It was November of 2009. How did Rihanna retain her status as a pop diva, cement her position as a serious musical artist and navigate a traumatic ordeal under the public eye? The answer was Rated R — her fourth studio album.
I was 16-years-old when reports surfaced that Rihanna had experienced a domestic assault at the hands of her then-boyfriend, R&B crooner Chris Brown. Like many of my peers, who came of age during the infancy of social media, pop culture and celebrity fandom were pretty much the two main conversation starters both on and offline.
The discourse surrounding Rihanna and Chris Brown was a hot button topic in my high school, particularly my 11th grade science class. On the few days when we’d have a substitute teacher, whose idea of work really didn’t stretch past taking attendance and assigning basic science questions, we’d arrange our desks together and discuss many of our pop and R&B faves. At the time: Beyonce, Keri Hilson, Usher, Ne-Yo, Chris Brown and, of course, Rihanna were the go-to names.
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When the convo spun around to the last two musicians, many around me were quick to question Rihanna’s role in her own assault. Most of my classmates sided with Chris and assumed that Rihanna did something to provoke him. The misogynoir surrounding Rihanna was eye-opening.
Two years earlier, the singer had undergone a shocking metamorphosis with the release of her third album Good Girl Gone Bad. Donning a jet black bob, Rihanna came equipped with a bevy of hits to accompany her new image — “Umbrella,” “Rehab,” “Disturbia,” “Don’t Stop The Music” and “Take A Bow.” As a regular presence in the upper echelon of the Billboard charts from 2007 to 2008, Rihanna had solidified her place as the next great pop diva and manifested a new chapter as the “Black Madonna” for the millennial generation.
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