Rihanna Is A Cheater
Faithful To Her Heart
By Kathy McCabe
Rihanna is a cheater. The 18-year-old R'n'B sensation reveals her wicked ways on her new single, Unfaithful.In Sydney last week to talk up the single and her second album, A Girl Like Me, the Barbados-born songstress with the doe eyes and polite demeanour was keen to explain the autobiographical nature of her songs. Even though most are written by the current crop of American hitmakers.
Unfaithful was penned by her labelmate Ne-Yo and Stargate, who helped him write his own chart-topping single, So Sick.
Like most song "interpreters", Rihanna insists the song speaks from her own heart. And what a dark heart it is. "That's what I loved the most about it, is that it talks about cheating from the female perspective," she says. "Most songs are about the guys lying and cheating and doggin' around. But everyone knows girls do it too.
"I know girls who do it, I did... it was a long time ago, it was my first boyfriend. And it felt wrong and I know it was wrong."
Signed on the spot by the master himself, Jay-Z, after he heard her demos, Rihanna was launched last year with the dancehall reggae flavoured single Pon De Replay.
While it quickly established her "new Beyonce" credentials, her debut album Music Of The Sun failed to stick and she headed back into the studio to record the sophomore effort, A Girl Like Me, which was released less than a year later.
It was a clever ploy by her minders, with everyone quickly forgetting about the debut's failure when the new single SOS screamed to No.1 worldwide.
The unmistakable hook from Tainted Love was undoubtedly the driver of the song's success. And the self-assured teenager was quick to point out that the most obvious version, the 1981 synthpop hit from Soft Cell, was itself a cover.
"I'd heard the Soft Cell version only a couple of times when I was growing up in Barbados and when I heard the demo of SOS, I went and did some research about the song," she says.
"That's when I found out it was originally recorded in the 1960s by Gloria Jones; that's why I kept getting all these 60-year-olds coming up and telling me how much they loved that song."
As she talks, the enthusiastic artist betrays her youth, preening her hair in the mirrored wall of the club lounge of her Sydney hotel despite the fact she has just finished her fourth hair and make-up touch-up of the day. But her girliness is balanced by an astutely pragmatic approach to her fledgling career.
"Doing things my way is not always the best way, I know that," she says. "I like hearing other people's opinions. I think about them, analyse them to work out what is the best way to do things.
"But I want a hand in all of it. How I look, my dancing, my live performance, everything, as ultimately that's the only way to learn."
A Girl Like Me is out now. Unfaithful is released on July 1, 2006.
Source: The Daily Telegraph
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