Vibe.com, August 8th, 2005
Indeed, anyone who’s seen Rihanna’s color-splashed video for “Pon De Replay” - which resuscitates the Diwali riddim - would say Aaliyah’s famed instructor did a superb job with Def Jam’s debutante.
But it was Rihanna’s voice, not her dancing, that dazzled the label’s buttoned-up execs (particularly Jay-Z) during her audition earlier this year. “I was shaking,” she says in her charming Bajan accent. “But you either thrive or flop under pressure. I thrive.” Clearly, if Jay-Z insists on inking a deal hours after your audition, you’ve thrived.
Even after Rihanna performed at a Caribbean beauty pageant in 2001 and won her school’s talent show last year, some, including her mother, Monica, had doubts. “In the Caribbean, we aim to be doctors or lawyers,” says Rihanna. “My mother [an accountant] used to ask me what I wanted to be, and I would reply, Entertainer. She’d give me this look. But now she’s proud of me because I stuck to my dream.”
Rihanna’s manicured hands and scarred legs (“I used to climb trees and throw pebbles at ducks”) offer a kind of analogy to her fusion of R&B; and raw West Indian sounds. Overseen by pop producers Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers (Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson), her debut, Music of the Sun, ranges from a remake of Dawn Penn’s reggae classic “You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)” to the soulful, acoustic guitar–driven ballad “The Last Time.” The only constant is Rihanna’s fluid, Beyoncé-like inflections. “Rihanna’s music is in her blood,” affirms Kardinal Offishall, a guest on the album. “She sounds natural, not contrived, and that’s something special that needs to be exposed.”
And Rihanna is excited about taking her authentic sound worldwide. “It’s so amazing to come from a small Caribbean island and blow up internationally,” she says as silver bangles jingle on her wrists. “This was always my dream, and now that it has come true, I’m ready for anything that comes with it.” Snakelike belly moves and all.
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