Robyn Rihanna Fenty (born February 20, 1988), professionally known by her m… Read Full Bio ↴Robyn Rihanna Fenty (born February 20, 1988), professionally known by her middle name, Rihanna, is a Barbadian singer, songwriter, actress, businesswoman, entrepreneur and fashion designer.

She has attained fourteen Billboard Hot 100 number ones thus far and is the second Barbadian artist to win a Grammy Award. She is also a cultural ambassador for Barbados. In 2021 Rihanna was named a "National Hero" in her home country, earning her the title "The Right Excellent."

Rihanna was born in Saint Michael, Barbados to Ronald Fenty, a warehouse supervisor, and Monica Fenty, an accountant. Her mother, a native of Guyana, is Afro-Guyanese and her father is Bajan and Irish. She is the oldest of three siblings; two younger brothers, Rorrey and Rajad Fenty. She began singing at around the age of seven. Her childhood was deeply affected by her father's addiction to crack cocaine and parent's rocky marriage, which ended when she was fourteen years old. Rihanna attended Charles F. Broome Memorial School, a primary school in Barbados, and then the Combermere School, where she formed a musical trio with two of her classmates at the age of fifteen. In 2004 she won the Miss Combermere Beauty Pageant. She was an army cadet in a sub-military programme that trained with the military of Barbados and Shontelle was her drill sergeant.

At the age of 15, she formed a girl group with two of her classmates. In 2003, friends introduced Rihanna and her two bandmates to record producer Evan Rogers, who was vacationing in Barbados with his wife. The group auditioned for Rogers, who said that "the minute Rihanna walked into the room, it was like the other two girls didn't exist." While auditioning for Rogers, Rihanna sang Destiny's Child's cover of "Emotion". Over the next year, Rihanna and her mom shuttled back and forth to Rogers home in Stamford, Connecticut. Then, shortly after turning 16, she relocated in the United States and moved in with Rogers and his wife. Carl Sturken helped Rihanna record a four-song demo, which included the ballad "The Last Time," a cover of Whitney Houston’s hit "For the Love of You" and what would become her first hit, "Pon de Replay" to send to various recording companies. It took a year to record the demos, because she was going to school and would only record during summer and Christmas school breaks. Rihanna's demo made its way to Def Jam, which invited her to audition for the label's then-president, Jay-Z, who quickly signed her.

Rihanna broke into the recording industry in 2005 with the release of her debut album Music of the Sun, which features the number 2 hit single "Pon de Replay". Less than a year later, Rihanna released album artist=Rihanna]A Girl Like Me and earned her first number-one single, "SOS, which sampled the popular 80s track "Tainted Love". "Unfaithful" was also released and was fairly successful.

Rihanna released her third album Good Girl Gone Bad in June 2007. Prior to the release of the album, she spent the week of the Grammys writing songs for the album with Ne-Yo. She adopted a more sexual image while recording the album, eventually dying her hair black and cutting it short. Rihanna worked with Timbaland and Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, as well as previous musical collaborators such as Stargate, Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers to re-imagine her album compositions with uptempo dance tracks. Rihanna commented, "I want to keep people dancing but still be soulful at the same time. You feel different every album, and [at] this stage I feel like I want to do a lot of uptempo [songs]."

The album topped the charts in countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Russia and Ireland, and peaked at number two in the United States and Australia. Unlike previous work, the album featured a more dance-pop sound instead of the dancehall, reggae and ballad styles. The album received positive reviews by critics, becoming her most critically acclaimed album at that time compared to her previous efforts.

It yielded eight hit singles - "Umbrella" "Shut Up and Drive", "Don't Stop The Music" "Hate That I Love You" "Rehab" "Disturbia" "Take A Bow" "If I Never See Your Face Again" - all singles reaching the top twenty on the Billboard Hot 100 — including the worldwide number-one hit "Umbrella," featuring Jay-Z.

In addition to reaching number one in various countries, "Umbrella" was the number one single in the United Kingdom for ten consecutive weeks, making it the longest-running number-one single since Wet Wet Wet's single "Love Is All Around" spent fifteen weeks at the top in 1994. The song is listed number three on the 100 Best Songs of 2007 published by Rolling Stone magazine. In 2008, "Umbrella" earned Rihanna and Jay-Z a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in addition to receiving nominations for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. It managed to stay at number one in the United Kingdom for 10 weeks, the longest time spent by a female and in the 21st century, on this chart.

"Umbrella" has also been recognised in various forms of accolades by the music press. The song is listed number three on the 100 Best Songs of 2007, published by the music magazine Rolling Stone. Time magazine also listed the song number three on their Top 10 Songs of 2007. The song is listed number one on Entertainment Weekly magazine's list of the 10 Best Singles of 2007, while topping the magazine's poll for the best single of 2007. Blender magazine awarded the song Song of the Year in their Readers' Poll 2007. The music press has considered "Umbrella" as 2007's Song of the Summer, while The New York Times writer Kelefa Sanneh regarded it as "arguably 2007's signature slow jam".

In August 2009, Rihanna collaborated with Jay-Z and Kanye West on "Run This Town." The song peaked at number two on Billboard Hot 100 and also reached the top ten in five other countries. She appeared on the cover of Vogue Italia for the September 2009 Issue. The shoot was influenced by Rihanna's hair, which she had cut for the shoot into a mohawk-like style. The style of the shoot was Extreme Couture and very dark, and in one shot she appeared semi-nude. Rihanna performed "Run This Town" along with Jay-Z and West for the "Answer the Call" concert at Madison Square Garden in September 2009, making it her first musical performance since the altercation with Brown. The trio also performed "Run This Town," on the premiere of The Jay Leno Show on September 14, 2009.

In November of 2009, Rated R was released in the wake of a physical altercation with romantic interest Chris Brown, who pled guilty to felony assault. The album's lead single, "Russian Roulette" -- written with Ne-Yo - was one of the year's most controversial singles. The album also includes collaborations with Tricky, The-Dream, Stargate, and SRP.

One year later, Rihanna released her fifth studio album called Loud. It's lead single, "Only Girl (In the World)", reached number one in more than ten countries. The song also won a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording.

Talk That Talk was released one year after Loud. With the song "We Found Love", Rihanna became the fastest solo artist in the chart's history to achieve twenty Hot 100 top-ten singles, breaking the previous record set by Madonna. The song later became her eleventh number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. "You Da One" became the second single from the album but was not as successful as "We Found Love". The third single from the album, "Talk That Talk" featuring Jay-Z, was announced on Rihanna's Twitter. The fourth single, "Where Have You Been", peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100.

On February 20, 2012, Rihanna and Chris Brown released 2 remixes, one featuring the "Talk That Talk" album track "Birthday Cake" and the other featuring Chris Brown's "Turn Up The Music"

In April 2012, the singer appeared in the movie "Battleship", which is based on the game of the same name.

Rihanna's seventh album Unapologetic was released on November 19, 2012; it was preceded by the lead single Diamonds, which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 becoming Rihanna's twelfth number one single on the chart and tying her with Madonna and The Supremes for the fourth-most number ones in the chart's history.

On January 28, 2016, Rihanna released her eighth studio album ANTI exclusively through streaming service Tidal. The album peaked at number one on the US Billboard 200, becoming Rihanna's second number one and eighth top ten album on the chart. The album was supported by the release of four singles including the lead single "Work" featuring Drake, which topped the Billboard Hot 100. Further platinum singles "Needed Me" and "Love on the Brain" both peaked inside the top ten of the Hot 100. In 2016, Rihanna was featured on several singles. The first collaboration was Calvin Harris' "This Is What You Came For," which reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two in the United Kingdom. Rihanna was also featured on Drake's "Too Good" from his album Views and Mike Will Made It's single, "Nothing Is Promised". On June 27, 2016, Rihanna released "Sledgehammer", the lead single from the Star Trek Beyond soundtrack. On August 28, Rihanna was honored with the MTV Video Vanguard Award at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. Rihanna was elected artist of the decade of 2010 by Pitchfork, Insider, Lofficiel among other major music magazines.

In October 2022, Rihanna released "Lift Me Up" from the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, marking her first solo single since 2016's "Love On The Brain". It reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #3 in the UK. The song was nominated for a Golden Globe and Academy Award, making it Rihanna's first nomination in both awards. On February 12, 2023, she performed at the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show, marking her first performance since the 2018 Grammy Awards. Her Halftime show became the second most watched Halftime show of all time with 118.7 million viewers, just after Lady Gaga’s (117.5 million), but behind Katy Perry’s (121 million).

Break It Off f
Rihanna Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Breaking it off and setting it off in the real way
Making the girls them chill their mind (feel fine)
Making them have a good time
Yeah, man, S Peezy, yo, long side RiRi
Come down now, Rihanna
Take it to them, take it to them, girl

Break it off, boy, this has got me feeling naughty

I wanna know, boy, if I can be your shorty (most definitely)
Set it off, boy, make me hot all over my body
(Break it off, take it off, no miss take it off)
Break it off tonight (yo)
Break it off, boy, this has got me feeling naughty
I wanna know, boy, if I can be your shorty (yo, yo)
Set it off, boy, make me hot all over my body (yeah, yeah)
Break it off tonight (yo, yo)

Struggle and pain wha she fell all de while
And she want a good man fi give her de style
Wild child
So she deh pon me file
It's a long time now me wha plow
Plow de sile meh car run, run like de nile
And de most energy meh whan gi her tonight
Give her tonight
An' mek she feel right
Make she fly like a kite that reach a new height
'Cah we give it to de gyal dem
Make dem reel up and bawl
And make dem (start call)
Anytime she want it back she ha fi call (Dutty Paul)
Admittin' it on de spot I know de real (Sean Paul)
When de traits so great
'Cause she feelin' top up and tall wat de ting say

Break it off, boy, this has got me feeling naughty (immediate, if not before)
I wanna know, boy, if I can be your shorty (boom, ba)
Set it off, boy, make me hot all over my body
(Break it off, take it off, no miss take it off)
Break it off tonight (yo)
Break it off, boy, this has got me feeling naughty
I wanna know, boy, if I can be your shorty (yo, yo)
Set it off, boy, make me hot all over my body
(Yeah, yeah, yo, yo, yagga, yo)
Break it off tonight
(RiRi, S Peezy, yo, yo)

No doubt
Gyal, you shoulda know SP and a scout
Naughty sweat so shout
Make ya bawl out, shout
Make ya holla me gah give affection in your direction
We go all out
Gyal, just follow we if ya love energy
If ya whan pedigree
Cruise like Penelope
Make a see yuh just bounce wit de Dutty
We keep givin' you de Q to de U to de A (yea) to de L to de I to de T to de Y
Girl, I got to try (try)
Take yuh booty make you reach to de S-K-Y
Woman, I got to say (say)
Da way you move is makin' me high
Girl, cuh yuh know say yuh S to de E to de X to de Y (boom, ba, boom, ba)

Break it off, boy, 'cause you got me feeling naughty
Let me know, boy, if I can be your shorty (sexyness)
Set it off, boy, make me hot all over my body
(Yo, yagga yo, no doubt)
Break it off tonight (Yo, RiRi)
Break it off, boy, this has got me feeling naughty
I wanna know, boy, if I can be your shorty
(Blaze up on no rain, no stressy)
Set it off, boy, make me hot all over my body
Break it off tonight (yeah, yo, yo, yo)

Boy (uh huh)
The way you push up on me I
Waan' get da roughest wuk dun know ya like (ay, yo, ay, yo)
Fuh sho we gonna break it off tonight (yoga, macchugga, uh)
Ooh, boy
We really shouldn't waste no time (sing it)
Come let me back up on ya dance halls tight (bring it)
And I'm hopin', baby, you don't mind
'Cause I really wanna break it off tonight (instantaneous)

Break it off, boy, 'cause you got me feeling naughty (hey)
I wanna know, boy, if I can be your shorty
Set it off, boy, make me hot all over my body (baby girl)
Break it off tonight
(Yo, baby girl, yo, give it up, give it up, sen' on)
Break it off, boy, 'cause you got me feeling naughty (yo)
I wanna know, boy, if I can be your shorty

Set it off, boy, make me hot all over my body
Break it off tonight

Overall Meaning

The song "Break It Off" is a collaboration between Rihanna and Sean Paul, released in 2006 as a single from Rihanna's second album, "A Girl Like Me." The lyrics speak of sensual desire and the pleasurable experience of breaking free from restraint. The singers encourage each other to "break it off" and "set it off" in the moment, inviting their partners to indulge in the passion and the light-hearted fun of the night without any restrictions.

The song is an upbeat dancehall reggae track, with Rihanna and Sean Paul taking turns to deliver their seductive lines over the bouncy beat. Their voices blend seamlessly, adding to the playful and flirty tone of the song. The chorus repeats the phrase "break it off" multiple times, creating an infectious hook that makes the song a catchy anthem of the dance floor.

Moreover, the lyrics of the song also refer to a woman who wants a good man to make her feel right, and the man who wants to give her the energy she needs to feel good. It is a song that celebrates sensuality, pleasure, and the freedom to embrace one's desires without any inhibitions.

Line by Line Meaning

Breaking it off and setting it off in the real way
Starting this relationship with passion and commitment

Making the girls, them chill their mind (feel fine)
Bringing happiness and relaxation to the girls

Making them have a good time
Ensuring that everyone has fun and enjoys themselves

Yeah, man, S Peezy, yo, long side Ri, Ri
Introducing the collaboration between Sean Paul and Rihanna

Come down now, Rihanna
Encouraging Rihanna to start singing

Take it to them, take it to them, girl
Encouraging Rihanna to give her best performance

Break it off, boy, this has got me feeling naughty
Feeling aroused and excited by this man

I wanna know, boy, if I can be your shorty (most definitely)
Asking if she can be his girlfriend and receiving a positive response

Set it off, boy, make me hot all over my body
Turning up the passion and desire

(Break it off, take it off, no miss take it off)
Encouraging the man to undress her and start the physical intimacy

Break it off tonight (Yo)
Suggesting that they have sex tonight

Struggle and pain wha she fell all de while
Describing the woman's past hardships and difficulties

And she want a good man to give her de style
Desiring a man who can satisfy her and provide her with pleasure

Wild child
A free-spirited woman who likes to have fun

So she dere pon me file
She is interested in Sean Paul

It's a long time now me wha plow
He has wanted to be intimate with her for a while

Plow de sile meh car run, run like de nile
He wants to give her so much pleasure that her body reacts strongly

And de most energy meh whan gi her tonight
He wants to give her the most intense experience ever

Give her tonight
He plans to fulfill her desires tonight

Gan make she feel right
He wants to make sure she is happy and satisfied

Make she fly like a kite that reach a new height
He wants to take her pleasure to the next level

Ah we give it to de gyal dem
Their goal is to satisfy all the women

Make dem reel up and bawl
Making women feel pleasure so incredible that they scream

And make dem (start call)
Making women want to call them for more

Anytime she want it back she ha fi call (Dutty Paul)
If she wants more, she needs to call Sean Paul

Admittin' it on de spot I know de real (Sean Paul)
Acknowledging that Sean Paul is the real deal

When de traits so great
When the talent is so impressive

Cause she feelin' top up and tall wat de ting say
Because she feels confident and satisfied

No doubt
Agreeing without hesitation

Gyal, you shoulda know SP and a scout
Women should know that Sean Paul is a great selector

Naughty sweat so shout
Being so excited that she screams

Make ya holla me gah give affection in your direction
Providing affection where she wants it

We go all out
They will give their all to please women

Gyal, just follow we if ya love energy
Women can follow them if they want passion and excitement

If ya whan pedigree
If they want a man with experience

Cruise like Penelope
Having sex like the famous seductress Penelope

Make a see yuh just bounce wit de Dutty
Dancing with Sean Paul and feeling aroused

We keep givin' you de Q to de U to de A (yea) to de L to de I to de T to de Y
Continually providing pleasure

Girl, I got to try (try)
He promises to try his very best

Take yuh booty make you reach to de S.K.Y.
Taking her pleasure to new heights

Woman, I got to say (say)
He has something important to say to her

Da way you move is makin' me high
Her sexual moves are making him aroused

Girl, cuh yuh know say yuh S to de E to de X to de Y (boom, ba, boom, ba)
She knows she's sexy and has a way of moving that gets him excited

Boy (Uh huh)
Addressing the man

The way you push up on me I
The man's seductive movements are enticing her

Whan get da roughest wine I dun know ya like (ay, yo, ay, yo)
She wants sex with rough movements and thinks he will enjoy it too

Fuh sho we gonna break it off tonight (yoga, macchugga, uh)
Confirming that they will have sex tonight

Oo, boy
Expressing her desire for the man

We really shouldn't waste no time (sing it)
Time is of the essence and they should start soon

Come let me back up on ya dance halls tight (bring it)
Inviting the man to dance with her closely

And I'm hopin', baby, you don't mind
Hoping the man is okay with what she has planned

Cause I really wanna break it off tonight (instantaneous)
Expressing her strong desire to have sex with him now

Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing, Ultra Tunes, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: Donovan Keith Bennett, Sean Henriques, Rihanna Fenty, Kirk Ford

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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