To celebrate ‘ANTI’s’ release, we reflect on Rihanna’s influential artistry.
by Grace Birnstengel | Art by Grace Molteni
Last fall, Rihanna told British magazine New Musical Express (NME) that unlike the other stars joining Taylor Swift on stage during her 1989 tour, she “doubts” she’d accept an invitation. “I just don’t think it makes sense,” she said. In her mind, she said, “[Swift] is a role model, I’m not.”
This comment from Rihanna was headline-worthy perhaps only because audiences expected her to jump on the role model bandwagon. The media compartmentalizes female pop stars into boxes of what they can and cannot “respectably” do, but Rihanna subverts all of that. She’s not interested in being whatever a “role model” is. She’s interested in making music. Who says that producing good art means also campaigning for your character?
It’s been a decade since Barbados’s beloved star Rihanna emerged with her debut album Music of the Sun in 2005. We danced to the then-17-year-old’s singles “Pon de Replay” and “If It’s Lovin’ That You Want,” and followed her career from teenage break-out star to “bad girl RiRi,” to her current cultural position as a major pop star.
Since her debut album, Rihanna has put out six more full-length albums. There was A Girl Like Me, just eight months after her debut, where Ri offered serious tracks about infidelity (“Unfaithful”) and obsessive love (“SOS”). As she entered her 20s, Good Girl Gone Bad and Rated R, in 2007 and 2009 respectfully, gave Rihanna a new, angrier edge, expressing her sexuality more overtly (“Rude Boy”), and her first Grammy award for “Umbrella.”
As she grew in popularity, Rihanna’s songwriting grew with her, gaining new complexities and themes with every album, from coping with her abusive relationship with hip-hop singer Chris Brown (“Love Without Tragedy / Mother Mary”) to her sexual dominance (“S&M”).
Now, as we celebrate Rihanna’s newest release, ANTI — which dropped on January 28 — it’s difficult to get distracted by a “role-model-or-not” critique when her artistry and character are each so subversive and inspiring.
To start, Rihanna is incredibly talented. She transitioned from selling clothes with her father in a stall on the streets of Bridgetown, Barbados to winning eight Grammy awards and 13 number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming the youngest and fastest solo artist to do this. She’s also tied Michael Jackson for third-most Hot 100 number ones, according to Billboard.
Rihanna also resonates with the average woman — despite her glam and financial success — perhaps because she colors outside the lines, whether it’s releasing her own marijuana line or stickin’ it to the man and giving away free downloads of her newest work.
In a candid interview with writer and filmmaker Miranda July for New York Times Magazine in October, we learned that Rihanna manages her own Instagram because, she says, “My fans can sniff the BS from very far away.” We also learned that she has an exquisite knowledge of fashion (it’s not just a part of her image, but of who she is) and that she prefers to always be looking forward. “I don’t want to get lost in this big cushion of success,” she told July.
Above all, Rihanna’s public image shows that she is going to be herself and not shy away from the complex. The video for her single, “Bitch Better Have My Money,” was critiqued by many to be anti-feminist and misogynistic; the seven-minute film was co-directed by Rihanna, whose intention was to produce something unexpected, according to her co-directors Leo Berne and Charles Brisgand.
There are plenty of celebrities who seemingly always have their shit together wrapped in a perfect bow. Rihanna is a human being and isn’t afraid to let you know, and that level of truthful vulnerability is something to aspire to, as an artist or a fan. We ask a lot of female pop stars, and Rihanna flips that notion right on its head.
Named after Bikini Kill’s 1993 track of the same name, “New Radio” explores contemporary music, from album release roundups to cultural analyses.
To see “New Radio” in print, and for more cultural analyses, check out Issue 4 here.
Grace Birnstengel is a senior studying journalism and gender studies at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. She is the editor-in-chief of the student magazine, The Wake, and also freelance writes for Stereogum and The Current. Follow her on Twitter @grace__. (That’s two underscores!)
