Research and Understanding task

Rihanna is an artist that uses a variety of genres within her music. Her main genres are R&B, POP, REGGAE, HIP HOP and DANCE. She swings towards the more mainstream side of music.

Overall, Rihanna is represented as a modern type of artist that tends to break the rules and do her own thing. She stands out considerably due to her use of sexual dances and lyrics which give the audience an idea that she has rather a lot of sex appeal. 

In the video 'Under my umbrella' it particularly caught my eye. There are so many ways in which the video especially represents Rihanna as sexy and powerful. The video has a dark background with lots of edited in rain into all the shots. It's subtly noticeable however doesn't draw too much attention as Rihanna is the character that is watched the most. Also the editing is rather clever because when Rihanna is lip syncing, the screen is blurred in and out to draw yet more attention to her. Further on into the song the editing because more focused on screen as it looked like Rihanna was dodging the raindrops. The fact that she successfully dodged them may give us an indication that the rain in the video could be associated with upset and the fact that she isn't getting wet could give us an indication that she is a strong enough woman. I noticed that the screen was blurred out and then in when she was bending down which is almost teasing the audience as she looks directly at the camera which shows more sex appeal.  The cutting rate in the music video was quite fast and has many different shots inbetween major shots, which portrays her to have two sides to her, and GOOD girl and BAD which reflects the Album name. 

Her costume is definitely what stands out most in the video and in all of her videos, she wears tight clothing to fit around her skinny yet curvy body. The tight, revealing PVC/leather short flared dress shows off her tiny figure which she struts around in wanting all eyes on her. The fact that the majority of the time she is looking at the camera shows that she isn't at all shy and it makes it a more personal relationship between the artist and the audience member. This song is part of her album called 'Good girl gone bad' which may give us an indication that this is one of her most provocative/ sexual songs that she had produced yet.As we go though the video, it turns into a more sensual one as she has less clothes on, fishnet tights and her hair all out of her face revealing her even more. Her prop was the umbrella which was relevant to the video. The prop gets used more sexually as we go through the video which she uses to dance with until the end.  She also moved/danced to the beat of the song which is a very mainstream route to go down- as she tends to produce music that goes into the charts, this particular action works well for Rihanna. 

Rihanna is quite a talked about artist for good and bad reasons. There have been stories that she has been involved with drugs like Marijuana and Cocaine. Photos have been leaked of her doing so and in her tweets (as i follow her) she refers to weed constantly. Her 'code' is the set of numbers 420 which is an obvious link to marijuana.