I know, you’re probably thinking that this particular Should Have Stopped When is a tad premature, what with Riri still belting out hit after hit. However, let’s think about this seriously, if someone is taking you for a ride, doesn’t the natural order of things impress upon you the need to scream, “maaso awo! Ku stage dammit!”?
Rihanna came in to our lives with Pon De Replay, a track which actually brought us to our feet every time it got rotation even if none of us really knew what the hell she was going on about. She then went on to release a series of other successful tracks that actually bled content.
The biggest thing about Rihanna’s career here was her forehead
The problem is, somewhere along the line, she got lazy…and we let her. It sort of makes us hypocrites when you think about it, Halima Namakula releases a couple of nursery rhyme covers and we spew vitriol, but Rihanna subjects us to what we should know to be a lesson in vowels and we smile and scream for more.
The amnesia inspired track, “What’s my name?” shows this to be true as Rihanna prefaces her question with the words, “O-na-na”. Only after she has said that does she go on to ask what her name is.
I initially thought that may be this is a common problem in the Caribbean seeing as Beenie Man also prefaced his question with “Zim Zimmer” which makes about as much sense as a snail walking in to a store and purchasing salt, but on close inspection, she went on with her attack against proper words.
Disturbia saw her continue her vowel crusade, but this time she decided to drop names. She turned to the Flintstones for inspiration and went on to intone thus; “Bam-Bam-Bira-Bam-Bam-Bi-Bam-Ba”. If you think this sounds familiar, it should. It’s the sound hail makes as it hits a tin roof.
You know where you can shield yourself from the rain right?
Under her umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh
To be fair, one can argue that her relationship status with words is ‘complicated’, but with songs like Te Amo and Unfaithful, she let’s the world see that she and the English language are more than friends.
Do you poke? On FB as in?
On the other side of the tracks, there’s her tenacity to basically do one or two verses and then rehash them. I suppose one way of looking at it is that she teaches you the lyrics and hopes that you will sing with her. She is lonely that way.
Speaking of which…
If we had stopped Rihanna in her tracks around Pon De Replay, maybe she wouldn’t have caught Chris Brown’s fist eye. But catch it she did and they were the it couple for a while. And why wouldn’t they be, both of them were young, showed so much promise and their music was topping charts until, finally, the relationship ended with a hit.
Is that a mic in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
Rihanna is still going strong, but the more discerning among you will notice you’re being taken for a ride and ask that you be let off at the nearest exit.