Biography
Vocalist Rihanna began her music career with innocuous pop like "Pon de Replay" in 2005 before branching out to more adventurous fare with subsequent releases, including "Umbrella," "Love the Way You Lie," "We Found Love" and "FourFiveSeconds," all of which helped to earn her 14 No. 1 singles, numerous Grammy Awards, and the clout to launch her own successful fashion lines. Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988 in St. Michael, Barbados, she grew up in a troubled household marked by her father's alcohol and drug addiction and domestic abuse he visited upon her mother, Monica, as well as her own struggle with debilitating headaches. Music provided her with both inspiration and an outlet, and her love for the reggae music and American pop songs she heard throughout her childhood led her to form a musical act with two classmates. A chance introduction to American record producer Evan Rogers, who had worked with Christina Aguilera, among other pop stars, resulted in demo recordings that focused solely on Rihanna; the tapes, which included early takes on "Pon de Replay," made their way to Def Jam Records, where newly appointed president/CEO Jay-Z, invited her to audition for the label. Her performance for Jay-Z and producer Antonio "L.A." Reid led to a six-album contract with Def Jam, which in turn resulted in her solo debut with 2005's Music of the Sun. Buoyed by the lead single, the island-flavored "Replay," which reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, Music breached the Top 10 on the albums, chart and was followed almost immediately by a second LP, A Girl Like Me (2006). It improved upon the ground claimed by its predecessor, reaching the Top 10 on 13 international album charts and earning platinum sales status on the strength of the Top 5 single "SOS" and Top 10 follow-up, "Unfaithful." Both singles were distinctly different from the other - "SOS" hinged on '80s-style synth-pop, while "Unfaithful" was a soaring ballad - and that diversity within a single album would largely mark the course of Rihanna's subsequent efforts. Her catalog expanded nearly overnight, with Good Girl Gone Bad dropping in 2007 and a remix album arriving in 2008; the original release became her biggest-selling LP to date with more than 2.8 million copies sold, while its chart-topping lead single, the plaintive "Umbrella," broke chart records in the UK and earned her a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. The tumult of recordings continued unabated with 2009's Rated R, a much darker affair that seemed to reflect her own personal turmoil - Rihanna's relationship with R&B singer Chris Brown was sullied when photographs of her with visual signs of physical assault surfaced in the media - and songs like "Rude Boy" and "Hard" seemed to reflect the pall that had been cast over her life by the incident. But Rihanna rebounded in typical fashion by settling into a steady schedule of yearly new singles and albums: the chart-topping 2010 single "Love The Way You Lie," which featured Eminem, and team-ups with Kanye West ("All of the Lights") and Nicki Minaj ("Fly") preceded her fifth album, Loud (2010), and three more No. 1's, including the Drake collaboration "What's My Name?" and a second Grammy for Best Dance Recording. Talk That Talk (2011) produced "We Found Love," which resided at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for a record-breaking 10 non-consecutive weeks, while "All of the Lights" brought Rihanna a third Grammy for Best Sung/Rap Collaboration in 2012. She finally landed a No. 1 album with her seventh release, Unapologetic (2012), and generated a No. 1 single, "We Found Love," which also netted a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video. Two more successful collaborations - a reunion with Eminem on "The Monster" and "Can't Remember to Forget You" with Shakira - preceded a creative hiatus and her departure from Def Jam for Jay-Z's Roc Nation agency. After an uncharacteristic break of a year, Rihanna began releasing new singles at a steady clip in 2015, including "FourFiveSeconds," a Top 5 collaboration with Kanye West and Paul McCartney. She also expanded her burgeoning acting career - which encompassed supporting roles in "Battleship" (2012) - with a lead vocal turn in DreamWorks Animation's "Home" (2015), before releasing her eighth studio album, Anti (2016). Like Unapologetic, it debuted at the top of the albums chart, and featured the No. 1 single "Work" and two Top 10 follow-ups in "Needed Me" and "Love on the Brain." More new singles, including efforts with West on "Famous," Calvin Harris on "This is What You Came For," and "Lemon" by N.E.R.D., encompassed her output for 2017, while acting roles in "Ocean's 8" (2018) and Donald Glover's musical short feature "Guava Island" dominated the following year's output. Having served as the face of numerous fashion and beauty products for nearly a decade, including Armani and Puma, Rihanna launched her own fashion brand, Fenty, in 2019, which made her the first woman and woman of color to found such a company.
