Yesterday, Rihanna and Chris Brown revealed news that shocked much of the music world: they’re collaborating. How could this be? Many people in the industry declared Breezy’s career as good as dead after the very young R&B star beat up his equally famous girlfriend in February of 2009–three years ago this month. And nothing shouts “Happy 3rd Domestic Abuse Anniversary!” quite like getting back together to sing about CAKE.
I hope this track moves you[r bowels] as it did for me. For some reason, hearing the words “I know you wanna bite this–it’s so enticing” from Rihanna makes this anniversary song exceptionally moving, as TMZ reported that her Chris-Brown-related injuries circa ’09 included bite marks on her arms and fingers. Chris Brown’s very first lines are also earnest, truly reflective of his desire for a second chance at making art with RiRi: Girl I wanna fuck you right now/ It’s been a long time, I’ve been missing your body. How beautiful. It’s now very clear why he won a GRAMMY for the Best R&B Album this year–his compelling and artistically significant lyrics. Step aside, Emily Dickinson (even though you can’t cuz you’re dead). This is fucking POETRY.
A few days ago, SPIN Magazine wrote about the recent co-involvement of the young R&B stars, branding any thought that Rihanna might have of working artistically with Chris Brown as a career-killer. I usually love SPIN, and I wish I could take stock in their view here. But unfortunately, I strongly disagree.
SPIN’s argument hinges on two flawed assumptions:
- A RiRi/CB collaboration would brand Rihanna with a negative image akin to the one that Britney Spears acquired after shaving her head and showing signs of emotional trauma in 2007.
- Chris Brown has only been supported by a small, bad-apple-crew of fans and artists, while Rhianna has been flourishing on the charts and working with “nice-guy” bands such as Coldplay on recent recordings; accordingly, a collaboration would a) pervert her lovable image and b) adversely impact her place on the charts by the rekindled association.
The Britney Spears parallel falls flat on its face almost immediately–most obviously, because Britney is still recording multiplatinum albums in spite of her lapse. More importantly, the type of drama surrounding Britney Spears several years ago is critically different from the current controversy surrounding Rihanna. From 2006 to 2007, Britney struggled with a lot of personal issues that were made obviously public: she filed for divorce after having a baby with Kevin Federline, checked into a drug rehab facility months later, and eventually shaved all the hair off her head. Regardless of what you thought of Britney Spears before 2007, you probably felt sure that you wouldn’t be hearing her on the radio much longer after watching her demise unfold in the news. Since she looked like an out-of-control train-wreck, Britney’s career simply appeared to be done for. There was little left for anyone to take stock in.
Rihanna, on the other hand, encountered a different type of crisis: she was abused by her significant other. Her wounds were not self-inflicted, and their evidence could be physically seen on her face. Fans, casual listeners, and anyone keeping up with national news all flew to her support, condemning Chris Brown for his actions and praising Rihanna as a “survivor” of an ongoing and largely under-acknowledged violent crime. Unlike Britney, how could anyone not support Rihanna more adamantly after this event?
Here’s another difference worth highlighting–Rihanna speaks confidently about her current work with Chris Brown, and suggests (via her social networking dialogue) that the issue is no big deal to her anymore. In no way does she seem mentally shaken by this incident, unlike the 2007 Britney Spears. In her moment, Britney looked pretty hopeless; Rihanna speaks like she doesn’t know why everyone is still concerned about the Chris Brown thing. A few days ago, she tweeted (and later deleted) this callous message to followers who might’ve been unhappy with her new ventures:
They can say whatever, Ima do whatever… No pain is forever <—–YUP! YOU KNOW THIS
According to SPIN, this attitude will result in a loss of loyalty from groupies who care about the female performer. But Rihanna fans aren’t fans because they’re women’s rights activists: they’re fans because they like her music. And as long as she keeps making songs that people want to listen to, it probably won’t matter to them who she’s collaborating with.
For the few people who started listening and/or looking up to the Barbadian pop icon because they thought she stood up for women anywhere as a posterlady for gender issues and domestic violence…well, she’s gonna lose that crowd. But I don’t think the latter group represents even a fraction of her fan base–especially with songs like “S&M” and “Rude Boy” on her current set list at concerts.
What a segue:
SPIN’s second point–the idea that Rihanna’s artistic reputation holds some sort of lovable innocence when compared to Chris Brown’s–also lacks concrete substantiation. For one thing, the male vocalist’s early songs were more adorable and innocent than hits from the likes of Justin Bieber, and everyone wanted to work with him. Only within the last few years did Breezy leave his explicitly G-rated world of kiddy-R&B, deciding to experiment with hip hop collaborations and the use of profanity in some of his songs (OMG!).
Post-scandal, Chris Brown has colaborated with Lil’ Wayne, Justin Bieber (I know, right? Damnit Bieber), Busta Rhymes, Ludacris and Trey Songz. None of these artists are considered hip hop or R&B outcasts, and all are profoundly popular.
Rihanna has collaborated with Coldplay, but this doesn’t seem to mean anything in the grand scheme of her work: she’s also worked with Young Jeezy, Nicki Minaj and Eminem (on “Love the Way You Lie,” a song about being unhealthily drawn to an abusive relationship). These are also big names, but to me they don’t garner any more “clout” (as SPIN put it) than the performers making music with her ex.
If she decides to sell out all the way and make some music with her abuser, will any of those artists working with her really care? Again, I seriously doubt it. This event has done nothing but put Rihanna in the spotlight. Any act with her now will only receive peripheral attention, and give her music and the music of collaborators even more airtime. Ugh. In fact, I would not be surprised if Chris Brown leaves his “serious girlfriend” within the next year and gets back together with Rihanna completely, in part for the sake of publicity. How gross would that be?
One big consequence of this controversy is the impact that it will have on listeners. Yep, I predict that we’re going to get even shittier top-40 radio. Most stations will play a song on two qualifications: 1) it has to be catchy, regardless of it’s content, and 2) the artist has to be well-known. Rihanna is the queen of “catchy” (as is Chris Brown, if you can get past the whole, you know…), and she’s certainly well-known. If the mantra of any press being good press applies here, expect to hear Rihanna on many more tracks than you’ve previously heard on the radio. As she’s only adding to her bad-girl rep, we’ll likely hear her on FM channels even more often now.
If you disagree, take a look at her most recent Billboard hits. In “We Found Love,” Rihanna’s hopeless place is not a romantically difficult time in her life, but at a party where the couple in the song’s narrative are hopelessly high out of their minds. See the video for proof. She throws up colors. In “S&M,” the pop star shouts in her refrain that sticks and stones may break my bones,/ but chains and whips excite me. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that if you’re into it, but it’s not exactly “lovable” radio music by everyone’s standards like SPIN claims. In the video for “Love the Way You Lie,” Eminem tells the camera that if Rihanna’s character Ever tries to fucking leave again,/ [he'll] tie her to the bed and set this house on fire. Mmm. Healthy. (Even healthier–this music video has almost 500 million hits on YouTube. That’s almost 2 views per U.S. citizen.)
I’m aware that this is Rihanna’s form of “art”–which, in her case, is often a fictitious representation of a story based on some strand of autobiographical reality; but when you compare it to Chris Brown’s singles at any point in his career, his songs sound less provocative and hold greater potential (lyrically) for universal radio appeal. From “Forever” and “Yo (Excuse Me Miss)” to “Yeah! (3X)” and even “Look At Me Now,” none of his recordings bring up extremely uneasy topics, and most of them are literally about dancing and puppy-love. What?
Anecdotal paragraphs aside, the effects of Rihanna’s decision have far-reaching negative potential beyond the issue of radio quality. The most damaging impact is the one that she’s making on her young female fans, and the questions that they are forced to ask themselves if they want to enjoy these new songs. If Rihanna’s ‘over it,’ shouldn’t they be too? Isn’t it important to forgive and forget? Doesn’t everyone get angry sometimes? By choosing to work with Chris Brown again (and tweeting about how she’s over it), Rihanna becomes an apologist for horrendous violent behavior, and normalizes a form of awful behavior in the developing minds of millions. If some teenage girl of finds herself in a violently abusive marriage ten years down the road, the apologist mentality that she has been exposed to might be one of many influences that prevent her from seeking necessary separation.
Some readers might think of this as a stretch–that Rihanna’s decisions couldn’t play a substantial role in the health of others’ relationships. But after seeing Buzzfeed’s list of horrific reactions to Chris Brown at the GRAMMYs, it’s obvious that the gravity of such a situation hasn’t been grasped by many teenagers and young women, and it’s clear that many of those comments come from people who might think that such violence could be “sexy” or otherwise understandable in a relationship. I cannot explain this better than Roxane Gay from Rumpus, who wrote an unbelievable Op-Ed apology entitled “Dear Young Ladies Who Love Chris Brown So Much They Would Let Him Beat Them.” Likewise, young men aren’t seeing just how dramatic the consequences should be for physically damaging a person that you “love.” Forgiveness is important, but incidents of domestic violence are not something that our culture should forget, or treat without consequence.
Especially since the majority of women who find themselves in an abusive relationship today will eventually return to their abuser. And, statistically speaking, it’s no less likely that he won’t hit her again.
While SPIN does seem to have missed the mark here, the last thing they should be worried about is Rihanna’s career. Her decision (or publicity-stunt move) is sending a powerful implied message to millions of young listeners: that domestic abuse is not that bad–even a tiny bit sexy–and that we should eventually get over it enough to sing songs and be best friends with our attackers.
Holy shit.
Brilliant write up. You raised a lot of good points in reference to this (in my opinion) debacle. I don’t think her collabo with Chris Brown will have a dilatory or detrimental effect on her career, but her decision to act like she’s over it sends a certain message to young girls for real. People deny their influence too much. I mean, you can’t ask her to alter her choices for others, but she’s gotta be aware of the impact.
Wonderful post today. I found it very interesting. Thank you very much for sharing.
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Interesting take! I agree with most of the post but you lose me here:
“SPIN’s second point–the idea that Rihanna’s artistic reputation holds some sort of lovable innocence when compared to Chris Brown’s–also lacks concrete substantiation. For one thing, the male vocalist’s early songs were more adorable and innocent than hits from the likes of Justin Bieber, and everyone wanted to work with him. Only within the last few years did Breezy leave his explicitly G-rated world of kiddy-R&B, deciding to experiment with hip hop collaborations and the use of profanity in some of his songs (OMG!).”
1) I don’t think the SPIN article implies innocence for Rihanna. You might be reading the words “adored” and “pop darling” and re-coding them to connote traditional/sexual innocence, but being a pop darling (or being adored by the radio-listening public) doesn’t mean pigtails and virginity. It means that you are favored by the fickle winds of success in the music industry — that you consistently put out catchy pop music that sells. Madonna was a pop darling despite having released albums like “Like a Virgin” and “Erotica,” which were pretty shocking at the time. B Spears, Katy Perry, etc. are pop darlings, despite their raunch.
2) When has Chris Brown ever been “innocent,” in the way you seem to mean innocent? Are you talking about mixtapes before his studio records with which I’m unfamiliar? Because in his eponymous first album (released in 2005 when I was a college freshman…sigh, nostalgia), there are already many filthy singles. Remember that line from “Run It” about him doing sexytime things to a girl that will have her saying he can’t be sixteen? The chorus of “Gimme That” is about him giving it to a girl in the back seat of a Cadillac while she yells, “Gimme!” Is your point that this stuff was strong innuendo, as opposed to later stuff that gets more explicit?
Anyway, after that detour, you get back to the good stuff and this was really interesting to read! It makes me barfy that she’s making music with him again.
Thanks for your response! I see where first point is coming from, but I want to point out that you took that quote from my discussion about Chris Brown’s work. I tried to avoid using the word “innocent” without incorporating another qualifier while discussing Rihanna’s music, because I did not want to lead anyone to believe that SPIN was calling her “traditionally/sexually innocent”–they weren’t at all.
But SPIN Magazine’s claim that everyone hates Chris Brown and loves Rihanna is crammed into a flimsy, unfilled two-sentence argument: the author very generically suggests that the ‘classiness’ of the artists that each singer chooses to associate with is a legitimate barometer for their likability. My goal was to extrapolate this poorly explained and mislead argument (to point out where that thought process would lead someone if they chose to buy into this perspective). Is it fair to call Coldplay a polite, classy act? I guess so. Does that make Rihanna’s work more “polite” than Chris Brown’s? Of course not. I used the conventional metrics of sexually explicit lyrics and in-song drug-use to make this point most effectively (you know, things that earn a parental advisory label) to extrapolate (not re-code), though it apparently made my position less clear, and somewhat exaggerated the claims that SPIN made. Thanks for pointing that out.
Your second point is very fair. I’ll try to walk you through my reasoning, and hopefully you’ll see where I came from—even if that perspective wasn’t completely accurate. To date, none of Chris Brown’s four studio albums are explicit enough to require a parental advisory sticker from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). By contrast, more than half of Rihanna’s albums have earned this sticker. My point was not directly that “this stuff was strong innuendo, as opposed to” his later music or Rihanna’s work; rather, I meant that his discography is literally not as laden with RIAA-defined explicit content as RiRi’s. The majority of recording artists have sung about sex in some capacity since the 60s—Chris Brown is doing nothing new (unless “Nothing New” is the name of the girl in the back seat of the Caddy in “Gimme That,” in which case I apologize) with controversial language. That being said, his music isn’t entirely about dancing and love. But the songs that I used to make my argument were! For the sake of brevity, I didn’t provide a more comprehensive story about the content of CB’s or RiRi’s lyrics. After all, this post is about the length of a 6-page paper. And it’s not even my birthday.
No, that doesn’t make sense. But I can lick the icing off it.
I don’t really understand the first part but will trust that I just read something out of context.
The second part I get a little better when you explain it via the application of parental advisory stickers. The only thing I caution you against is that when you take four songs from an artist’s repertoire of several albums to make a point, you can’t be surprised when people point to dozens of others that don’t support the point you are making.
And I think that chick’s name was “Nothing New.” Anything goes in Tappahannock.
Amen–just as SPIN selectively chose to discuss Rihanna’s work with Coldplay, not Eminem. I think I was more comprehensive than they were, but I apologize for any confusion that my selective sampling caused.
stellar take, joe. issue here is so much bigger than music and instead about the impact it has that you referenced in the last 4 paragraphs.