Rihanna is Deeper Than You

Contemplation from under the Umbrella, ella, ella, ay, ay...

Shem Best

and

Rasheed Griffith

Jul 13, 2024

Full Transcript Below

Show notes

Rihanna is deeper than you. And we mean that. Rihanna's cultural relevance (despite her foray into cosmetics and fashion) remains deeply rooted in Caribbean society. Behind the generic summer beats and a few questionable lyrics, lies a regional thinker who has created 8 memorable albums, each chronicling her own evolution and development as an artist. Join us for another frank musical discussion, journeying from "Pon De Replay" to "Work", as we cover Rihanna's cultural influence and contributions to the Caribbean's sociopolitical landscape.

This episode contains some adult language and references. Listener discretion is advised.

Episode Playlist:

All songs referenced in this episode.

This transcript was automatically generated by AI and lightly edited by our team. We don’t catch every error, so if you spot one, send us a message/email via shem@cpsi.org.

Shem: Good morning, Rasheed. Well, good afternoon for you.

Rasheed: Hello, Shem.

Shem: We are gathered here today for this momentous occasion. This is us discussing Rihanna, as only people born in Barbados can.

Rasheed: Two Bajans (local demonym for a Barbadian) discussing the most famous Bajan in the world, in history.

Shem: If you're Jamaican and you take offense to us reclaiming our national hero, I advise that you stop listening now.

Rasheed: Was that really a thing? Were they upset because she's Barbadian?

Shem: They weren't upset because she is Barbadian. What had happened was, a lot of people think that Rihanna is Jamaican. Which is weird because when you say "I'm from Barbados they go, where's that? And you go, Rihanna. And they go, Oh!" It means a lot of those people are lying and they still don't know where Barbados is. They're just doing it all because they want to get rid of you or they don't want to admit that they still think she's from Jamaica.

Rasheed: Well, a lot of times in my experience of my globe trotting, people have heard the word Barbados because Rihanna, but they don't actually know where it is.

Shem: No idea where it is, but there was a culture war on Twitter. Sorry, X, formerly known as Twitter, where Jamaica claimed Rihanna as their own. So what we did was claim Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce down to photoshopping a Bajan jersey on her at the Olympics. And it didn't blow over well. Caribbean culture wars, I'm here for it.

So we are here to discuss the life and times, the career, the cultural impact, the spirituality around our diamond. Cause that's what Mia called her. Our Goddamn Avon lady. From the time she blew onto the scene. If "Pon De Replay", from Music of the Sun, we were in, we had just gone to secondary school.

Rasheed: 2005. Yes.

Shem: Yeah. 2005. And this girl just came in shattered speakers and subwoofers everywhere. It was a huge bop. Fast forward and we haven't gotten any music since Anti, that was 2006. It's been eight years. Can she even still call herself an artist?

Rasheed: Let’s unpack that after the introduction comments about "Pon De Replay".

Rasheed: "Pon De Replay" is, I think, the only Barbadian, Bajan title of any of her songs. I could be wrong about that, but I think that's the case.

Shem: No, it really is. It is the only one using our dialect. Wait, wait, no, it's not uniquely Barbados because we're going to do another song later where a phrase like that is going to appear.

I think this particular vernacular is common across the region. Not just Barbados.

Rasheed: Well, I think at least it's definitely part of Barbadian dialect, maybe it's not singularly Barbadian.

Shem: It is part of Barbados’ language culture for sure, but as we will see when we go further, these types of words, this type of shortening of words is very common across the region.

So, "Pon De Replay" debuts in 2005. Rihanna splashes onto the scene and I think she's your typical pop artist. Let's not beat around the bush. She is amazing, we are obligated by law to say she's amazing because she's Barbadian. Rasheed would like you to believe that he has extra stardom because he lived on the same street as her or something. She lived near you but back when she was Robyn, it wasn't Rihanna.

So you lived near Robyn. I would have you know that in the morning I jogged past her house. So I have more stardust on me since I jog past Rihanna Drive. Have you even seen Rihanna Drive?

Rasheed: Yeah, I used to live there.

Shem: No, no. Have you seen it as it is now, Rihanna Drive?

Rasheed: It changed? I don't think it changed.

Shem: You have not been back to Barbados since we renamed it.

Rasheed: I don't think it changed.

Shem: It was #2 Westbury or something. It wasn't Rihanna Drive. When you were here, it wasn't Rihanna Drive. I'm talking about modern Rihanna Drive.

Rasheed: In ‘21, I went back to Barbados and it looked the exact same way. Nothing changed.

The only thing that changed is that her actual house now has more colors. The house she lived in. That's the only thing that changed.

Shem: It's got a plaque. It's just like a lit. It's an illuminated billboard thing. You know, those things you see in museums that have the exhibits. There's one now at the end. It calls her "Our Diamond", with like a black and white picture of her and everything. And then there's a rum shop right behind it because it wouldn't be Barbados if that weren't the case..

Rasheed: That was there from the time I was a child.

Shem: It's true. But you don't know Rihanna Drive as I know Rihanna Drive.

Rasheed: So anyway. Yeah. So me and Rihanna grew up in the same neighborhood.

Sometimes I am happy to say that, but at the same time, people ask, "Oh, you're from Barbados, you must know all the people in Barbados. Do you even know Rihanna?" And I was like, well, we actually grew up in the same neighborhood. So it kind of reinforces that really absurd thing people think when you grew up in a small country.

Shem: I guess we could get into this right now when it comes to, you know, the whole stardom thing. Having grown up on an island that's basically a pebble with 260, 000 people living on it. And then people realize even now, if Rihanna returns to Barbados, it is not a big deal for us. And we live around all these local stars. I didn't know who lived around the corner from. I didn't know that the Mighty Grynner lives up the road from me.

TC's mom is my neighbor, was my neighbor. She's moved. I only figured that out when my mom told me, cause she spoke to me the other day. And my mom was like "it's TC's mom". I'm like, "who's TC?" She's tells me the the singer. I'm like, we know TC's mom? Really? So to tell somebody, yeah, I grew up with Rihanna. Not a big deal.

Relax. Just chill, chill, chill. Rihanna could walk through town this very moment, we ain't gonna bat an eyelid. She's heading to Woolworth's (British-Barbadian Department Store) like everyone else.

Rasheed: She does that. This is one of the weirdest things about Caribbean and just Caribbean culture, Rihanna being a Caribbean girl.

It kind of sounds weird to say that even these days. But Rihanna goes back to Barbados. She goes to carnival. And just like any other Barbadian person goes to carnival, she goes and buys corn.

Yeah, she signs up for a band. She's in Aura (a local Crop Over Parade band). She comes back to Barbados to escape the brouhaha of celebrity life.

Shem: Apparently Barbados wasn't good enough for the kids though, because she went back to the States real fast to give birth. But anyhow.

Rasheed: Well, I think she probably wants to get an American passport.

Shem: You're trying to say the Barbados passport is not powerful?

Rasheed: I guess they would because the father is American already, right?

Shem: Yeah, the father is American. The kids automatically get citizenship, or they need to be born on American soil?

Rasheed: Well, they can apply if he's American, but they automatically get if they're born there. Which is the, again, the most, um, Barbadian thing she could have done.

Shem: He's American with Barbadian parents I'm told.

You know, when she announced that little, that little union, I remember the running joke was she just, she can't get away from Bajan man. Like she just had to go find another Bajan man for real. What else was she going to find in New York? It's basically West India part two.

Rasheed: You know, she dated across the world, but it kind of reinforces that idea that Rihanna, at the end of the day, Rihanna is still a Barbadian girl who lives in America.

When you hear her talk, when you hear her explain things still sounds like "oh, so that's a Barbadian accent". Kind of like how we explain things and how we think about things very similarly. And honestly, I'm very surprised that has stuck with her.

Shem: Down to the accent, she still has the accent.

Rasheed: Yeah, down to the accent, that's right.

Shem: She sometimes tries to do an American accent. You know, that one thing that Bajans do where they go to Brooklyn for two weeks and come back sounding posh. And we tell them, “no, stop that, stop that right now”. And they drop it immediately. Well, she still has it. I remember there was a YouTube stream or an Instagram stream with her and Nicki Minaj, where they were talking about their island heritage. And you can hear Rihanna's thick Bajan accent. And the whole time I'm just looking at Nicki, going, “girl, where your Trini accent?”

Rasheed: But she didn't grow up in Trinidad though.

Shem: She was born in Trinidad and Tobago, but she didn't grow up in Trinidad.

She was there for the first few but not the formative years of her life. So she's been in the United States long enough that I guess the accent is out the window. But at the end of the day, this won't be controversial but it is not that difficult to do a Trini accent. Let's be honest.

Rasheed: It's not, it's not.

Shem: Now, the Bajan accent does sound like a grand piano going down a flight of stairs. So it's a little more difficult for you to perfect that. But yeah. And this is me. And this is me as a Bajan saying, yes, I know our accent can be hard, which is why in these podcasts, even though it may escape every now and then, I still try to maintain some standard English so that our listeners don't end up out to sea when they tune in. But just a small easter-egg here. Rasheed also has quite the Bajan accent. So if you do happen to hear it, sometimes it is enchanting. The Bajan accent is enchanting. That's all I'll tell people. If you don't like it, ‘at you get up good!’ (Bajan: that’s your problem, be blessed).

Rasheed: I don't think anyone that knows me now has ever really heard me speaking pure Bajan. Will it make any sense? You can't understand what I'm saying.

If I speak pure Bajan.

Shem: We're setting off a chain of events because I've been on, I've been on social media, batting off Trinis, St. Lucians, Jamaicans. They call us the hardest accent to understand in the West Indies, definitely. And they have the Bahamians next. And then someone in the conversation was like, "yeah, the Bahamians sound like the Bajans." And the Bahamians were like, "now, why are we catching strays? Why are we getting lumped in?" And I have actually listened to a Bahamian accent. I can't say for sure, but they do sound a little similar. I'm not going to lie. They do sound a little similar. Let's reel it back. Let's reel it back to Rihanna.

Rasheed: Well, to "Pon De Replay". Of course, of all the songs we will discuss, this is the most basic of them.

To put it mildly, I would say. But I do like this song to start because it really shows the maturity over time of Rihanna, into the music, production, quality, even thematic elements as well. Pon De Replay is a basic club song.

Shem: It's just summer. It was supposed to be the summer banger and it did what it needed to do.

It's the Sprite of pop music. It's just, it's there. You drink it, you move along, but it did what it needed to do, which is get Rihanna's name out there. She's about to be a hit. She's about to be a sensation. I'm going to be very honest with you. Whenever I hear Pon De Replay, it is in the most obscure locations these days.

Rasheed: Like where?

Shem: The last time I heard Pon De Replay out in the wild. I can't believe I just said that out in the wild. I was standing in a Macy's in New York and it just came over. I was like, what is happening here? I think that when enough Caribbean people gather in one spot the collective energy forces that sort of thing to happen because a woman in front of me saw my CIBC (First Caribbean International Bank) credit card and she ran up to me and held out her CIBC credit card.

She went "Saint Lucia?!" I said, "no, Barbados". She screamed with delight. And Pon De Replay was playing. The collective Caribbean-ness in that room right then was a little too high.

Rasheed: Oh my goodness. Definitely the most random place I heard a Caribbean song, I mean, it could be more random, but one that comes to mind quickly. I heard Rupee, "Tempted to Touch", in Nice, France in a cafe.

I was with my Finnish friend Petrus and I said, obviously he wouldn't know what is playing. I asked, do you understand how random this is? He had no clue.

Shem: Do you remember in Panama, how common it was for the explicit version of West Indian songs to just be playing in the most family-friendly locations, but they don't understand a word of what is being said.

Rasheed: They don't understand a word. You see that same thing here in Spain also. You just hear swearing at, you know, the mall.

Shem: The most vulgar language. It doesn't even need to be swearing. I'm pretty sure these people would play "Ramping Shop" in a five star restaurant and have no clue.

Rasheed: Exactly. So with Pon De Replay, every time I hear it, I think back to going to school in the minivan.

Packed, packed, packed, 7:30 in the morning, everybody's hitting the side of the van, Pon De Replay is playing.

Shem: Every beach party had Pon De Replay. If you went to a party with friends, then it's Pon De Replay. If CBC needed, CBC being the, the island's broadcaster, needed to have like space between two programs, the ad probably featured Pon De Replay. I just want to make it absolutely clear. We weren't following Rihanna's rise to fame. I don't know her origin story per se. She just kind of appeared out of nowhere. It has undertones of dance hall with some pop and some West Indian themes, et cetera.

And when you're listening to it, you do get the hints of this being a Caribbean person singing, but doesn't jump out at you immediately that it's a Bajan singing. Yeah. I mean there’s the name like we said, Pon De replay but that terminology, that phrasing is used across the region. Jamaicans will tell you, "siddung pon it", you know, that sort of thing.

It's very common. So eventually when Barbadians started to realize she's a Bajan girl, it goes off the lid. Obviously, on the merits of it being the hit pop song of the summer it just goes off the chains elsewhere. And that right there begins the Rihanna phenomenon, the Rihanna sensation.

Rasheed: But you know, I was very young still. But I remember thinking this person Rihanna, she has a hit, but she probably isn't going to be super famous. It's a one hit type wonder situation. That's what I was thinking.

Shem: If you had told me that years later she'd be singing "Lift Me Up" for Black Panther, I would have asked you, who? What? No, this is not that girl. And here she is. I mean, we have opposing views on Lift Me Up. This is not one of the songs we're going to discuss, but it was a controversial addition to her discography. Because one, I didn't see that coming. And two, I still, to this day, I sit there and I'm like-

Rasheed: I wish I didn't see it coming.

Shem: God, it's not that bad. I don't know - we're not going to do this. We're going to take this offline, keep it simple. I'll see you in Slack. But yeah, if you had told me, like you said, the maturity she’s attain, it wasn't a curve. It did a couple of bumps and then it just, it just shot up, especially when we got to "Anti".

Anti was a masterclass for Rihanna. That's why the song that I picked, of course, is from Anti. It feels like a bit of a basic thing to say but Anti's my favorite album. It's her Magnum Opus. For now, until we get R9.

So until we get R9, whenever that happens, Bad Gal Ri Ri doesn't seem keen on going back into the studio very soon. She wore a shirt the other day saying something about retirement and it set off the entire internet. We were like, retirement? Girl, have you worked hard enough to be talking about that?

Listen, the devil works hard, but the Avon lady works harder. She just launched Fenty hair.

Rasheed: We'll get, we'll get there. So one of the things I also find very frustrating is most people who meet me now don't think I like Rihanna.

Shem: That is your fault.

Rasheed: How is that my fault?

Shem: No, that is entirely your fault. Because Rasheed, you have created an ethos around it.

There is a atmosphere around Rasheed. There's an air around Rasheed. There's a brand. The Rasheed name is now a brand. This brand is Tempted to Touch her, but in Nice and riding a bicycle across the Swiss Alps with my Finnish friends. This brand is now, "let me give you my top five Finnish, Norwegian fishing dirges for when you are up in the Arctic Circle and you too need music to inspire you under the Northern Lights".

That sort of thing (pop) is not associated with you, but what people don't get, I mean, yes, I'm coming in Rasheed's defense here. This will be the first and last time, peoples. First and last time. Pop is not worth discussing. No good conversation has ever (well this one did) started with, "yo, did you hear that last Drake song?" I don't want to offend a whole bunch, but there's an entire subset of individuals who would start a conversation like that.

We're not going to comment on their intelligence level at all. People like what people like. But in Rasheed's echelon or anyone of Rasheed's caliber, oh God, we're trying to make you sound less, we're trying to rebrand you here so that you're more palatable for the masses.

Rasheed: It's not working.

Shem: No one starts with pop. Pop is not an opener for any conversation. Pop is pop. Pop is as as consistent, as existent as death and taxes. Pop is popular music. It's pop music. Just because Rasheed does not talk about pop does not mean he's not a hood rat in certain instances. He introduced me to Swedish House Mafia.

I didn't know what that was, until, do you remember? It was at a house that the company we used to work for first. And you put it all on a MacBook Air, and we just went down to town, we jammed out to that. But if you put, I'm telling you right now, if you put on, if we are in the right setting and you put on Ramping Shop, y'all, trust and believe, all knees in the room will be in the less than 90 degree position.

We going down. If we hear, Lil Rick said, "go down, go down". We going down.

Rasheed: Exactly.

Shem: We're not that stush (local slang for being stuck up or acting fancy). Well, it's stush posh. We're not stush. But it's not music that's worth talking about in most conversations. It's just there. So, you know, Rasheed is not above

Rihanna. Rasheed can love Rihanna. There's much more eclectic taste we're talking about when it comes to music.

And that's what we see first and foremost, because, you know, we're not going to see Spice's latest album on Rasheed's Twitter, but we will see those Norwegians fishing dirges.

Rasheed: It always makes me feel like, should I be sharing more Rihanna? I'm like, people should listen to more Rihanna. I agree with that, but like, should I be the one doing it?

There's so many people already talking about Rihanna nonstop, granted in a very superficial, boring, non-Caribbean way, I don't know, fine. But I think people have access to Rihanna. I don't need to share or extol the grace of Rihanna. So that's kind of why I don't do it really.

Shem: What I think is more than norm is when an intellectual or highly regarded person descends from the heavens every now and then and goes, you know what, guys, I actually think that the meaning to life is "Single Ladies" by Beyonce.

When they do that sort of thing, it's like, you're like, huh, you listen to Beyonce? Like, like the prime minister or someone just goes, like Obama. Do you remember the Obamas would release a list every year of things that they were reading and listening to? It would often include some very strange things.

You're like, wait, Barack listens to Eminem. Michelle lets him? Okay. He's one of us. He's one of us. So maybe every now and then Rasheed, you can descend from the intellectual heavens and drop a Rupee hit.

Rasheed: So less Faroese choral music, and more Caribbean reggae.

Shem: I mean, somehow you've managed to also gentrify reggae at some point.

I don't know how you did it. Let's just put it this way. You opened my mind to a genre that you blew my mind. The Jamaican genre you blew my mind on.

Rasheed: Dub!

Shem: Dub! You were like, what you're listening to is not dub. You were like, THIS is dub. This is how dub started. And I was like, this is dub?

I felt betrayed. I felt betrayed. We are getting so far off tangent, but you know, so far, this is what this discussion is about. This is the West Indies guys.

Rasheed: There's not that much more to say about Pon De Replay play besides our like first impressions of Rihanna, but it was, you know, a very standard pop song, putting her in the minds of Caribbean people.

We didn't really have a concept of Rihanna at that time. Young girl from Barbados that had a pop song in America. That was it. It's only after a few years that she essentially retained the Barbadian-ness or Bajan ethos of her personality, her thinking, her perception of the world and so on. Oh, she's just not a girl from Barbados. She is Bajan. And she kept that to the, I guess, shock and surprise of everyone. Definitely me, for sure. I didn't expect her to still maintain that kind of Barbadian heritage that she very much maintains to this day. So we're going to transition to our next song. "Man Down", which was from her "Loud" album from 2010.

Shem: I'll preface with this, it's not my favorite Rihanna single, obviously.

Rasheed: Well, it's not obvious, but I'm not saying it's my favorite either. But it represents a very strident Caribbean philosophy that is not as prominent in international pop music.

Shem: Yeah. This one sort of feels to me like she hasn't gone fully Avon lady yet.

She's not entirely left the Caribbean bubble behind, and she looks back at something that is very prevalent near and dear to her, maybe in Caribbean life, et cetera, something that's least talked about, and that is abuse. And I'll let you run through the song quickly, and then we'll cover abuse in the greater Caribbean.

Yeah. Take it from here.

Rasheed: So one thing to know is that. This song was also co-written by Shontelle, another Barbadian singer that has some international fame, but I'm not sure how much she has these days. Man Down is essentially Rihanna talking about sexual abuse and how she essentially dealt with her abuser by killing him.

So, you know, very, very bold, put it mildly, very dramatic, very drastic theme. But. It's not shocking to any Caribbean person that this theme is part of a good song. There are many other similar Caribbean songs by women about this topic. And they're very, like Caribbean women, notoriously Jamaicans in many ways, are known to be very bold, very empowered, very powerful, very controlling. All these kinds of very in control type terms you can use and usually call to Jamaican women. And there are many Caribbean artists, female artists that have similar type songs. And to me, this is not a thing you see a lot when it comes to quote unquote feminist music in Europe or the US or so, where they don't glamorize the idea of taking power into your own hands.

Of course, you know, there are exceptions, but in general, it feels to me comparing genres that Caribbean music, like reggae and calypso, particularly dancehall, is a lot more willing to go the much vulgar route to discuss how women should take control of their situations, both traumatic and non traumatic.

And this Rihanna song fits very well into that very standard Caribbean hyper feminist, not in terms of hide and try to get help but like take command and do the things yourself. So when I saw that song, this really puts Rihanna into the bucket of Caribbean feminist singers in what to use the terminology you would hear, let's say for in America. In the Caribbean, we don't even use that word.

It's one of the weird things like Caribbean women are so notoriously powerful and controlled and we never seem to frame it as feminist thinking. I know. Younger female scars these days always try to put it into that bucket now, but growing up, that was never a concept we used, although we saw it every day.

Shem: The song, it breaks the trend. It's also like somewhat of a contradiction because abuse, sexual abuse across the region is very hush hush. This is not just for the Caribbean region, but it is a very prevalent view and the UN and many agencies throughout the region recognize sexual abuse as a very prevalent problem that people grow up with here that is not generally addressed because it's either swept under the rug or just attributed as part of the culture. From cat calling women being seen as part of the culture to molestation at an early age by a family member being completely swept under the rug to maintain the status quo and not upset the greater family because of how closely knit Caribbean families tend to be. Now for us to never speak about it in general terms and then just have it bubble up in song form across the region, it's such a wild thing because by the time it gets to the person being fully abused, it's trauma. It's just a trauma song at that point. And Man Down is just a long line of songs except this one is a little more catchy as you would realize it's a Rihanna song. But Man Down follows a long history of similar songs.

I don't know if you know of Queen Ifrica, Montego Bay, Jamaica. She has the song "Daddy Don't Touch Me There". You know, that song that, believe it or not, has parodies throughout the region. In the Caribbean now in my circle as well, people will use that phrase as a term for, I feel unsafe. They do it in jest.

They'll just go like, “Oh, this is giving me ick. Daddy don't touch me there.” People will say that even outside of the region. So the lightheartedness of sexual abuse cannot be understated in the Caribbean. I cannot stress how much and how detrimental it is that this type of activity remains clandestine and in dark until somebody sings about it just randomly.

And the songs also tend to be, I mean, for this song to be there, this song is literally on a pop album. It's one song on a pop album, meaning even if Rihanna does have good intentions for this, it'll probably not have the impact that she was maybe hoping for in terms of activism. Maybe if it released a single song. And no one ever speaks about this. Queen Ifrica releases this song because she's part of a bigger movement.

She's an activist. She's a powerful woman. As you say. Rihanna is also a powerful woman, but she releases this as one single on a pop album.

Rasheed: You know, there's so much she could do at that time. Rihanna, she still wasn't the Rihanna we know now also. She was still popular.

Shem: I know. I know she is popular, but she's not that mega star we know yet.

But even then, I mean, my stance is, would not have placed that single. I would have released that as a single and left it because to place it, to release it alongside the rest of the songs mean that people are going to have- imagine reviewing this album. Imagine reviewing this album. You're gonna go through okay, we got some ass shakers here. Oh, this one's about sexual abuse.

Rasheed: You know, that's why it's so striking. That's why I always bring it up, because people forget about it. And it's a very striking theme, a very striking topic. And the video came out, you know, around the same time. Also, the video to me was very odd. It was in Jamaica, and I couldn't figure out, to this day, why was it set there?

I assume because people think Caribbean is that country, but It definitely wasn't Barbados, that much I could tell from how this video looked. And I was like, we could have easily shot this in Barbados. That's one of the things I don't get about Rihanna sometimes, but it's probably not her choice in many ways.

Shem: Now, keeping on this, we don't really look into what makes the sound of Rihanna so infamous.

It's the sound, it's literally the sound. The evolution of her voice needs to be studied on its own. It is captivating, but there is one thing that I will never think about too hard or attribute to a Rihanna single, and that is the lyrics. She is not spitting. This is not Shakespeare because within this same song, sweet girl just who goes into “rum pum pum pum”.

Rasheed: I do wonder about that because that is a very shocking divergence from the lyric, but I think we have mentioned this in the past before.

Shem: We tried to rationalize it. We were like, what was the closest thing to that? Like the song, the, the little drummer boy. Was this part of the song to represent like innocence, maybe innocence lost or how the little drummer boy is literally playing for someone else.

So you're getting a marionette or puppeteering sort of feeling. What was the metaphor?

Rasheed: I think that’s the hidden gem about the song. I do think it has to reflect this kind of innocence mentality, this kind of fragility that the singer, in this case Rihanna, the woman, is going through when thinking about the crimes or the acts she just committed.

And the reason why that's probably the case is because we grew up with these songs. The Little Drummer Boy is not a song that's bypassed our lives. It's an integral part of how we think about Christmas, how we think about purity. And given that both writers are from Barbados, Shontelle and Rihanna, two main writers, it seems to be difficult to figure out how it cannot mean and how it cannot allude to the Christmas song Little Drummer Boy, given also the context in which the singer is very afraid, very anxious about what she just did.

Shem: And to just reel to my original point. If this is the intention, if this metaphor has that weight and meaning, and we are supposed to think that deeply and analyze this song to get this narrative, why is it sitting on the same album as all the other ass-dropping hits?

Rasheed: Because in my opinion, Rihanna is a very complex singer. People don't want me to say that, but that's true.

Shem: That is super complex.

It is super, super, super complex, but this is the equivalent of being in the club. Cause I think my mistake here is thinking that a single album is just one narrative, one story to be told.

An album is multiple stories, but at the same time, imagine the reviewer. I'm sitting there and I'm about to drop it like it's hot. You know, I got this album and then "Another Day in Paradise" by Phil Collins comes on.

Rasheed: So usually there's this thing called a concept album, where the entire album is a particular story or particular theme. That died off very substantially.

And pop albums these days don't have that conceptual framework anymore. So I don't think she needs to have an album that has this kind of either party sensation or the party sensations. Do you. Put everything you want there?

Shem: Absolutely do you.

Home girl went, “I'm gonna give y'all a story that's near and dear to my heart and what's the two minute, three minute, 51 seconds here?”

All right, let's go back to dropping it like it's hot.

Rasheed: Exactly. That's what happened.

Shem: All right, Rihanna, I see you. But next time if you're going to pull that, put that on a separate single and like sponsor that by UNICEF or something.

Rasheed: I mean, it was released as a single too. I think that was the same time as "Take A Bow".

Shem: I would say this one is a deeply cultural banger from that perspective. From that perspective, you know, I am dropping it like it's hot, but with a pensive look on my face.

Rasheed: But also to me, that's one of the very early indicators of the maturity of Rihanna's music. Not that many songs around that time were so layered in terms of the impact, philosophy, and so on. But it is completely on the floor when you see Anti, for example. Like, all of it is just layered and textured. So this was an early indicator of what she was capable of, even as an international pop star.

Shem: I love how we're talking about maturity and the depth and the facets of this song.

And the song that we're going to next is literally one of the most basic ass- she is such a multifaceted. She has so much going on. Rihanna we love you. You give us some thought provoking pieces and then you be like, "okay, I'm tired of thinking. It's time to just shake it".

You know, what? We're ready. Are you ready for this? What was going on with "Work"? Help me!

Rasheed: Okay, but here's the thing though. I actually think work is also a very mature sound.

Shem: Really?

Rasheed: Yes. But you talk about it for a bit first, give your impression and we can debate it.

Shem: Okay. So Work drops in 2016 on Anti. Uh, that is her most recent and possibly last album. We need to come to grips with this Rihanna fans.

We need to accept it. I remember when this song dropped and the music video for it also dropped. We had Drake prior to being destroyed by Kendrick Lamar, but we had Drake. We had, it was part of an era, like late 2015 into 2016, where dancehall had made some sort of weird resurgence in the United States.

So before that, you had Justin Bieber with "Sorry", which also had dance hall undertones.

Rasheed: You know, people don't know this. So dancehall is a, a sub, I mean, I call it sub genre. People get upset when I say that, but it's a sub genre of dub and reggae from Jamaica. So people usually kind of frame it as house music.

I can remember when, “Sorry”, by Bieber first came out, or when it got popular and people online were calling it "tropical house". I felt so insulted. Listen, that's dancehall. Tropical House?! That was the first time where I felt the heat in my body of cultural appropriation happening to me. I'm like, there's literally a genre that exists in the Caribbean called dancehall that this is based on, and you go and call it a different thing. Not saying he did that, but other people in America were making up this new term called tropical house. Uh, yeah.

Shem: Look how them gone and gentrify our poor baby. Um, tropical house, no, you mean dance hall. Work comes out, it's part of this wave of dance hall that is just sweeping the nation.

And I remember the controversy surrounding this. Apparently you don't, but there was an entire discussion. Because while we were busy, again, dropping it like it's hot, because the song is a banger, nobody's going to dispute this. Everyone's like, is this cultural appropriation? Because at the time, remember, people are like, she's West Indian.

She's Caribbean. But is she that version of Caribbean? Like, is that her? And even among some of us, we were like, this is a Jamaican accent. Why is she putting that on? Maybe it was our Barbadian-ness that was like, "What, we're not good enough for you. You couldn't sing in some good Bajan?"

Rasheed: No, but I remember because I think I was talking to Andre at a time about this.

It had to be Andre. And I didn't get why she chose to do Jamaican. Again, I understand it has more international appeal, but she can make anything she wants have international appeal. By that time, she has the power to do it. So I was confused why she decided to do the Jamaican because she's not Jamaican.

Shem: She's not Jamaican. Let's just remind people.

Rasheed: Granted, she grew up hearing Jamaican, like we all did.

Shem: We all did. Hold on you're here's your 15-minute reminder, I should have actually placed one of these every 15 minutes in this episode. Rihanna is not Jamaican, Rihanna is Barbadian. Jamaicans listening to this, Rihanna is not Jamaican, Rihanna is Barbadian.

And so is Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

We're gonna get more about that one, but anyhow.

I remember listening to that and I'm like, Jamaican? What? It feels because in the Caribbean, you know, we impersonate each other's accents all the time, you know, to make a point or a parody, et cetera. But I've never heard anybody do this.

You would never have a Barbadian getting up on Pic-O-De-Crop (a Barbadian Music Festival) or anything like that and singing in a Jamaican accent. Not only would Jamaicans be deeply offended by this watered-down, very poor version of whatever we have to produce, but it feels like you'd be making fun of them. So when she started this, I'm wondering, “is she going to transition into her usual weird Barbadian American accent after?” No. She maintained it for the entire song.

I mean, down to the last "haffi work, work, work, work", and I'm like, girl, we don't say, we don't say "haffi" down here. What's that? And interestingly enough, Drake is featured on this song and he's also in the music video, you know, they're grinding and whatnot. This was when they were considered the hottest power couple around, but he also releases a song that year called, um, "Too Good".

And she's featured on that song, and neither of them is impersonating a Jamaican accent because I think Drake wasn't ready to get canceled just yet. But at the end of this song, because they're like singing, they're too good for you, you know, it's really funny because these songs have very similar themes.

It was all planned. It was all planned. This is what is selling. This is what you two will do. I don't know why it took six people to write this song because if you look at the lyrics, half of it is just "work". But these songs have very similar lyrics. It's lovers basically trying to decide if they're worth each other's time.

"Work" is, she's going, you need to put in the effort to get me, you know? And they’re like, on the dance floor. If you saw Drake on the, you watched the video, right? Did you ever see the video? She's doing her absolute best. Rihanna looks like a goddess and everything. And Drake is just standing there with a drink in his hand.

Rasheed: This is some gossip I heard about the video that actually comes up here. So someone who worked on the video at the time may have told me or may have told someone, told me that Rihanna actually wanted a dancehall singer in the video, not Drake. Like Vybz Cartel or Busy Signal or Popcaan, you know, some, I know people don't know who those are, but we know who those are.

And because the authentic-

Shem: Everybody knows “World Boss” though.

Rasheed: Haha! The authenticity that she wanted in the song, Drake couldn't possibly have kept. And when you see the video, the Caribbean person, you're like, what is that man Drake doing?

Shem: Everybody else in the video, we don't know everybody else. They're not the focal point. People are doing general West Indian things. Like they were told just think Caribbean. Okay, cool.

Rasheed: Well, they're definitely from Jamaica. You could tell they're dancing to dancehall like Jamaicans do.

Shem: I was not paying attention to them. The power couple was on screen. We had the Bajan goddess.

And then we had this man from Canada, this black guy from Canada to stand up behind her, you know, looking all demure. And I'm like, what's he supposed to do? His waist can't do the things that he needs to do in this video. So what's happening here? But conversely, on the other song, his song, Too Good, you know, she's featured there.

And I mean, the album it's on is called "Views from the Six". For anybody who's not aware, the six is the nickname for Toronto. Again, it makes sense that Rihanna would just spit out a dancehall themed song out of the blue, but for this Canadian rapper to put out an album called Views from the Six and then drop a dancehall album on it, was just quite weird.

And then at the end of this song - I consider them both the same, to be honest. A bit of a, a continuation of a story. They go from, you gotta work for me. And then in Too Good they go, you might not be able to work for me at all. You know, you might not be able to put in whatever is necessary.

At the end of this song, there is a sample from Popcaan. "Cock up ya bumper, sit down pon it", and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. Why, why was this here? Like, I mean, I love it. I love it, I don't have a problem with Popcaan, I'm just saying the bean counters told them to do Jamaica and as Jamaican as they could.

And there was no thought put into how they were going to accomplish this imagery of Jamaica. We just decided, let's throw a random artist from Jamaica here because Vybz is still in prison. So we don't want to do that. Well, yeah, we got Popcaan.

Rasheed: He coming out though. He coming out. I think this year, right?

Shem: He is?

Rasheed: I think the sentence got commuted. I think I saw that. We could check afterward.

Shem: Wanna place bets on when he'll be back in?

Rasheed: But he's still making music. Oh, you mean, in back in jail. Ah!

Shem: Back in jail, yeah.

Rasheed: Listen, let me not get into that.

Shem: We gonna be saying "Free World Boss" in about two to three business months, so you watch.

Rasheed: Now, what I would say about Work, the video, the first half of the video, it really felt correct in terms of the structure and cinematography of that, everything felt like you in a dub. Except Drake, of course. I mean, that was just out of place completely. He was not meant for that room.

Shem: I'm gonna start using that phrase, "You are not meant for this room".

Rasheed: There was a clip when Rihanna was twerking on Drake. She had the Barbadian flags tied around her thigh. I always remember that. She still flashes the Barbadian emblems, even though it's a very strictly Jamaican scene and Jamaican music and Jamaican dance style. She still says, "Hey, you know what? I actually am still Barbadian here".

Shem: This is my head cannon on that. I think she was pleading with us because she knew we were about to string her up.

Rasheed: I think so. I think so.

Shem: She was like, "Boys, girls, I'm still Bajan. Still Bajan look at these flags, look at these flags!"

Rasheed: I thought they were like, "it ain't me, I ain't do this!"

Shem: "I did not vouch for this."

"Money haffi mek! Money haffi mek"

I'm watching this music video and I'm like, how did we get here? What year is this? Still love the song. I still love the song to death. That was the only song of that nature on Anti, actually. The rest were just your typical pop and sort of R&B-styled songs.

Maybe she talked them down from making the entire album like that. I don't know, but somebody needed to do it because I don't want to sound discriminatory, but I'm glad that wave has crested. We don't need any more Americans trying to out-island the island. Because before we end up with more tropical house, I cannot.

Rasheed: I am waiting for the Rihanna clip for the album. I don't know about you.

Shem: Listen, we've gotten our two songs out of the way. Let me start my rant. Listeners, this woman is a master of subterfuge, not just makeup and hair products. She said Fenty Hair was coming. I was like, that's an odd name for an album.

Fenty Hair. Wow. She's making far more money from her cosmetic sales than she would have if she had to consistently produce music. From a business standpoint, what she's doing right now makes more sense and has more longevity. But at the same time, this woman has gone up there and trolled her fans.

Rihanna, I don't know if any of our listeners will remember early Rihanna. Do you remember early Rihanna? Do you remember early Twitter Rihanna? How Rihanna would be vicious? Do you remember how she attacked people from her own Twitter account?

This one celebrity tweeted "If Rihanna doesn't sing this at the concert.

She's not coming." And Rihanna was like," Well don't come then." This was another star. I was like, Rihanna. It got so bad. Her fans were known as the Navy. Her fans are still known as the Rihanna Navy. Okay. So Rihanna was a force to be reckoned with. And the days she started to descend into Fenty as a brand was the day she- do you remember the picture went from her laying on the beach to a professional shot? It was her reclining on a beach. And then all of a sudden it became a business photo.

Rihanna took a LinkedIn photo and put it as her Twitter. And that's when we were like, "Oh no, what's happening here? Is this like a campaign for the next album?" This was the slow corporatization of Rihanna.

This is when the lawyers tapped Rihanna on the shoulder and said "Girl you got too much money to be behaving like this."

Rasheed: I love how you bring it up, it's slightly a jest. But it is very curious, her transition. It wasn't subtle.

Shem: We got off one morning and Rihanna was like, "On behalf of Fenty Industries".

Rasheed: Exactly.

Shem: It was giving Hunger Games, she went from the hood ratchet girl that we all grew up and loved to Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games in 2.5 business seconds. It gave me whiplash. Now music did come, music did come, but then that's when the subterfuge . When we got, Anti, she started to give mixed signals about when the next album is coming. And then she wore that shirt the other day that said retirement something.

It wasn't just retirement, but we latched onto her and she was like, y'all need to just relax, the album is coming. And then she got in that same interview and talked about how she's rediscovering music and she's a different artist than how she started. And what I was hearing was, I forgot how to sing.

Rasheed: What I was hearing was, I'm trying to think of another person that did something similar. It's not a good, perfect comparison, but the Beatles didn't produce that much music in the grand scheme of things.

Shem: That is true. In the grand scheme of things, they have a very small discography, especially for the amount of time that they remained culturally relevant.

Rasheed: And they were only together for, I should know the number of years, but a very short time.

Shem: Just ask Tyler.

Rasheed: And to this day, they're still in the conversation of art and culture in society. Rihanna has made a lot of music, her touring personality and so on. She is still recognized to this day as a top, not the top, but the top four, I'm sure, top stars globally in English. And that kind of accomplishment is just remarkable. Of course,

Shem: She is still on the same tier as Beyonce and Beyonce is still making music. Beyonce has released two albums in the amount of time that Rihanna has been sitting over there applying her makeup. So I cannot. Beyonce is working so hard.

Rasheed: Yeah.

Shem: Beyonce is working so hard and I like to love Beyonce. As I said, Rihanna has started this trend of lying, but not lying to us. And do you remember when the Super Bowl performance where she told us? Now, Apple hype this up. I blame Cupertino as well for the big letdown. Like, this was a great Super Bowl performance.

I will not lie for what it was. But do you remember she was like, "And there will be a special guest?" The performer was her unborn child. Now, I was simultaneously happy, but also upset by this. Because I'm like another nine months of, you not in the studio

Rasheed: Get back to work, get back to work.

Shem: What about your song about work?

Why are you not taking this to heart? She got up there, and did her little shimmy. Did you watch the performance? Her backup dancers are no longer backup dancers. They are THE dancers because Rihanna ain't doing shit. Rihanna's up there going like, "Listen, my baby, I'm not going to be shaking my baby about for this".

“I'm 3000 feet in the air. Y'all not going to try me.” This was supposed to be the start of apparently some tour. Is the tour in the room with us right now? Because help me. Where is the tour?

Rasheed: I want help too. I can't help you.

Shem: And just when we're on the verge of giving up on this woman, she brings out the most.

First of all, we got "Lift Me Up".

Rasheed: We didn't get that. I do not count that as official Rihanna discography. You understand? It is not official Rihanna discography.

Shem: I have another headcanon lift me up is not the greatest song ever. But it had two things going for it that prevent us from attacking it the way that you're going after it because you're not a Marvel fan.

You know, you're not a Marvel fan. This song was also a tribute to Chadwick Boseman.

Rasheed: I get that.

Shem: Listen, the same way we can't come over your Norwegian fishing dirges, you can't come after the fake African country king dirge, okay? This was a dirge that came from a country that never existed, died out of nowhere. Rihanna came out and sang her heart out, mighty the whole time I'm like, my hand is to my chest going, oh lord Chadwick, Chadwick is dead.

Just like Rihanna's music career, cause this girl ain't releasing shit. There were so many jokes I wanted to make on Twitter when this song came out and I couldn't because they were all in poor taste, right? Because I'm like, I want to rip her to shreds, but at the same time, Oh my God, Chadwick Boseman, Lord have mercy.

He left us so soon. A lot like Rihanna's music career because she was only...

She perplexes me.

Rasheed: And it's not like she was on decline when she decided to step back and become the Avon Lady. She was at the peak, the peak of her career, the peak of her fame, the peak of pop music globally. And then she just decided to stop. That's what's so amazing.

Shem: But what if this was always the grand plan?

Rasheed: That gives an even deeper layer to her herself also. She's fascinating.

Shem: It really, really, really does. It really does. I feel abused right now. Maybe I need to play "Man Down" because her career... Let's just put it this way. The level of brand recognition that Fenty has right now.

Do you know how long it took Celine Dion to get there?

Celine Dion, the brand that we know as Celine, you can walk into any mall right now, any luxury department store, and you can see makeup and dresses and, you know, female wear with the Celine branding. It took Celine Dion so much longer to attain the level of fame and notoriety so that she could just slap her name on something and have it sell.

Well, it feels like Rihanna, it feels like Rihanna speed ran, she speed ran the fame game. Boom, 2005, 2016. Now that's a decade. She did a decade. Decade of singing, boom. And then after she did that, she's like, "okay and now that I have finished my musical career, please look at my latest product."

Rasheed: Yeah, it's only one decade.

Shem: It's only a decade of music. She hasn't even seen the release of how many iPhones released in that time?

Rasheed: So 16 to now, like. It's 58, I don't know. Too many?

Shem: She outlived the iPod, okay? Her career did outlive the iPod. But I just, feel kind of betrayed. I feel betrayed whenever I think about Rihanna's career because she bait and switched us, you know?

Like, she knows that we're going to support her. People are saying, “She better release this album”. And all you can hear is spritzing cause they're spraying on the Fenty, like where is the album, Rihanna? And they're like in a cloud of Fenty, just dabbing the foundation on. You got people on Twitter attacking white people for complaining that Fenty doesn't have shades for white people.

And they're like, this is not for you. Fenty is for black goddesses everywhere. Like Rihanna, it seems uncancellable. There was a brief moment on TikTok where they were like, she's a Zionist and she's supporting Palestine, et cetera, because maybe, you know, maybe they caught a picture of her with a Starbucks cup in her hand.

Rasheed: Zionist support Israel.

Shem: Right. There was something weird thing going on there. You know that I'm not particularly interested in joining that fight, but people wanted to drag Rihanna into that fight. And Rihanna's image was just like if we had 2010 Rihanna, people that were like, "don't support her. She's a Zionist. Don't buy her." She'd be like, "Okay, don't buy then".

Rasheed: Yeah!

Shem: You know, we never even discussed her film career. I realize we did this entire episode and we did not discuss her brief...

Rasheed: We shall not.

Shem: Her brief brief. Brief, brief, brief.

Rasheed: Not brief enough. It can be briefer.

Shem: If you blink, you will miss Rihanna's foray into what can loosely be described as film.

Rasheed: "Don't touch me, bumper" You remember that?

Shem: That was "Disaster Movie".

No, that was "This Is The End".

Rasheed: Okay. Okay.

Shem: "This Is The End" was about a group of stars who are all trying to survive at the end of the world. And Rihanna just happens to be at a party where Michael Cera touches her ass and she, Ooh, her butt, let's keep it PG. And she goes, I mean, this line is not PG. She goes, "Don't touch my bumper, bitch!" And just slaps him..

Rasheed: Yes. And "bumpa" is the Barbadian word for ass or butt.

Shem: Yeah. Do you remember the interview on that? Where he told her he actually wanted to slap her. And she's like, "If you slap me, you can't hold back. And I am also allowed to not hold back and slap you as hard as I want." So the reaction we get from Rihanna, first of all, her reaction, the disgust from that reaction is genuine. And the slap point on Michael Cera's face is also a hundred percent Bajan certified.

Rasheed: Yes.

Shem: That slap went platinum.

Rasheed: Oh my God.

But yes, coming back to the Avon Lady. It's why I would love to get someone. I mean, Rihanna would probably be my all time ultimate wishlist guest of all the people on earth, alive and dead. Rihanna would be the person I want to interview the most, cause I really want to know what she's thinking about.

And she came from a small rock in the ocean, down the road from my house. And she somehow managed to maintain that inculturation. But at the same time, she's like one of the most famous people in history. And she still seems very sane and Caribbean at the same time.

Shem: If I were Rihanna, do you know what the first thing in my head would be when I got up in the morning?

Rasheed: Hmm.

Shem: I would get up like this. I am Rihanna. Ambassador, Extraordinary, and Plenipotentiary of Barbados. Every morning. I would remind myself every morning that that is my official title.

Rasheed: Well, it's a bit longer now because she's also the Right Honourable.

Shem: She's the Right Honourable.

Rasheed: Let's find the full title.

Shem: I'm not even looking for that. Let me be absolutely clear that we made this woman a national hero of Barbados. She shows up to the ceremony with more cleavage than humanly possible on display. Barbados' 50th year and eventual transition at that moment to a Republic has to go down in history for those who actually saw it.

I wonder what Prince, now King Charles was thinking. What was on his mind when he saw the president, the prime minister, and the new national hero? Like what was going through his mind? Here you have Prime Minister Motley. All right, you've got the new president of Barbados whose first words I wanted to go on record were "you want me to sit down dey?

Those were the first words of the president of Barbados. And then you have Rihanna who had a split. You remember the suit she wore.

Rasheed: Yes, I remember

Shem: I loved it. It was iconic. My national hero to the end, believe it or not, people had thoughts on that, you know because making someone a national hero is a very big deal, especially somebody as, as young as Rihanna, that can still do controversial things and not necessarily good things.

That's why in the United States, you don't place living people on stamps. There are no living individuals on stamps because if you find out that, you know, back in time, you know, they did a couple of bad things. Now it makes the entire organization look questionable. But Barbados took the conscious decision.

I mean, Sir Garfield Sobers is still alive, but he's at that point now where age-wise, he can't do anything full stop, let alone anything bad. But Rihanna, once he moves on to the great beyond, Rihanna will be the only living national hero of Barbados. Here's how I want to cap this off because we are a small nation.

She is our national hero. We are a small nation. And even though we made her a national hero, she's still Robyn. She will always be Robyn Fenty. That's our girl Rihanna. She is our diamond. When she comes home, though, we don't make a fuss. But at the same time, it is because of our unwillingness to make a fuss, our "lick paling", as we would say locally, that Barbados has not really capitalized on Rihanna as a person as part of the Barbados brand. Let's look at Shakira. Shakira, you know, with the hips that have been proven through the justice system to be incapable of lying. You go to Colombia, you go to her town, Barranquilla on the coast, there is a golden statue of this woman with those iconic hips doing the Waka Waka.

You know that when she did the, um, that thing for South African World Cup, that dance.

Rasheed: Waka.Waka.

Shem: There are statues of Elvis, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and Beyonce. There are places in her hometown, dedicated with plaques etc.

I understand we're a tiny island. We've got that single road by her house, but otherwise there is no real marker of Rihanna's impact on the island that really, truly embodies what she means to the island. Nothing bombastic has been done.

Rasheed: It's one of those things where it is the lack of bombastic treatment of Rihanna in Barbados is the most Barbadian thing you could do.

Shem: It is. It really is. If anybody complains about it, you know, our response can be, "Mind your business". This is we. This is the country where you can walk up and you can literally walk into parliament while it's in session.

Rasheed: That's true. On that note, Rihanna, I'm waiting to talk with you, but I think we have to say goodbye to our episode about the Right Excellent, the Honorable, Her Excellency, Ambassador Extraordinaire of Barbados, Robyn “Rihanna” Fenty.

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