We Shine Together: The True Story of Rihanna and Jay Z's Umbrella

It might be hard to think of Rihanna as anything other than the multi-hyphenate superstar that she is today. 

At time of recording, fans have been waiting for more than eight years for a proper new RiRi album, with 2016’s ANTI being the last full release from the original Bad Gal - but this period of waiting hasn’t made Rihanna any less popular.

Back in the year 2007, Rihanna was at a bit of a crossroads - She’d released two albums as a teenager in ‘05 and ‘06, and although her second record A Girl Like Me achieved a decent amount of success in the US, and ended up becoming her first Platinum album in Canada, critics were starting to become… well… critical of her sound. 

Despite the fact that she was still so young, Some critics were growing tired of the Caribbean sound she’d made her name on with ‘Music of the Sun’ and ‘A Girl Like Me’  and some were anticipating that Rihanna would pan out to be nothing more than a Beyoncé knockoff. 

Still only 19, Rihanna just needed a chance to grow, and she had the superstar quality that afforded her the support she needed to bet on herself, and experiment with her sound. 

In the early days of 2007, Rihanna began working on her third album, which would of course go on to be titled ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’ - a not so subtle message to the world that she was shedding the innocent-girl image that she was synonymous with. 

This is the true story of the monster first single off of that album 'Umbrella' ft. Jay Z. With newly unearthed audio and additional clips from MTV News and Genius.