Nicki Minaj is a rapper and singer-songwriter originally from Trinidad, who was brought up in New York. She collaborated with Rihanna on the track ‘Raining Men’ for RiRi’s album Loud, and then Rihanna returned the favour by collaborating on ‘Fly’ for Nicki’s first studio album, Pink Friday. Nicki has become a good friend of Rihanna’s, and for a while the media speculated that the two women were dating after Nicki told E! News in early January: ‘We’re shooting the video with Rihanna for “Fly” this weekend. We’re going to save the world in more ways than one with the video and that’s all I can say about that. I love RiRi! I mean, when she’s not grabbing my ass, she’s a sweet girl.’
The girls enjoyed messing around and when they filmed the video for ‘Fly’ they just had fun with their tweets. Rihanna tweeted a photo of them together, with Nicki sticking out her tongue and RiRi pouting, and the message: ‘Me and Nikki in our new crib, lol! Gettin busy on set of FLY!!! It’s so hard to keep my hands off!’
Nicki joined in and replied: ‘Lol. If we’re gonna liv 2gthr and hook up u gotta learn how 2 spell my name! Lmaooooooo’
Rihanna then fired back: ‘b**ch don’t u hear me askin what my OWN name is??? Lol! My bad, I’ll make it up to u *wink*’
The two thought it was hilarious that people believed that they were living together because of that one photo and a few tweets. Neither girl could have expected that they would become such good friends in a short period of time, even though Nicki had wanted to work with RiRi for quite a while. She wrote on her Facebook page: ‘“Fly” is one of my absolute faves. I wanted to work with Rihanna for a long time. I’m very proud of her accomplishments, especially since she was born on an island like me.
‘This song is a female empowerment song. But then again, it’s not specific to just women. It speaks about flying, soaring high in the face of every single solitary adversity that comes your way.
‘I speak about how the media has attempted to box me in and how that has made me feel suffocated. After years of being dragged thru the mud, I’ve mustered up the courage to re-define myself. I believe that I represent an entire generation. My fans have become my family, and together we have become a movement. Get ready for it. We came to win.’
Nicki originally planned to release ‘Fly’ in April/May 2011, but she decided to release her track ‘Super Bass’ instead, because both she and Rihanna had quite a few singles they wanted to push from their respective albums. Pink Friday came out only seven days after Loud, and Nicki therefore felt that postponing the release of ‘Fly’ would be for the best.
She explained to MTV, back in March 2011: ‘I’m gonna hold off on the Rihanna video and the Rihanna single for a little bit longer, ‘cause we both kind of dropped at the same time. So she has a lot of [songs] in rotation and I want to let her stuff have a moment and do its thing, dominate radio. [Instead], I wanted to come out with something more fun.’
Kanye West values Rihanna both as an artist and a friend, so when he made a rough copy of his album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, he let RiRi listen to it. Immediately, she picked out ‘All Of The Lights’ as her favourite, and when he offered to let her appear on the track, she just had to say ‘yes’, even though he wanted to record it at 2am!
Rihanna sang the song’s hook and was joined on the single by Alicia Keys, Elton John, Fergie, John Legend, Elly Jackson, Charlie Wilson, Ryan Leslie, The-Dream, Tony Williams and Kid Cudi. Only Kanye, Rihanna and Kid Cudi appear in the actual video.
It is clear which parts of the single Rihanna sings, but for many of the other artists it is not so obvious, as Kanye layered up their vocals. Elly Jackson told MTV: ‘He just basically wanted to use his favourite vocalists from around the world to create this really unique vocal texture on his record, but it’s not the kind of thing where you can pick it out. I don’t have a verse or anything. I can’t actually hear my voice on it, but apparently it’s there!’
‘All Of The Lights’ was released on 18 January 2011, and three weeks later, the video premiered on 19 February. Initially it was removed from YouTube for a time over safety fears because of the flashing lights and colours in the video, but it was later reinstated with the warning: ‘This video has been identified by Epilepsy Action to potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised’.
The song reached No. 19 in the US charts and No. 15 in the UK charts. It did best in Belgium, where it was No. 3, in Australia, where it got to No. 8, and in Ireland and New Zealand, where it was No. 13.
On 31 January 2010, Rihanna picked up another Grammy award, this time for her collaboration with Jay-Z and Kanye West. Winning a Grammy for ‘Run This Town’ made her very happy; she was grateful that Jay-Z and Kanye had picked her to sing it with them, because at the end of the day they could have chosen Beyoncé or any other female artist.
Rihanna has worked on many collaborations over the years. She has worked with Eminem, Akon, Sean Paul, Jay-Z, Kanye West… and many more top artists. Lots of her collaborations have gone straight to the top of the charts, and she’s picked up numerous MTV and Grammy Awards.
Rihanna is such a big star that other singers can sometimes get starstruck by her, but she is looking forward to the new collaborations she will be recording in the near future.
Cheryl Cole probably never expected Rihanna would want to sing a duet with her, but after meeting the X Factor judge in person and hearing the type of music she was releasing, RiRi was certainly interested. She thought Cheryl is a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice.
They share a mutual friend who told Rihanna that Cheryl would love to record something with her, after Rihanna said the same thing about wanting to work with Cheryl while she was waiting in the dressing room before one of her X Factor performances. The friend passed on Rihanna’s mobile number to Cheryl, so they could have a chat about what they might do together.
Cheryl must have been really glad that the friend decided to help make the duet happen. She told MTV: ‘I couldn’t believe it when I heard Rihanna wanted to work with me. When I found out she wanted to collaborate, I got goose bumps all over.
‘We’re definitely doing something together next year [2011]. I’m totally up for it!’
In April 2011, the website M is for Music stated that an insider had told them: ‘Cheryl’s management want her to become the next big popstar in America and are working on securing some A-List names for the album.
‘A Rihanna duet is a certainty and Will.i.am is trying to convince Minaj to work on the LP, too. Katy Perry has also been in talks with Cheryl about a duet, as she is a big fan.’
UK Rihanna fans might be looking forward to seeing the collaboration between RiRi and Cheryl, but the majority of RiRi’s fans want to see her duet with Katy Perry first. This would be the best collaboration RiRi has ever done (not to put down those with Jay-Z, Kanye or Eminem). When RiRi and Katy finally get the chance to record a track together, the song will be something people won’t expect, because they don’t want it to be predictable: it will be a fun track and something catchy, perhaps the best track either of them has ever done.
They both admire each other’s work, and Katy even included her own acoustic version of ‘Only Girl (In the World)’ to her set list on tour. She sang it as part of a medley with Jay-Z’s ‘Big Pimpin’ and Willow Smith’s ‘Whip My Hair’.
It seems like everyone wants to do a duet with Rihanna, even Susan Boyle. The Britain’s Got Talent runner-up was being interviewed by the Sun newspaper when she said she wasn’t sure whether she’d be good at R&B, but she could dye her hair purple and do a track with Rihanna.
When RiRi found out, she tweeted: ‘Hold up! I might be a lil late, but just heard that THEE SuBo wants to collab wit ME??!? I’m game, doesn’t get much cooler than this. #BOOM.’
She obviously didn’t mind that Susan’s The Gift album had stopped Loud from taking the No. 1 spot in the US album charts.
Even ‘DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love’ singer Usher wanted to collaborate with Rihanna. When interviewed on the Loose Women TV show, he said: ‘Of course I’d do a track with her. We’ve been friends and our teams work together, and we’ve talked about working together in the past, but it could potentially happen.
‘I would love to work with her: I think she’s an incredible artist.’