Dec 06 2007
Rihanna Radio One Live Lounge

Rihanna at Radio One’s Live Lounge: Tells the “Umbrella” Story

Yesterday, Rihanna was a guest at UK’s Radio One, for their Live Lounge series - an in-studio song session. Rihanna sang “Hate That I Love You” and “Umbrella.” You can listen to the session and interview on the BBC Radio site. I did a de-mix: cut out the songs and got to the chat. There was an awful cover song played; Rihanna talked about spending her Christmas in Barbados; and toward the end, Rihanna told the story of how Mary J. Blige almost stole the biggest hit of her career.

This is more entertaining with her Bajan accent, but here it goes..

“Dream, the guy who wrote the song, sent it in to Def Jam. We listened to it, we fell in love with it instantly. We were like, “We have to have this song.” We thought it was the most original song we heard in a long time. It kind of set a new trend for music. You know, it sounded different to everything else we were hearing at the time.

The moment we said we confirm, we want to record it now, they were like, “Well hold on, cause a lot of other people are listening to it.” A lot of artists who been around for much longer than I have. So I just give up. I was like, “You know what, there is no chance for me.” But two days, I was just listening to the demo, listening, listening. I was like, “I have to have this record.”

And I saw one of the guys at the Grammy awards, and I was like, “You know what? ‘Umbrella’ is MY song!” I was basically telling him if you don’t give it to me I’m gonna fight you. I was so confrontational and he was laughing or whatever. But we eventually fought, we got the song and here we are now.”

Do you know who you fought off? Who else was going for it?

“A few other people, Mary J. Blige, she was definitely the one I was like, ‘Ok, no way, she’s gonna get it.’ Umm, I think Britney Spears had a chance at it also. I think Akon too. Those are some of the names I heard.”

I’m giving her extra butter points, the last movie she saw was “Talk To Me.”

Listen in.


☼ What's Your Opinion? ☼

1 Havok Tue, Dec 11, 2007 - 9:27 pm

Is anyone gonna post besides me?

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