Rihanna

Robyn Rihanna Fenty, born in 1988, broke through on Def Jam with the Caribbean-flavored Music of the Sun and A Girl Like Me, sunny pop records that got her on the radio but didn't yet tell you who she was. Good Girl Gone Bad did. The 2007 album swapped the beach for the club, the image grew up, and dance-pop and R&B snapped into focus around that cool, flinty voice. "Umbrella" was the one nobody could escape, a brooding thunderclap of a pop song, and "Take a Bow" and "Disturbia" followed it to number one.

She went darker and more personal on the rock-tinged Rated R, then flipped the lights back on for Loud and Talk That Talk. "We Found Love", from the latter, is pure euphoric rush, a rave-up that sounds like the last hour of the best night of your life. Unapologetic went synth-pop, and after she left Def Jam for Roc Nation, the eclectic Anti gave her another number-one album. Since 2016 the music has come in sporadic bursts, with film roles, Fenty Beauty and the Clara Lionel Foundation filling the gaps. She has collected nine Grammy Awards along the way.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.