Believe it or not, 2015 will mark the tenth year of Rihanna“s Pop presence, introduced to the world by LA Reid, Jay Z and former manager Marc Jordan.
Now seen as competition for many of the acts she once cited as idols, the vocalist has now seen her career praised by long time friend and collaborator, Anthony Mandler- responsible for many of her more memorable visuals.
Yes, in an interview with Graydon Carter“s “Vanity Fair“, the “Unfaithful” director went to great lengths to explain why believes the singer is the biggest star in the world, revealing that she has overcome more hardship than the world will ever be aware of.
Moving words below…
“The way I look at it, she was a complete form—an undeveloped complete form, if that makes sense—when I first worked with her on “Unfaithful.” There was this incredible power and emotion, this kind of dark side, and duality. At that point, she was kind of a Bajan island singer. I didn’t know what to do with her. Was she R&B? Pop? Reggae? I think on “Unfaithful” she found the beginning of a lane and a voice.
If you look at the songs before that, “Pon de Replay,” stuff like that, they would kind of fit her De viser frem et nytt casino med et flott og behagelig design. into a marketable box, more like a female Sean Paul . . . That was what seemed like made sense. But the truth is that anybody who knew her at the time, anybody who worked with her, saw there was this other thing, this incredible fire, this incredible wise-beyond-years thing. It was just about her outgrowing the youth, outgrowing the constraints of the label, having enough hits, making your own decisions enough times.
If you knew every single step along the way, you would say, “This could never happen; this never happens.” And it doesn’t. She’s the once in a generation. She’s the biggest star in the world.”
“There is nothing she can’t do, in a way. There have been some incidents in her life that we all know about, and a lot of incidents people don’t know about, that have given her fuel to the fire to grow further into her character. Because, hey, they all have a character, whether it’s Robyn playing Rihanna, or whether it’s Shawn Carter playing Jay Z, or Marshall Mathers playing Eminem. And in that character, there’s sort of a safe zone. You can ask her [and she’ll say] “Robyn wouldn’t do that, but Rihanna would.” And that’s a very interesting mentality. If you can get under their skin and see who they are at a deeper level—and that comes from working with them direct—you can push them in different ways. You can hopefully create work that lives at a different level.”