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).
Roc Me Out
Rihanna Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
This is for your eyes on it
Roc me out, back and forth
Roc me out, on the floor
Give it to me like I need it
You know how to make me feel it
Roc me out, more and more
Come over boy, I'm so ready
You're taking too long to get my head on the ground
And my feet in the clouds, oh oh
I'm so clean feeling so dirty
Come right now, you better hurry
Boy you miss out, and I'll finish it off, oh yeah
I've been a bad girl, daddy
Won't you come get me?
So give it to me like I want it
This is for your eyes on it
Roc me out, back and forth
Roc me out, on the floor
Give it to me like I need it
You know how to make me feel it
Roc me out, more and more
Roc me out, on the floor
Keep it off from me, you can do it
Put your hands on me, watch me lose it
Boy blew it out, like it's the only way out
I'll show you my dirty secrets
We'll hush up boy, don't just speak you
Whatever we do, it's between me and you
I've been a bad girl, daddy
Won't you come get me?
So give it to me like I want it
This is for your eyes on it
Roc me out, back and forth
Roc me out, on the floor
Give it to me like I need it
You know how to make me feel it
Roc me out, more and more
Roc me out, on the floor
It's gonna be different tonight
The best time in your life
I just want you to know, baby
Take a peek at the girl
I'll let you win on a dirty secret
I just wanna be loved
So give it to me like I want it
This is for your eyes on it
Roc me out, back and forth
Roc me out, on the floor
Give it to me like I need it
You know how to make me feel it
Roc me out, more and more
Roc me out, on the floor
The lyrics of Rihanna's "Roc Me Out" are about desire and wanting to be taken to the heights of pleasure with a partner who knows how to make her feel good. She's asking her partner to give it to her like she wants it and needs it, and to rock her out back and forth on the floor. She’s giving permission to her partner to be adventurous with her, to try out dirty secrets, and to enjoy the pleasures that come with it. The lyrics convey the idea of being in the moment of passion and exploring the depths of pleasure with someone, almost like having a bargain with each other to keep it between them.
The chorus is an invitation to her partner to give her the pleasure she desires, and she’s willing to show her “dirty” secrets, while keeping everything between them. The bridge announces that tonight will be different, the best time in his life and acknowledges that she just wants to be loved.
Overall, "Roc Me Out" is a sexually charged song that explores the ideas of intimacy and pleasure between two partners. The lyrics reinforce the message of keeping it between them, making it a personal moment in their relationship that is meant to be enjoyed thoroughly.
Line by Line Meaning
So give it to me like I want it
I want you to give it to me in the exact way that I desire
This is for your eyes on it
I'm performing this for you, so pay attention
Roc me out, back and forth
Move me smoothly and rhythmically, back and forth
Roc me out, on the floor
Rock me while we're on the dance floor
Give it to me like I need it
I need you to make me feel it, and you know how
You know how to make me feel it
You know how to please me and get me turned on
Roc me out, more and more
Rock me harder and more intensely than before
Roc me out, on the floor
Continue to rock me while we dance on the floor
Come over boy, I'm so ready
I'm impatient and eager for you to be with me
You're taking too long to get my head on the ground
You're taking too long to bring me to the point of surrender
And my feet in the clouds, oh oh
I want to experience both passion and ecstasy
I'm so clean feeling so dirty
I'm innocent and pure, but I want to indulge in something naughty
Come right now, you better hurry
I can't wait any longer for you to come and satisfy me
Boy you miss out, and I'll finish it off, oh yeah
If you don't come soon, I'll have to take care of it myself
I've been a bad girl, daddy
I've been up to no good, and I want you to come punish me
Won't you come get me?
Please come and take control of me
Keep it off from me, you can do it
Don't tell anyone about what we're doing, it's our secret
Put your hands on me, watch me lose it
Touch me and make me lose control
Boy blew it out, like it's the only way out
You're going all out and holding nothing back
I'll show you my dirty secrets
I'll reveal my naughty side to you
We'll hush up boy, don't just speak you
Let's keep quiet and let our actions speak for themselves
Whatever we do, it's between me and you
Our intimacy is just between us, and no one else
It's gonna be different tonight
Tonight is going to be unlike any other night
The best time in your life
This is going to be the most enjoyable night of your life
I just want you to know, baby
I want you to know how much I desire you
Take a peek at the girl
Get a closer look at who I really am
I'll let you win on a dirty secret
I'm going to reveal something naughty to you
I just wanna be loved
All I want is to be loved and desired by you
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Ester Dean, Mikkel Storleer Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen, Robert Thompson Swire, Gareth Thomas Stephensen Mcgrillen
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Talha Ers
So give it to me like I want it
This is for your eyes on it
Roc me out, back and forth
Roc me out, on the floor
Give it to me like I need it
You know how to make me feel it
Roc me out, more and more
Roc me out, on the floor
Come over boy, I'm so ready
You're taking too long to get my head on the ground
And my feet in the clouds, oh oh
I'm so clean feeling so dirty
Come right now, you better hurry
Boy you miss out, and I'll finish it off, oh yeah
I've been a bad girl, daddy
Won't you come get me?
So give it to me like I want it
This is for your eyes on it
Roc me out, back and forth
Roc me out, on the floor
Give it to me like I need it
You know how to make me feel it
Roc me out, more and more
Roc me out, on the floor
Keep it off from me, you can do it
Put your hands on me, watch me lose it
Boy blew it out, like it's the only way out
I'll show you my dirty secrets
We'll hush up boy, don't just speak you
Whatever we do, it's between me and you
I've been a bad girl, daddy
Won't you come get me?
So give it to me like I want it
This is for your eyes on it
Roc me out, back and forth
Roc me out, on the floor
Give it to me like I need it
You know how to make me feel it
Roc me out, more and more
Roc me out, on the floor
It's gonna be different tonight
The best time in your life
I just want you to know, baby
Take a peek at the girl
I'll let you win on a dirty secret
I just wanna be loved
So give it to me like I want it
This is for your eyes on it
Roc me out, back and forth
Roc me out, on the floor
Give it to me like I need it
You know how to make me feel it
Roc me out, more and more
Roc me out, on the floor
Slytherose
Why this song is not very popular? Why the old songs of Rihanna are not popular? They are the best!
Flawless Love
So true 👌👏
aylen narbaes
I'm asking the same! This song sounds so famous but... it doesn't!
Coffee11
Rosemary F. not a single
Romulo Calabria
I ask the same thing every time I listen to some of her old songs.Feels like a waste of work, money and talent.She lost the opportunity to get richer by not promoting this song in the right way.Maybe if this song were with some other singer, this song would be a hit, because there's so much potential in this record.(Sorry for my bad english)
Wendy Johnson
This songs doesn't really deserve to be popular. It's kinda a rip off of Rude Boy
RihannaNavyRiRi
My Favs are 1. We Found Love 2. You Da One 3 Where Have You Been 4 Drunk On Love 5 Talk That Talk But the whole album is sooo good. Roc Me Out, Cockiness and Watch N Learn are also really good. I a huge Rihanna fan. The whole album is just amazing.
NotOkay
This should be her next single. Totally a radio song and would top the charts :)
P Jay
This is one of her best albums !!
alexis graham
Yes this one, unapologetic and rated R are my top three 💚