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Rihanna's live performances was at
the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, when she was honoured as Video Vanguard. The
Barbadian singer, composer, and fashion entrepreneur proved that she was eligible for the award with a series of themed
performances that transformed the Madison Square Garden stage into a dancehall,
a lightning-studded storm cloud, and a gorgeous all-white band recital. From the same year has a listless
succession of psych-rock jams, soul songs, and ballads, all of which serve to
highlight her casual brilliance in singing across genres.
Rihanna had a tough upbringing since her mother had to deal with her alcoholic
and abusive father. After just hearing two of her songs during her audition,
Jay-Z recruited the teenage singer to her Roc Nation label, confirming her
assumption that America was the key to a successful music career. The first
time her voice was on 2005's "Pon de Replay;" it was a delicate but
raspy thing, blessed with a formidable vibrato and a depth of range that
sneaked up on us when she trotted effortlessly across the high notes in 2006's
"Tainted Love" flip "S.O.S." and 2007's New Order
interpolation "Shut Up and Drive," and when she leaned into her low
end on "Rehab."
Rihanna released seven studio albums in the course
of eight years,
cemented her place at the top of the pop charts by embracing new musical
styles, providing radio-friendly hits to a wide audience during tough times for
R&B artists, and collaborating with artists as diverse as Coldplay and
Jeezy. The album Anti followed the career of a singles artist with devastating
impact who was sick of hearing that she didn't produce great albums, a
falsehood that stunning album cuts like 2012's "Get It Over With"
from Unapologetic should have put an end to. Her public presence and an aura of
unruffled calm seemed to ooze from her every move, and we fell in love with her
as her catalogue matured. The other girls pretended to be shy while Rihanna was
talking trash.
After a night perfermence
in 2016 is that the
next seven years would put admiration of Rihanna's distaste for predictable
career moves to the test as she became a billionaire, launched several
businesses outside of music, and rebuffed questions about her next album with
the same snark that used to be reserved for her naysayers. Apart from a few
selected
guest appearances on tracks by Kendrick Lamar and N.E.R.D., the singer didn't
release much new music for the remainder of the decade, and she seemed to get
bored of the constant speculation about a new album in the comments sections of
her social media posts. A pop star whose last tour took place during the Obama
administration landing the highest-profile gig in the country four years after
she turned down the opportunity to play the same event in solidarity with Colin
Kaepernick, who had been effectively blacklisted for kneeling during the
national anthem at games, is an odd choice. "There are things inside that
organisation that I do not agree with at all," she told Vogue that year.
(The alliance between Jay-Z and the NFL, which caused a firestorm when the
rapper-mogul declared Kaepernick's protest over, gave Black musicians and
businesspeople some clout in the league. The NFL claims it wants to "End
Racism," but its ongoing absence of Black head coaches and the Kansas City
Chiefs' dedication to branding that Native American organisations have
considered disrespectful cast doubt on that claim.
The event highlighted the singer's present dedication to motherhood by showing
an unexpected baby bulge only months after the birth of her first son with A$AP
Rocky, and also reintroduced us to Rihanna the live performer by leading us
through her back catalogue. All of this mystery was packed into a cool,
collected performance that saw the singer float in the air on a suspended
platform while roaring through songs from all corners of her extensive
catalogue; it's a testament to the Barbadian icon's strength, to a career
dedicated to making the difficult look doable. Even though she only performed
13 songs, Rihanna told Apple Music's Nadeska Alexis last week that she had gone
through almost 40 different iterations of the set list while preparing for the
show. Is there any way we could have gotten "Man Down"? (The inclusion
of the Ye collaborations "Run This Town" and "All of the
Lights" was intriguing but not unexpected; it was his Saint Pablo tour
that pioneered the floating-stage thing, right? Back when things were easier
It was risky to kick off the show with "Bitch Better Have My Money,"
and the absence of ballads like "Take a Bow" and "Stay" in
favour of the raunchier "Rude Boy" and "Pour It Up" gave
the spectacle a faintly reckless air that counterbalanced the hard-fought seamlessness
displayed as the star was shuttled onto and off of the moving platform, which
resembled a ship's deck. Fireworks were sent off above the stadium whenever the
singer's harness strap needed to be attached or removed, directing the
attention of the crowd upwards.
Rihanna's performance at Super Bowl XXX in 1996 was a homage to the 1996 Super
Bowl XX extravaganza, in which Diana Ross sang "Take Me Higher" and
then left the field in a helicopter. She has the same skill with pop ballads,
R&B tunes, and dance music as her predecessor. The set included some sharp
changes, with "Bitch Better Have My Money" leading into "Where
Have You Been," and "Rude Boy" following "We Found
Love," but the lone survivor kept her composure the whole time. They were
unnecessary. As the latest in a long line of women giving memorable
performances while pregnant, she held court in a blood-red dress, surrounded by
a swirl of dancers in white, soft-launching a new kid by hosting a kind of
metaphysical conception to the tune of "Work" and "Wild
Thoughts." Beyoncé and Cardi B also used television to share the reveal.
Strangely, in 2021, when the Weeknd performed a similarly upbeat medley that
was low on fancy footwork, the conclusion was not that the halftime performance
lacked superstar guest stars or sophisticated choreography. This was not the
spot to go seeking for Rihanna's backflipping skills, considering we have never
seen her do any of that before and this was her first public performance after
giving baby. (Last winter, when Snoop, Dre, and Eminem two-stepped on top of
trailers, you got your life. You don't need an 8-count to go down, right?)
Video game-inspired set design, the star's ability to dominate any environment,
and a never-ending string of tunes from at least half a dozen radio formats
were all mentioned before the show started starting.
Perhaps it won't be remembered as fondly as other Super Bowl performances, such
as the Coldplay show from 2016 (during which Beyoncé's stunting made it easy to
forget that she wasn't the headliner), Michael Jackson's two-minute statue pose
from 1993, or Whitney Houston's flawless "Star-Spangled Banner" from
1991. (Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni's emotional response to Chris
Stapleton's rendition of the national anthem predicts the video will go viral.
You either have faith in your friend's ability to sing your spirit out of your
body, or you goof off and find out. What Rihanna's Super Bowl performance
accomplished really well was convey the message that she is a determined,
self-motivated individual who played the fame game so effectively that she went
from a bungalow to a billion in less than 20 years, and her singles still
smash. There are still many unanswered issues about her decision to return to
live performances after she previously rejected them. We've been fans long enough
to ask whether or not she has any more upcoming gigs, but we also know that
she's free to respond whenever she wants. Making history once again will have
to do for now.
Labels: News
