Rihanna

Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born in 1988 in Saint Michael, Barbados. In 2003 she formed a trio with two classmates, and they auditioned for the American producer Evan Rogers. He later said that “the minute Rihanna walked into the room, it was like the other two girls didn’t exist”. Her demo reached Jay-Z, who had just become head of Def Jam. In early 2005 she sang for him in New York and signed.

Her first two albums had a Caribbean sound, as on Pon de Replay. With Good Girl Gone Bad (2007) she changed her image, and Umbrella spent ten weeks at number one in the UK. The darker Rated R followed, then a run of dance-pop albums. Anti (2016) mixes pop, dancehall and psychedelic soul.

Since then she has released little music. In 2017 she launched the cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty, and in 2019 the fashion house Fenty, the first original brand created by a woman at LVMH. On 12 February 2023 she headlined the Super Bowl halftime show, her first live performance in over five years, and revealed she was pregnant. Barbados named her a National Hero in 2021.

Start with Umbrella, then play Anti all the way through, her most varied album. Keep Diamonds for last.