Rihanna's profile

Sure, her song “Umbrella” might have annoyed when you heard it for the 19th time. But you have to admit, the first few times you listened to it, you thought it was good. Rihanna had a monster hit on her hands with that song, but even though it was her first number one Billboard ranking, she was no stranger to making great pop music. She was voted #8 in the AskMen.com’s Top 99 Women 2008 Edition.

After being discovered by a vacationing music producer in her home country of Barbados, Rihanna quickly got the attention of rapper Jay-Z, who signed Rihanna to DefJams Records. Her first album, Music of the Sun wasn’t anything special, according to Rolling Stone magazine, which said the album was, “lacking of ingenuity and rhythm.” But the album did contain the hit single “Pon de Replay,” and perhaps because of this single, the record went platinum.

Her follow up album, A Girl Like Me, fared a bit a better with critics in 2006, and included the hit “SOS”, which uses samples of Soft Cell’s song, “Tainted Love.” The song “SOS” was given an extra boosted in airplay when Nike used the song in their ad campaign in 2006. The song spawned a sexy music video, featuring a belly-dancing Rihanna.

A year later, in 2007, Rihanna released her third album Good Girl Gone Bad, witch featured the great/annoying song “Umbrella” and the new single “Shut up and Drive.” Both songs became mainstays on MTV Hits and MTV 2, probably due in no small part to Rihanna’s tight clothing, or in the case of “Umbrella”, her lack of clothing.