake. Rihanna used Jamaican patois and a distinctly Caribbean vocal delivery, returning to the musical roots of the earliest years of her career. The song became her 14th number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and remained at the top for nine weeks.
Several weeks later, ANTI topped the Billboard 200, becoming Rihanna's second number-one album in the United States.
Other central tracks include Needed Me, Kiss It Better, Desperado, Higher and Love on the Brain. The latter particularly highlighted the development of her voice: its raspy, almost soul-inspired performance was noticeably different from the cool, rhythmically precise delivery of her earlier dance recordings.
ANTI became the album on which Rihanna's individual artistic identity finally took precedence over the familiar commercial formula. The Recording Academy has also described the record as a stage of her fullest creative realisation.
Musical hiatus and Fenty
After ANTI, Rihanna sharply reduced the amount of new music she released and focused on other areas. In 2017, she launched the cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty, later followed by Savage X Fenty and other ventures.
However, the singer never officially announced the end of her music career. On the contrary, over the following years she repeatedly returned to the studio while emphasising that she did not intend to release a new album simply to meet an expected schedule.
Lift Me Up and the return to recording
Her first new solo song after an extended break was Lift Me Up, released in 2022 for the film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The composition was written by Rihanna together with Tems, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Göransson and was dedicated to the memory of Chadwick Boseman.
Lift Me Up earned Rihanna her first Academy Award nomination — for Best Original Song. In March 2023, she performed it at the Oscars ceremony.
Super Bowl LVII
On February 12, 2023, Rihanna performed during the halftime show of Super Bowl LVII. It was her first major stage performance in roughly five years.
The thirteen-minute set included Bitch Better Have My Money, Where Have You Been, Only Girl (In the World), We Found Love, S&M, Rude Boy, Work, Wild Thoughts, Pour It Up, All of the Lights, Run This Town, Umbrella and Diamonds.
After Nielsen revised its figures, the performance's US audience was estimated at approximately 121 million viewers.
Friend of Mine and new studio work
Her next new song was Friend of Mine, released on May 15, 2025 for the animated film Smurfs. Rihanna also voiced Smurfette in the film. The track returned her to electronic dance music, but no separate album cycle followed the release.
Her next studio album remains without an official title or release date. In interviews in 2025, Rihanna said that she had abandoned several previous versions and had finally found a direction that reflected her current development as an artist. In February 2026, she personally shared fragments from a late-night studio session, while A$AP Rocky later also confirmed that work on new music was continuing.
The name R9, widely used by the press and fans, remains unofficial.
Rihanna's musical style
Rihanna's music cannot be accurately defined by a single genre. Her main territory is contemporary pop and R&B, but the balance between Caribbean music, electronic dance music, hip-hop, rock and soul has changed throughout different periods of her career.
Music of the Sun and parts of A Girl Like Me are particularly closely connected with dancehall and reggae. Good Girl Gone Bad, Loud and Talk That Talk make much more extensive use of dance-pop and electronic production. Rated R introduces darker rock and hip-hop elements, while ANTI turns toward alternative R&B, soul, dancehall and less conventional song structures.
Her Caribbean roots, however, never disappeared completely. Rude Boy, Man Down, What's My Name? and especially Work brought characteristic rhythms and pronunciation back into her music even after Rihanna had become one of the world's biggest pop stars.
Rihanna's voice
The main constant throughout her catalogue remains her voice. Rihanna has never built her image around overt displays of vocal virtuosity; her strength lies in an instantly recognisable tone, rhythmic delivery and the ability to change her vocal approach according to the material.
In Pon de Replay, Rude Boy, What's My Name? and Work, the vocals are closely tied to rhythm and pronunciation. In Unfaithful, Stay, Diamonds, Love on the Brain and Lift Me Up, emotional expression, rasp and a fuller middle and lower register become much more prominent.
This vocal recognisability largely explains why Rihanna's music retains a sense of coherence despite the enormous stylistic distance between individual albums.
Film
Alongside music, Rihanna has also worked in film. In 2012, she appeared in Battleship, later voiced the lead character in the animated film Home and appeared in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Ocean's 8 and Guava Island.
In 2025, she returned to animation in Smurfs, where she voiced Smurfette and recorded the song Friend of Mine.
Awards and achievements
The Recording Academy officially credits Rihanna with 9 Grammy wins and 34 nominations. She received her first award for Umbrella; other Grammy-winning works include Run This Town, Only Girl (In the World), All of the Lights, We Found Love, Unapologetic, The Monster and Loyalty.
Rihanna has reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 14 times. The Recording Academy also estimates worldwide sales of her albums at more than 60 million copies.
Rihanna studio albums
- 2005 — Music of the Sun
- 2006 — A Girl Like Me
- 2007 — Good Girl Gone Bad
- 2009 — Rated R
- 2010 — Loud
- 2011 — Talk That Talk
- 2012 — Unapologetic
- 2016 — ANTI
Rihanna's significance
Rihanna's story began during an era when major record companies could develop young pop artists through almost annual albums and a constant cycle of new singles. The first years of her career largely followed this model, but over time the singer gained considerably more control over her own material.
Good Girl Gone Bad turned her into a global pop star, Rated R marked the growth of her creative independence, Loud and Talk That Talk reinforced her influence on early-2010s dance-pop, while ANTI became the album on which individual artistic aesthetics finally became more important than the need to assemble a collection of obvious radio hits.
At the same time, stylistic changes never diminished Rihanna's recognisability. Pon de Replay, Umbrella, Rude Boy, We Found Love, Diamonds, Work and Love on the Brain belong to very different areas of contemporary popular music, yet they retain the same central element — her distinctive voice and performance identity.
It is precisely this ability to continually change her musical surroundings without losing her own character that has made Rihanna one of the defining artists of 21st-century pop music.
