Rihanna Speaks On Teairra Marie & More

Published: Sunday 2nd Sep 2007 by Sam

As previously reported, Rihanna features in this month’s issue of Peach magazine. The Bajan star address a number of things including her father, her past image and competing with former label-mate Teairra Marie. Check out quotes from the interview:

On Her Relationship With Her Father:

“I am actually embarrassed by that. I don’t like speaking about it because I am not proud of it. But it is something that helped make me who I am today. Now people know that I am not perfect and that I had real conflicts. My dad is not pleased, because he is embarrassed. We still have not sat and had a conversation about it.”

On Her Past Image

“I felt like my girlie image was boring and contrived and generic. I was so restricted. I could not wear red lipstick. If I did I would get cursed out by my marketing person. I did a big performance on an awards show and I won some awards and [was happy] , but as soon as I got off the plane, I got the nastiest email from her about [my looks]. I then realized she was not treating me like a human being so I cut her off.


On Blowing Up After Playing Second Fiddle To Teairra Marie

That [was] a funny situation, but I always remained humble. I was just the little Caribbean girl. You have to be good to people. I could very easily say it’s all karma…God has favor on me and has blessed me, and I cannot even thank Him enough.

Hmm…seems like there must have been more to Teairra being dropped from Def Jam / Roc A’ Fella. She was more talented than Rihanna, in my opinion, and both of their first albums tanked – so something must have made the label choose to pull out all the stops for Rihanna’s success instead of Teairra.

What do you think of Rihanna’s comments?

Comments 23

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  1. Anonymous September 2, 2007

    Both of them suck

  2. Anonymous September 2, 2007

    “so something must have made the label choose to pull out all the stops for Rihanna’s success instead of Teairra.”

    Come on Sam, you know what that “something” is. Rihanna is the light bright child, Teirra was the darker “ghetto” girl. It was ok for her to be queen of the (defunct) Roc-A-Fella but Jay-Z wasn’t going to sell her to the masses like he did Rihanna. Jay Z has made it clear he looks highly upon “the red girls with the baby hair”(His OWN words) He knows who America will respond to more. The funny thing is all of this promo for Rihanna and the b**** is only Gold, not platinum. So karma is coming right back on them.

  3. Anonymous September 2, 2007

    riahanna is str8 up garbage, that b**** is horrible live and she cant dance or sing

  4. Anonymous September 2, 2007

    i do think there may be something more to it, up to about 3 months ago Rhianna was #1 on Teairra Mari’s MySpace friendslist. I do think TM has a better voice & imo is more attractive (if Rhi-rhi’s eyes were darker I don’t think she’s be as eye-catching.) still, i’m not sure if I buy rhi-rhi, from dancehall queen to pop princess, i don’t think she’s necessarily artistic so much as she is marketable right now. but hey, who am i to hate? all i have is my opinion

  5. Anonymous September 2, 2007

    i definately respect rihanna after this interview! she gives such great interviews and i’m glad she wasn’t satisfied with being generic. she may not be the most talented girl in show business, but this this is clearly one of the more intelligent! and her first album did not tank! gold is great for a new artist! her new album could be called a tanker but not her first!

  6. Anonymous September 2, 2007

    That’s not an attractive picture. She is wearing a diaper…yes I know it isn’t a diaper, but we don’t need to see her b***. COVER UP!

  7. Anonymous September 2, 2007

    I love this site but you need to do some research, Rihanna song Pon de Replay went to number 2 on the billboard top 100 and went gold and ended up selling a lot more internationally (2 million according to Wikipedia). Teairra’s only real hit only went to number 35 on the billboard top 100 and her debut CD only sold around 300,000 copies. I would have dropped her ass too, Rihanna is the bigger crossover star thats why she stayed on the label and her debut Cd sold A LOT more than Teairra.

  8. Anonymous September 3, 2007

    Rihanna really proved how mature she is with this interview.

    Anyway i like both Rihanna and Teairra Mari. I think a major reason why Teairra flopped was she was going the gangsta chick route which is proved not to be successful. A lot of people were critisizing her image and thinking she was acting too s*** for her age. Whereas Rihanna came across as a very angelic girl who made a foot stomping pop/reggae track which is proved to be successful.

    When i said that the gangsta chick style is not successful look at an established artist like Christina Milian flopping with So Amazin’!!

  9. Anonymous September 3, 2007

    Washing one’s dirty laundry is not mature.

  10. Anonymous September 3, 2007

    AND NOT THE BACKLASH BEGINS…..

    but dont worry Rih, we got your back, i for one damn sure got your back…i love that pic your can get your salad toss ANYDAY..u are beautiful and talented…KEEP DOING YOU..and give the haters something to talk about.

    signed…. GT born

  11. Anonymous September 3, 2007

    Hol it down rihanna baby……u a s*** beeetch!!

  12. Anonymous September 3, 2007

    ok on the real Teairra Mari’s voice sounds better but she was acting a lil ghetto when she came out ….and singing songs dat only ghetto ppl would of been threw but the whole world ain’t ghetto ………..rihanna on the other singing songs everybody cud feel and would of been thru she acted nicer den teairra and did sell a whole ALOT MORE CD’S WORLD WIDE den teairra THE STATE COUNT BUT THE WORLD IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT

  13. Anonymous September 3, 2007

    Damn Rhi do your thing and all but what’s with these female artist’s I know s** sells but damn leave things to the imagination yeah she thinks she’s grown but cha put some clothes on girl

  14. Anonymous September 3, 2007

    Rihanna: “Oh, I’m so innocent but edgy and Caribbean and humble and Beyonce is my idol and I am totally bewildered by all this and I just wanna be me and all the Bajans are jealous of me and blah…blah…blah…”

    This chick is so effing boring. She says the same s*** in every mag…can we move on to someone else please? NEXT!

  15. Anonymous September 3, 2007

    Aside from everyone’s favoritism or subjections…

    …being marketable is the main issue here.

    Rihanna was simply….more marketable than Teairra Mari.

    In my opinion, Teairra Mari has more talent…more personality…& overall…more of a presence than Rihanna. Sadly, her musical content was lacking — although the production quality could have easily rivaled the likes of Timbaland. However, you have to attribute all of that to the powers that presided over both of them.

    In my opinion, Rihanna is a puppet. She’s a horrible performer [i.e. ’07 MTV Movie Awards], her voice is sub-par, & her stage presence [interviews] really makes her come off as quite boring…& extremely aloof.

    Unless she starts taking control over her own material & crafts what little talent she has into a respectable mold…I don’t expect Rihanna to have longevity in the music industry.

    Rihanna was the easiest to transform into a marketable crossover artist — she appeals to all demographics. It was no mistake that Teairra Mari’s content was one-sighted…b/c the record company intended for it to be that way. She didn’t write any of those songs or produce a single track — her image was crafted [by the record company] around her personality.

    Unfortunately, her personality was not crossover-ready.

  16. Anonymous September 4, 2007

    T. Marie was BORING, GHETTO, and TYPICAL. She was in her teens singing about someone making her feel good, that was a major turn off for me. She just came off too grown. I don’t see how these two compare anyway but whatever.

  17. Anonymous September 4, 2007

    Teairra’s first album got to #5 and Rihanna only #10.

    although pon de replay was #2 and mhfg was #35.

    Teairra’s cd was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiyah. damn funny i was listing to her cd today. funny

  18. Anonymous September 5, 2007

    Rihanna is SO S***..and that pic is FIRE..i was to lick her ass hole so bad…I’D MAKE HER FEEL GOOOOOD…damn i want to eat her booty out..and make her say moan my name in her bajan accent..

  19. Anonymous September 6, 2007

    @ 9-5-07 8:03AM,
    Baby, you need some help, or maybe you just need to get some. You sound like one of those wacked out stockers. But whateva floats your boat!!

  20. Anonymous September 7, 2007

    I am great friends with Teairra and to not give much away about the split, all I have to say is that once Fall came around and Rihanna had the number one single, all promo for Teairra halted and shifted to Rihanna opting Teairra to seek new management and ultimately a new label.

  21. Keisha Kornbread September 14, 2007

    I loved TM and her cd still gets playtime since she’s in plenty of my playlists on my ipod. Rhi-Rhi has yet made it past the library into any of my playlists. She’s so not talented…..

  22. Anonymous May 10, 2008

    teairra mari was ghetto and the pop world dominates and eliminates ghetto artist. rihanna is this red pop island queen. she is so much sellable. she is on trl cuz she has white audiences and bet because black people loved them some umbrella. point is, is that rihanna is wayyy more versatile and diverse teairra has a very urban voice and thats not marketable these days. rihanna has a pop/carribean voice that draws people 2 her, very unique! but no doubt teairra had more talnt tho!

  23. Anonymous June 23, 2008

    both of them are great artist.
    ppl wer jus feelin rihanna more.
    okay so what rihanna made a statement about tierra. STOP gassin s*** up, its not that serious.

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