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 Houstonβs 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 β 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 Gagaβs (117.5 million), but behind Katy Perryβs (121 million).
Let Me Go
Rihanna Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Why don't you let me, let me
Boy let me, let me
Let me do those things for you
Boy let me, let me
Why don't you let me, let me
Boy let me, let me
Let me do those things for you
I been watching you from way 'cross the room
Won't ya come and rock it out with me
You catchin' eyes like you catchin' ties
Over here's where you wanna be
It's so familiar, like we met somewhere before
And I'm tired of waitin' baby while you still obey me
Want me come and whisper in your ear
All the things you love to hear
I wanna come play nice with you
'Cause if I get you alone I don't know what I might do
And I think that it's about time we leave
'Cause boy you're my type
You got me so excited
Baby let's go dance away
So let me come and get ya right
Boy let me fill your appetite
Won't you let me know what it is you like
And I'll do those sexy things for you
I'll let you call me beautiful
Let me give it to you once you gon want some more
Boy let me, let me, let me
Let me do those things for you
Boy let me, let me
Why don't you let me, let me
Boy let me, let me
Let me do those things for you
I'm walkin over to you
Meet me by the door
I'm the girl in the 7 inch heels
I got my keys in my hand
Maybe S's on my arms so guess you know what it is
So act like you know
'Cause a girl just wanna have fun
Knock it out the park for me
Need ya to hit a home run boy
Want me come and whisper in your ear
All the things you love to hear
I wanna come play nice with you
Cause if I get you alone I don't know what I might do
And I think that it's about time
We leave cause boy you're my type
You got me so excited
Baby let's go dance away
So let me come and get ya right
Boy let me fill your appetite
Won't you let me know what it is you like
And I'll do those sexy things for you
I'll let you call me beautiful
Let me give it to you once you gon' want some more
Boy let me, let me, let me
Let me do those things for you
Let too much to talk about it
Not into me boy I doubt it
You are gonna scream and shout it
Make you hot how I move my body
So crazy, so amazing
Catch you up and make you chase it
Let me let me baby
Let me do those things for you
So let me come and get ya right
Boy let me fill your appetite
Won't you let me know what it is you like
And I'll do those sexy things for you
I'll let you call me beautiful
Let me give it to you once you gon' want some more
Boy let me, let me, let me
Let me do those things for you
Boy let me, let me
Why don't you let me, let me
Boy let me, let me
Let me do those things for you
Boy let me, let me
Why don't you let me, let me
Boy let me, let me
Let me do those things for you
In "Let Me" by Rihanna, the singer is expressing her desire to be with a man who catches her eye from across the room. She is not content with simply watching him from afar and wants to do things for him, to please him. Rihanna is confident in her sexuality and isn't afraid to make the first move, as she's the one who walks over to the man and asks him to meet her by the door. She's even willing to fulfill his deepest desires and let him call her beautiful. The chorus repeats her request for him to let her do those things for him, indicating that she wants to please him in any way she can.
The lyrics of "Let Me" are straightforward and explicit, describing Rihanna's sexual desires and willingness to please her partner. The use of repetition in the chorus emphasizes her desire to take action and do things for her partner. The song highlights Rihanna's confidence and sexual agency, which have been a recurring theme in many of her previous songs.
Line by Line Meaning
Boy let me, let me
Rihanna is urging the boy to let her do certain things to him.
Why don't you let me, let me
Rihanna is questioning why the boy is not allowing her to do the things she wants to do to him.
Let me do those things for you
Rihanna wants the boy to let her pleasure him in ways that he desires.
I been watching you from way 'cross the room
Rihanna has been observing the boy from afar.
Won't ya come and rock it out with me
Rihanna is inviting the boy to come dance with her.
You catchin' eyes like you catchin' ties
Rihanna notices that the boy is attracting a lot of attention in the room.
Over here's where you wanna be
Rihanna believes that the boy wants to be with her.
It's so familiar, like we met somewhere before
Rihanna feels like she and the boy have a connection or have met before.
And I'm tired of waitin' baby while you still obey me
Rihanna is tired of waiting for the boy to make a move on her.
Want me come and whisper in your ear
Rihanna wants to whisper seductive things to the boy.
All the things you love to hear
Rihanna wants to say things to the boy that he will find arousing or flattering.
I wanna come play nice with you
Rihanna wants to engage in sexual activities with the boy.
'Cause if I get you alone I don't know what I might do
Rihanna is saying that if she were alone with the boy, she might give in to her desires.
And I think that it's about time we leave
Rihanna believes that it is time for her and the boy to go somewhere private.
'Cause boy you're my type
Rihanna finds the boy attractive and compatible with her.
You got me so excited
Rihanna is aroused by the boy's presence and wants to engage in sexual activities with him.
Baby let's go dance away
Rihanna wants to dance with the boy before getting intimate.
So let me come and get ya right
Rihanna wants to take control sexually and ensure that the boy is satisfied.
Boy let me fill your appetite
Rihanna wants to satisfy the boy's sexual needs.
Won't you let me know what it is you like
Rihanna wants the boy to communicate his sexual desires to her.
And I'll do those sexy things for you
Rihanna wants to engage in the specific sexual activities that the boy enjoys.
I'll let you call me beautiful
Rihanna wants the boy to refer to her as 'beautiful' during their intimate activities.
Let me give it to you once you gon want some more
Rihanna is confident in her ability to satisfy the boy sexually and believes that he will want more after having sex with her.
Not into me boy I doubt it
Rihanna believes that the boy is into her.
You are gonna scream and shout it
Rihanna believes that the boy will be vocal during their intimate activities.
Make you hot how I move my body
Rihanna believes that her body movements will arouse the boy.
So crazy, so amazing
Rihanna believes that their intimate activities will be wild and satisfying.
Catch you up and make you chase it
Rihanna believes that she will sexually stimulate the boy and make him want more.
Let me let me baby
Rihanna wants to be allowed to engage in sexual activities with the boy.
Lyrics Β© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Mikkel Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen, Makeba Riddick
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@LaTayaJones-yl6xe
Rihannaβs music never gets oldβ€
@lindaparole
Love her voice and yes shes the best from all of themπβ€π₯π
@XXXmarquise
This sounds like songs from Amerie's Touch album, I wouldn't be afraid if they drew inspiration from it. She sounds great!
@TimeToTzuyu
Yes! Definitely has Amerie vibes. Love her
@vanneshalewis11
This was released before that album
@user-cc4gf5pg7m
@Rayaβs Life no Rihanna was September 2005 and amerie April 2005
@woke1497
@t I'm sure the album was finished recording way before that date lmao. She prob recorded this album in 2004
@Robynrrrr
β@@user-cc4gf5pg7mshe record the album back in 03/04 when she was sending demos to record labels, so this was record way before Amerie started to experiment with this sound.
@brunodacruz5402
One of my favourite songs By her
@jafarrihbeauty3345
I love this song OMG π