Rihanna has transformed her image significantly over her music career. She started as a fresh-faced reggae pop star from Barbados, but her image became increasingly sexualized through shorter hair, skimpier outfits, and raunchier videos. She has expanded beyond music into films, fashion, endorsements, and her own makeup line. While some criticize her for not being a role model for young girls, she has shown women can succeed in traditionally male-dominated industries through hard work.

2. Intro
Rihanna is a high profile mainstream singer that first broke out
into the music industry in 2005 in her late teens.
She has been signed by Jay-Z to record label Def Jam since 2005
however, recently she has left Def Jam for Roc Nation.
Altogether she has released 7 studio albums, 2 remix albums, 2
compilation albums and 52 singles.
She has rapidly rose to fame in quite a short space of time. She
has also won 223 awards out of 578 nominations. Out of the
most well known awards (Grammys, etc) she has won:
• 7 Grammys
• 2 BRITS
• 11 Billboard awards
• 4 BET awards
• 3 MOBO’s
• 4 MTV awards

3. Biography
Rihanna, real name Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born 20th February
1988 on Caribbean island of Barbados. She grew up listening to
reggae music and around the age of seven she started singing and
formed a musical trio with two of her high school friends. Initially
she wanted to graduate from high school however she decided to
pursue a music career.
In December 2003 she met music producer Evan Rogers whilst he
was vacationing in Barbados. Previously Rogers had heard about
Rihanna’s singing ability and asked her to visit him in the hotel he
was staying and there she performed “Hero” and “Emotion”.
After being invited to several events to sing Jay-Z signed her to a
six album record deal with Def Jam.
She released her first studio album, Music of the Sun in August
2005 and has since then gone on to release 6 more albums to this
date.

4. Music genres She has worked in
Rihanna has over the years varied the music genres within her music. In her
first album Music of the Sun was full of reggae themed music and “Dance
hall” which gave her fans an insight to what genre of music she grew up
listening to. People in Barbados are renowned to predominantly listen to
reggae music. Her second album, A Girl Like Me, seemed to stay in the
Reggae genre but also moved more into R&B however some songs like
“Kisses don’t Lie” , “Dem Haters” “Crazy little thing called love” still have
that reggae beat. The R&B songs include “PS (I’m Still Not Over You)”,
“Unfaithful”, “We Ride” and “A Girl Like me”. Her third studio album Good
Girl Gone Bad definitely moved away from the reggae genre and was even
more so infused with R&B, pop, Hip-Hop and Soul songs such as “Take a
bow”, “Disturbia”, “Hate that I love you”. Number four, Rated R, was filled
with funk, soul, a bit of rock and R&B. From that album, examples of some of
the genres were“Fire Bomb” being rock “G4L” being funk, “Rude boy” being
R&B and the only non-depressing song in that album and “Russian Roulette”
being soul. Loud was quite a bubbly, happy and catchy album with examples
of R&B, Hip-Hop, pop and Reggae (“Man Down”). Talk that Talk the album
after pretty much explored the same genre as Loud but with a bit more
reggae and more sexual lyrics like in “Birthday cake” and went on to do a
remix of that song with her then boyfriend Chris Brown who releases music
in similar genres to Rihanna. Unapologetic, her recent album was different
as it included dubstep, rap, Hip-Hop, Reggae, Pop and Dance. This is the first
album where Rihanna has tried to rap a couple of her songs for example,
“Fresh of the Runway” and “Pour it up”.

5. How her star image was established in early videos
Rihanna’s first music video was Pon de Replay
which was a dancehall track. In the video she
has long brown hair with a gold sequined crop
top and baggy light blue jeans with sneakers.
She has a dance routine in this video. The
image she portrayed back then is a fresh-faced
teen reggae/pop star that enjoys dancing.
Back then she was not really that sexualised.
The camera was mainly focusing on her face
so it became recognisable . There was lots of
medium and long shots of her dancing to get a
recognisable brand image going.
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Her second music video, “If its lovin’ that you want” is
set on the beach. It is quite a colourful video and
shows Rihanna yet again dancing. It is presumably
shot in Barbados, her birthplace, which is quite
significant to the image she was promoting for herself
back then. When she first broke out onto the scene
she was known as a “Barbadian beauty” or “Island
Beauty” and her first two music videos reflected that.
She was quite innocent looking in these videos and
she looked like your typical R&B female singer but her
music was Reggae. Again in “If it’s lovin that you
want” video the camera focuses on her face a lot,
therefore trying to become more recognisable and
gain more fans. She is very feminine here and wears
an array of large earrings.

6. How has her image developed later on in her career?
From Music of the Sun to A girl like me her image developed away from the beach scenes
however she has kept the dance routines in the videos. In “SOS” music video she has started
to tone down the “Island girl” image and looks a bit more like an R&B star. However, she’s
starting to wear more skimpy clothing in this video and becoming more of a fashion icon.
In each of her videos later on in her career they become more sexualised. Her overall image
changes through each new album she releases, her hair being the main change. She gained more
publicity when she got her first number one in the charts which was “Umbrella” from Good Girl
Gone Bad. She had short black hair in this video and she became more recognisable for it and
gave of a more edgy, sexy image. She was dating fellow R&B singer Chris Brown until February
2009 where after the Grammy’s he assaulted her. The domestic violence case effects were
shown through her image later that year in her fourth album Rated R where she exuded a dark
gothic, depressed image.
Her fifth album Loud gave off a more positive vibe. Rihanna changed her hair colour from blonde to
bright red and the music and videos were more colourful and up beat. However, she gained a lot of
negative criticism off of the public and press for the S&M music video which was about gaining sexual
pleasure through pain and that the lyrics were unsuitable for her much younger fans who idolise her.
In Rihanna’s latter music videos you begin to see her smoking which she
never did in her early music videos, which shows her ‘innocence’ if you
will has faded and she is no longer that fresh-faced teenager that does
music videos on the beach. In “Man down” music video she does a little
bit of the video on the beach but there is not quite the same vibe of
when she was on the beach in “If it’s lovin that you want” as the colour
setting is not as bright and the clothes that she is wearing is black which
resembles death or darkness.
Later in her career her music videos have become more darker in setting
and less colourful. I have noticed that some videos have more of a story
line that completely relates to the lyrics and some of her videos aren’t as
focused on her as others and is more about the artistic side of the video
than Rihanna herself. Her music videos have also become increasingly
sexualised such as “Pour it up” where you can see her twerking possibly to
get away from being her original image of when she first came onto the
scene as a teenager. Even though as a teenager she has not done cheesy
songs or music videos as for example when Miley Cyrus was a teenager, so
Rihanna has not had to get away from that much embarrassment or if any
at all. As the years have gone on her music videos have shots which focus
on her body parts like her boobs and bum which she is now known for
showing these features the most

7. Changing Image, new ventures
Rihanna’s image has rapidly changed over the years. Recently she
turned up to events where certain body parts such as her boobs
can be seen through her dress. Here are a few examples of how she
has changed:
As well as making music she has appeared in a few films too such as
Battleship, This is the End and Bring it on: All or nothing.
Rihanna in the past 3 years has released many endorsements. She has also
become recently a fashion designer and had her own TV programme called
“Styled to Rock”. She has had her own fashion line in River Island and has
released four fragrances within the past 3 years. At the end of last year she
collaborated with MAC cosmetics and has released her own summer,
autumn and winter collection of make up.

8. Conclusion
Rihanna’s image, music and overall career has changed
over the past 9 years she has been in the music industry
for. She has recieved many positive reviews but also
negative from critics due to her increasingly raunchy
music videos and lyrics even though she has stated she
does not want to be a role model for young girls. She has
been compared to other fellow female artists such as
Beyonce, which in my opinion I think when Rihanna first
entered the industry she was like how beyonce was
around 5 years ago. I do not think that Rihanna gives off a
‘girl power’ vibe as some of her music and videos have
deemed to be quite submissive to men but I do think in
recent years she has set more of an example that women
can do what men do and earn money and make a name
for themselves if they work hard for it.