Rihanna “You Da One”
It’s kind of amazing that Rihanna has released six albums in six years, especially considering that there’s no sign of her dominance over mainstream airwaves appearing fade away anytime soon.
Her latest album, the Nov. 18th-due Talk That Talk, promises to extend her global-wide pop reign for at least another year, coming jam-packed with slick ear-worms galore, plus a Jay-Z cameo, a the xx sample, and some deliciously dirty ditties with titles like “Cockiness (Love It)”, “Birthday Cake” and “Watch N Learn”, all of which spend quite a few lines exploring what we can assume is the Bajan sensation’s favorite activity these days (Hint 1: “I love it, I love it, I love it when you eat it”; Hint 2: “Dive head first if you wanna/ Sing to my body/ Hold me tight Mr. Lover”; Hint 3: “Just because I can’t kiss back/ Doesn’t mean you can’t kiss that”).
Official second single/ opening cut “You Da One” keeps it relatively clean in comparison to its raunchier album mates, but it’s also the album’s surest shot at a second No. 1 after lead Talk release “We Found Love”, following the basic premise of simply Xerox-ing much of what worked about previous Rih chart-topper “Rude Boy”.
Boasting bright and poppy production with a lil’ island seasoning, repeated phrases that enter the brain and never leave and some boy-obsessed songwriting (“You shouldn’t-a give it to me good like that/ Shouldn’t-a hit it like that/ Had me yellin’ like that/ Didn’t know you would’ve had me comin’ back”), the song might as well be named “Rude Boy (Once More)”, but interestingly, the slight laziness of it all doesn’t make it any less irresistible, with small touches like Rihanna’s flawless delivery on the verses, her leaning on her accent through the chorus’ “ey-ey-ey” and a dubstep breakdown that succeeds in not being the eye-roll the increasingly omnipresent production trick has become helping ease “You Da One” into arguably one of her best singles yet.
“You Da One”:
BONUS: Rihanna featuring Wiley “We Found Love (Remix)” (DL):
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