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Rihanna was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988 to a Barbadian father and a Guyanese mother in the Parrish of St. Michael, Barbados, an island in the Caribbean.
She had a fairly common childhood growing up. She attended the Charles F. Broome Memorial School, then attended the Combermere School in Waterford, St. Michael. She was an average teenage kid, except she did win the beauty pageant at the Combermere High School in 2004 – of course she sang as her talent.
She never tried to pursue a career in music when she was younger. However, she did like to sing and would do so for her own enjoyment or the enjoyment of her friends and family.
She came into the world of the music industry almost overnight. A friend introduced her to a music producer named Evan Rogers, from New York City, who was vacationing with his wife Jackie during December 2003. His wife was born in Barbados and had shared the mutual friends with Rihanna. She sang a song for him and he was instantly mesmerized by her voice, look and style.
In 2004, together with Rogers (and co-producer Carl Sturken), produced a demo CD with twelve of Rihanna’s songs and sent them off to various record labels and people within the industry. [Note: the demo included her first hit “Pon De Replay”.]
In January 2005 she moved to New York to be closer to the action. In February, 2005, when Jay Z (Shawn Carter), rapper and CEO of Def Jam Recordings, heard the demo, he just had to sign her. The rumor is that he would not let her leave his office until she signed. In fact, they did not finish up the negotiations until 4:30 the following morning. Def Jam was lucky to get her. She was sought after by many other labels – in fact, she had to cancel meetings with seven other recording companies after signing with Jay Z.
She signed a contract for six albums, and Rihanna went to work recording and co-writing the songs for her first album (LP) entitled Music of the Sun. The album is to be released on August 30, 2005. You can hear her Caribbean influences transfused in the music along with reggae, hip hop, R&B, soul and “soca” the cultural music of Barbados. The album also includes tracks that feature Elephant Man and Vybz Kartel.
Her first single from the album, “Pon De Replay” was released in June 2005, before the album was released and quickly made it to #2 on the US charts and #15 in Canada. An accompanying video was released in 2005 and included scenes of this beautiful young woman singing the song. The single has also been nomitated for the 2005 Teen Choice Awards for Choice Summer Song.
Rihanna's sophomore album, A Girl Like Me was released in April 2006 to much initial success and has quickly gone gold. To hear some audio from the album, click here.
Rihanna will be hosting the red carpet for MTV's Movie Awards ceremony.
