Geography Project - #5 Barbados (Rihanna)

Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born in Saint Michael, Barbados in 1988. She goes by the name, Rihanna now as her stage name. She had always loved singing in her youth so she moved to America at the age of sixteen to pursue her singing career, after she had been introduced to a record producer, Evan Rodgers who loved Rihanna's performing straight away. When she moved to America, she moved in with Rodgers and his wife. Here, she recorded a four song demo which made it's way to Def Jam recordings, who signed her straight away.

Her debut album, 'Music of the Sun', was released in August 2005. This included the chart toppping single 'Pon de Replay'. It went straight to number one of the UK Singles Chart. The second song released from the album was 'If It's Lovin' That You Want', but this wasn't as popular as the first single. A month after her debut album was released, she started working on her second album, titled 'A Girl Like Me'. It was released in April 2006. It included singles like 'SOS', 'Unfaithful' and 'Break It Off' featuring Sean Paul. This album sold 115,000 copies in it's first week. She then embarked on her world tour, despite only being 18 years old.

Her third album, 'Good Girl Gone Bad', was released in 2007. During the recording of this album, Rihanna decided to change her image to an edgier, rebellious one so she cut her long hair off and dyed it black. This change was heard in her music also. This album was full of songs to dance to on a night out such as 'Don't Stop The Music', 'Disturbia', and 'Umbrella'. Umbrella was the most- talked about song in a while as it stayed at number one in the charts for ten weeks, and it was said that this song was to blame for the rainy summer we had that year! This was her best selling album to date. She won Best Single and Video that year.This year she also headed off on her Good Girl Gone Bad Tour in September. In 2008 she won Favourite Female Artist of the Year.

In February 2009, Rihanna was scheduled to perform at the Grammy awards, but unfortunately this was cancelled due to a run in with her then- boyfriend, singer Chris Brown. He assaulted her leaving her with facial injuries. He was brought to court and was charged with assault and received five years probation. He was also ordered to stay fifty yards away from Rihanna at all times. Despite this hard time, Rihanna still managed to release another bestselling album, 'Rated R', including hit singles such as 'Russian Roulette' and 'Rude Boy'. To promote this album further, she set out on her Last Girl on Earth world tour. Due to her bestselling albums, Rihanna won Entertainer of the Decade in January 2010.

During 2010, Rihanna collaborated with Eminem with 'Love the Way You Lie' which was number one on the charts for weeks. She also sang with Kanye West in the hit song 'All of the Lights'. She released her fifth album, 'Loud' in November 2010. This album included hit singles such as 'Only Girl', 'What's My Name?' featuring Drake, and 'Who's That Chick?' featuring David Guetta. In December 2010, these three songs were top ten in the UK Singles Charts with 'What's My Name?' at number one. In April 2011, another song from the album Loud, 'S&M' , reached number one in the charts, giving her ten number ones in America. She is the youngest artist in the charts' history to do so, being only twenty three years of age. She is an extremely popular artist at the current time.

The connection between her in Barbados and Justin Bieber in Canada, is that they were both signed to the same record label, Def Jam Recordings.

Ciara Xxx