RihannaDiamonds
from
the album
Unapologetic
(2012)
Produced by Stargate and Benny Blanco, "Diamonds" boasts soaring vocals and
an undeniable hook. The
Diamonds Songfacts reports the song was premiered on September
26, 2012 during Elvis Duran and the Morning Show and was made available for
digital download an hour later. On the
Billboard Hot 100 chart, dated
December 1, 2012, released on
Thanksgiving day of 2012, "Diamonds" became Rihanna's
twelfth number one single on the chart, tying her with
Madonna and
The Supremes in fifth place for
artists with the most number one hits. It also tied her for second place with
Madonna for
female artists with
the same feat. Only
Mariah Carey has more, with
eighteen number ones. Rihanna also became the female artist to get twelve number
one hits the fastest.
“You’re not sad or dancing. You’re happy and hippie. It’s laid-back, but it’s
hopeful,” Rihanna told Elvis Duran. “It gives me such a great feeling when I
listen to it. The lyrics are very hopeful and positive, but it’s about love and
the gears are a little different from what people would expect. I’m excited to
surprise them sonically.”
Aussie songwriter Sia penned the lyrics, which reference various drugs.
“Palms rise to the universe/ As we, moonshine and molly/ Feel the warmth, we’ll
never die/ We’re like diamonds in the sky,” sings the Bajan babe, who will
launch her “Diamonds World Tour” in March.
Robyn Rihanna Fenty (born February 20, 1988), known by her stage name,
Rihanna, is a Bajan singer. Her song
Umbrella was one of the
highest-selling songs of 2007 and her 3rd album
Good Girl Gone
Bad was critically acclaimed, helping propel her to superstar status. She
has attained twelve Billboard Hot 100 number ones thus far and is the second
Bajan artist to win a Grammy Award. She is also a cultural ambassador for
Barbados.
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
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".
Rihanna is finishing up recording of her upcoming fourth album, which is
slated for a late-Fall release. Play.com has confirmed that the album will be
released on November 23, 2009 whereas Amazon.co.uk has said that the album will
be released November 16, 2009. She will be in the studio with
Tricky,
The-Dream,
Stargate,
Ne-Yo and
SRP in the coming
weeks.
In August 2009, Rihanna collaborated with
Jay-Z and
Kanye West on "
Run
This Town." The song has so far peaked at number three on Billboard Hot 100
and also reached the top ten in five other countries. Rihanna has also been
working on her fourth studio album. 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.
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 later after "
Loud" be released. 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 and was not as successful as "
We
Found Love". The third single from the album was announced on Rihanna's
Twitter. The title track featuring
Jay-Z. A music video is rumored to be
in the works.
In 2012, the singer will appear in the movie "Battleship", which is based on
the game of the same name.
On February 20, 2012, Rihanna and
Chris Brown released 2 remixes
featuring the other:
Birthday Cake &
Turn
Up The Music
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.