Rihanna Talk at First Words " I an Strong " short Interview ABCs "Good Morning America"
"I am strong" were the first words out of Rihanna's mouth in her short interview with Diane Sawyer on ABCs "Good Morning America."
She made the claim unequivocally glint of anger in here eye. It was a sign that this carefully managed encounter...part of a media flurry in which the Barbadian pop star and her ex-boyfriend, Chris Brown, try to manage the fallout from Brown's February assault on her as they prepare to release new albums....would be heavy on message, and less so on confessions. In her first major television interview after the assault, Rihanna clearly meant to reclaim her position as a worthy role model for young woman.
But a troubled relationship may stand in her way. Not the one with Brown, which is apparently 100% kaput, though she admitted to returning to him a few weeks after the beating. The bond Rihanna believes she endangered by returning to Brown is the one with he fans.
If Rihanna’s career has been about noir, “Russian Roulette” is the moment in the novel where someone finally pulls a gun from a trench coat and changes everything. Lyrics like “I’m terrified but I’m not leaving / I know that I must pass this test” and “It’s too late to pick up the value of my life” pointedly allude to that event and a very bleak set of emotions accompanying it. Yet Rihanna purposefully avoids any hard statements about how (or if) the song relates to what she knows we’re all thinking. For music fans more accustomed to the upbeat revenge ballads of the Dixie Chicks or the stay-strong resilience of Mary J. Blige, Rihanna’s choice of metaphor in this song -- that she’s powerless before fate in a game of roulette for her life -- will come as a shock and, understandably, perhaps a disappointment to fans hoping for something more reassuring.
She made the claim unequivocally glint of anger in here eye. It was a sign that this carefully managed encounter...part of a media flurry in which the Barbadian pop star and her ex-boyfriend, Chris Brown, try to manage the fallout from Brown's February assault on her as they prepare to release new albums....would be heavy on message, and less so on confessions. In her first major television interview after the assault, Rihanna clearly meant to reclaim her position as a worthy role model for young woman.
But a troubled relationship may stand in her way. Not the one with Brown, which is apparently 100% kaput, though she admitted to returning to him a few weeks after the beating. The bond Rihanna believes she endangered by returning to Brown is the one with he fans.
If Rihanna’s career has been about noir, “Russian Roulette” is the moment in the novel where someone finally pulls a gun from a trench coat and changes everything. Lyrics like “I’m terrified but I’m not leaving / I know that I must pass this test” and “It’s too late to pick up the value of my life” pointedly allude to that event and a very bleak set of emotions accompanying it. Yet Rihanna purposefully avoids any hard statements about how (or if) the song relates to what she knows we’re all thinking. For music fans more accustomed to the upbeat revenge ballads of the Dixie Chicks or the stay-strong resilience of Mary J. Blige, Rihanna’s choice of metaphor in this song -- that she’s powerless before fate in a game of roulette for her life -- will come as a shock and, understandably, perhaps a disappointment to fans hoping for something more reassuring.
Yet there are so many reads to this strange, oblique song that you can’t just walk away from it with a perfunctory sadness or tsk-tsking that she should set a better example. Is there any power in Rihanna’s choosing, of her own volition, to play this violent game of chance? Is she talking about her career -- that the correct next move for her feels entirely unknowable after a night like that? Is this just a well-timed dramatic sliver of the many complicated emotions surrounding her assault, one that could make other victims feel heartened that they aren’t alone in such contradictory thoughts?
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