Robyn Rihanna Fenty

• Music and voice
Volume 65 of the Contemporary Black Biography book series notes that "Rihanna is the rare rhythm and blues (R&B) diva to emerge from the Caribbean world." Becoming an international sensation, Rihanna is known for blending R&B with Caribbean music, such as reggae and dancehall. Peter Coulter of the Antrim Times commented that "Rihanna has an amazing voice which showed during her acoustic set, she just needs to work on her audience engagement during live shows." At the time of her debut, reviewers referred to her as a "bubblegum queen" and her music to "teen pop." Larry Meyler of The Sun stated that "Rihanna going bad is very good" and that she had "shaken off any 'teen pop' image as she rocked the stage." While performing at the Ottawa Bluesfest, Denis Armstrong of Canadian Online Explorer commented on her performance saying "her show was a Disney-esque choreographed fantasy of non-stop hip-swivelling, sassy attitude and personal endearments and a string of funky, sugar-free hits." After revealing a new image while headlining her first tour, she was likely to be criticized for her tight leather outfit during each show. A review in The Times compared Rihanna's stage wardrobe styling to that of Janet Jackson. He described her outfit as "a vision of Ann Summers couture in thigh-high boots and a few scraps of black PVC." Stuart Derdeyn of The Province commented that "even with the whole haute couture B&D clearly firing on all points, she's still got a ways to go to become the new Janet Jackson."
Rihanna's musical style has changed during the release of her last three albums. She was originally marketed as a reggae singer since she burst into the music scene in 2005, with a styles of pop, R&B and dancehall. Her music include various styles of musical genres, including contemporary R&B, dance-pop and the Caribbean music styles of reggae and dancehall. With the release of Music of the Sun and its lead single "Pon de Replay", Jason Birchmeier of Allmusic described Rihanna's musical style as "synthesize Caribbean rhythms and beats with standard-issue urban dance-pop: Caribbean-inflected urban, if you will." Rihanna is described as utilizing "dancehall-lite beats and a reggae vocal cadence." NME describes the singer as a "heady mix of dancehall, reggae and contemporary R&B." Barry Walters of Rolling Stone considers Rihanna's A Girl Like Me to be "lightweight dancehall and R&B jams." After the release of Good Girl Gone Bad, Allmusic's Andy Kellman credits Rihanna to be "as pop as pop gets." Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times described her hit "Umbrella" as a lightweight pop confection with a heavy hip-hop backbeat, a breezy love song enriched by those unexpectedly goth-sounding keyboards and by the incongruous hint of anguish in Rihanna’s girlish voice.
Her debut album featured production from pop veterans Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken who first discovered her. Sturken and Rogers have collaborated with Rihanna many times, including with her debut single "Pon de Replay", which helped launch her career with the tradition of reggae and dance pop and collaborated on her sophomore album. Rihanna then enlisted into the pop and contemporary R&B working with music producer Stargate and singer-songwriter Ne-Yo on "Unfaithful" and sampling the key section, bass line, and drum beat from Soft Cell's 1981 single "Tainted Love" on "SOS". With songs like "Kisses Don't Lie" and "Shut Up and Drive", her music style became more rock-oriented. Unlike Music of the Sun or A Girl Like Me, her third album contained a more dance-pop sound and less of the dancehall, reggae and ballad styles of her previous albums. She has included various styles of music from uptempo pop-reggae with "Pon De Replay", to an 80s new wave fueled club banger "SOS" to the whiff of gothic horror in a love song "Unfaithful". Most of her love subject ballads contain a mid-tempo pop sound, with an R&B influences that uses of a gently strummed acoustic guitar with the production of Stargate and the songs written by Ne-Yo. Some of her up-tempo dance-pop songs include production from Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers, Christopher "Tricky" Stewart and J. R. Rotem. She has taken to sampling songs from other artist like Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" on "SOS", New Order's "Blue Monday" on "Shut Up and Drive" and '70s original song "Soul Makossa" of Manu Dibango with a part of the chorus from Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" on "Don't Stop the Music".