Fifteen years ago, a dancehall riddim and a Bajan teenager launched a pop icon.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
5 to the top of the charts.
But the song remains indispensable.
And in the early aughts, the genre found yet another audience with the millennial masses.
I was 19 and he was like 18 or 20.
It was 20-something years before this all happened with Rihanna.
My wife is much more connected with Barbados, so we go there all the time.
They were all 15.
My wifes goddaughter asked if the girl group could come by our villa.
Rihanna was the last one to show up, she was late.
Sometimes it works that way.
I had each one of them sing for me individually and then they did a little bit together.
But Rihanna sang Dangerously in Love by Beyonce.
She just had something really unique.
I told her, Listen, I think youve got something special.
I live in Connecticut and our studio is in Westchester, New York.
Then we ended up signing her to our production company [SRP].
He said, You working with Lauryn Hill dont make you a super-producer.
She was already a big artist.
What makes you a super-producer is when you’re able to break a new artists career.
So that became my mission.
I left New Jersey and moved to Orlando, Florida, in 2002.
Dancehall was really dominating at this point.
I started learning about Jamaican sounds.
Pon de Replay came from that; it was highly influenced by the Indian Diwali sound.
Icut the recordwith a local female artist called Malica who was actually Jamaican.
She grew up in America, but her patois was really, really good.
I thought,I need toget these verses cleared.
No, Im a businessman.
So what I needed to do was make an original song to [the riddim].
He became an A&R named Chris Anokute.
One day Chris calls me and says, I got this girl that Im managing.
Shes working with some producers and [theyre] not really treating her right.
Shes sitting in a studio.
They dont pay for food for her.
Theyre not sharing their weed.[Laughs.
Alisha wrote Pon de Replay and sent it back I never met her.
I was still working regular jobs and I was a teen parent.
I had to get out of New Jersey.
So the song was a dream.
The way [the credits] were listed to the public, I was [given] a co-write.
But, just for the record, I wrote the lyrics and melody.
The production was done by Vada Nobles, Carl Sturken, and Evan Rogers.
[SRP] was looking for a hit record, and I had already written one that prior April.
But it had a weird bass line.
Zhane had a song called Hey Mr. DJ [in 1993] and it had this vibe.
Nobles:Marc Jordan was the former head of Urban Music Columbia Records [and Rihannas first manager].
He called me and said, I have this girl you’re gonna wanna check out.
Shes signed to these producers Sturken and Rogers.
They dont know what to do with her.
I know youre doing the dancehall and you understand the Caribbean sound.
I never heard of them.
I said, I got to go to Cannes the next day.
I dont want to get stuck in a snowstorm and dont go to France.
Have them send a car [to take to me SRP].
Ill do it out of my relationship with you.
I told my friend Nicole, Dont even come upstairs.
Keep the car running.
Me and my assistant Alex meet the guys and theyre giving me their background.
Black artists were finding success in the confines of R&B and hip-hop.
It grabbed everyone the minute it came on.
Carl filled in the track with bass, chords, and synth lines and gave it some more structure.
I played it for Rihanna over the phone.
She was like [mimicking Rihannas Bajan accent]: Uncle Ev, it sounds like a nursery rhyme.
I like it, but I dont know.
She had just gone back to Barbados.
We said, Well, were gonna fly you back up because we think this could be huge.
She was like, Okay, I trust you.
She has a way of owning a song.
And even at the very beginning, there was just something about that tone that she had.
It was a perfect match for her too, because it had a Caribbean attitude to it.
It just sounded cool, but I didnt want to be fake about it.
Nobles:When I went to go mix it, Rihanna came by the studio.
I told her: Dont worry.
When this record drops, all the boys will be feeding you grapes like youre Cleopatra.
Rogers:Our lawyer, Scott Felcher, was lining up meetings with labels.
We were telling people we got a hot new artist from Barbados and were flying her up next week.
We played it for some label people that we were really tight with just to get some initial feedback.
The first label we went to was [the now-defunct] J Records.
He said, She needs to break R&B, this is too pop.
Rihanna kind of sat there and I felt so bad for her.
Nobles:Back in the day, black artists did not skip over black radio and go straight pop.
If that happened, then they would get alienated and have problems backtracking at black radio.
Pon de Replay crossed over right away.
She wasnt really getting the initial respect and support from black radio.
Shes an international pop star because she was introduced as a pop artist.
Now, when they did the Umbrella record, they were grabbing urban [radio].
And the great thing about it is she did so well at pop that herurbanrecords went pop.
I think Pon de Replay is an international classic record.
In Barbados, theres not an R&B sceneespecially back then.
It wasnt like,Oh, because youre black, you only listened to R&B.
She was also a big hip-hop fan, of course.
but she loved all kinds of music.
We saw her as an artist that could break down walls.
She performed the song, and then she did another ballad on acoustic guitar called The Last Time.
It was just dead … crickets.
Nobody responded, nothing.
In the next meeting with Def Jam, though, they were all aware of her.
You know the legendary story: She auditioned for Jay-Z.
*Rihanna:When I went to [Jay-Zs] office, I wassonervous I was a mess.
But the minute I met him, the atmosphere was so warm and welcoming.
I was able to audition comfortably.
He was impressed by it.
Rogers:Then [former Def Jam chairman/CEO] L.A. Reid came in.
Jay-Z said, What do we have to do to cancel all the rest of your meetings?
They negotiated the long-form contract that day.
*Rihanna:He didnt let me leave until 3 in the morning to sign the deal.
MJestie:I heard nothing for a long time about the song.
He said, Are you sitting down?
Pretty much the classic moment.
Jay-Z just signed a girl last night.
Her first single is Pon de Replay.
It was the fastest deal in history.
Rogers:Normally those kinds of deals would take six, seven weeks of negotiating.
But our lawyers, Scott Felcher and Keith Culter, got in there.
L.A. Reid stayed until the thing was done.
MJestie:I was at my godmothers house [listening to Hot 97s] Funkmaster Flex spinning at night.
For anybody from this era, he was the god of DJ-ing.
My godfather called and said, Are you still there?
The song is about to come on, hes mixing it in.
My godmother jumps up, turns the radio on, and I hear the beat in the background.
To [hear] Funkmaster Flex drop a bomb on your record … you only dream of it!
He starts screaming: Shout out to Rihanna, you did it baby!
Shes probably sleeping right now because shes like 16 years old!
Oh Shit, We Made the Wrong Video
Rihannas star power was immediate.
Despite being a newcomer to the music business, the teen was hungry for fame.
Director X, music video director:I wanted to shoot the video in Toronto.
Nowadays people really understand how Toronto is a big West Indian town.
But back then it wasnt so well known.
I wanted to put that flavor around her with kids who came from the culture and understood it.
I think her andDrakemet around that time.
[Star power] is just something that people have when its just you and the camera.
Theres a level of confidence.
Theres a way of controlling the body thats more than just practice.
Theres the It factor:I see whats up kid.
MJestie:When I met her, she was a kid!
Carl and Evan invited me to their studio to write a few more songs with her.
She was wearing some pink pants and a little yellow cut-off shirt.
I remember when she first got introduced to Chinese food.
]She was in a new country with a lot of things happening.
Her energy was very meditative.
I remember asking her, What do you think is gonna happen next?
She said, I dont know.
Youd say, Rihanna, you want to take a break?
She just wanted to keep going until we thought it was right.
She always had that work ethic.
When she puts her mind to something … shes a perfectionist and so focused.
From day one, she never complained about being homesick.
She was on a mission.
Director X:She was a little joker but always a pro.
In the video, she has a blue dress on and its a solo cutaway performance shot.
We shot that at the end of the night.
She had this my performance carries the video punch in vibe.
Thats when I saw it in her.
Shes got something, shes rocking this.
But it was the right video for her to start her career, being this teenage act.
That Rihanna girl, she said, shes a beast.
She was 16, but she was poised.
You just knew that she was there.
We didnt want her to be seen as a novelty.
So as we put the first record out, we started on the second one.
We wanted people to know shes here to stay; shes not going anywhere.
But I think the first time I felt like other people got it was Umbrella.
*Rihanna:I remember the first time out with Pon de Replay, I got that a lot.
A lot of people said I was going to be a one-hit wonder.
But I worked my hardest to prove them wrong.
And when we came out with the second album, SOS and Unfaithful, both blew up!
MJestie:People didnt know Rihanna; it wouldve been different if I wrote Pon de Replay today.
[The song] didnt pick up in the urban market as much as it did in pop.
So it was a lukewarm reception in my surroundings, but something bigger was happening in the world.
You know how people are when things start to rolleverybody jumps on the bandwagon.
Rihanna was the perfect vehicle to lift it all off the ground.
Without that song, its possible that nothing ever happens and she goes back to Barbados.
She was still unknown.
If she wasnt Caribbean, then I would have said hell no.
It didnt have to be Rihanna.
Pon de Replay couldve worked with anyone who can do the flow.
It was a premeditated smash record.
But it was destiny for Rihanna to have it.
Rogers:She lived in our house for the first three albums in Stanford, Connecticut.
She would come up here when she was unsigned.
MJestie:There were no fans there for Rihanna in 2005.
It was more of, Whos this girl with the big forehead?
There was a lot of chatter about if she was gonna make it.
I dont think that really stopped until Umbrella.
There were moments when the second single, If Its Lovin That You Want, wasnt really popping.
I remember we had a meeting with Jay-Z at his Four Seasons hotel suite out in Beverly Hills.
She teared up; it was some real tough love.
We were sitting in a parking lot in New York after a dance rehearsal and reassuring her.
She was like, But what would happen?
Will they drop me?
We went through a very scary period [putting together her next album].
We were like, Well thats pop.
But what about her Caribbean sound?
L.A.s words were: Fuck that.
First it was going to be a duet with [label mate] Christina Milian.
I remember I had my ticket booked to fly to Miami to cut the vocals on both of them.
And I guess Christina didnt want to do it with Rihanna.
So she came right back with the song.
It debuted at No.
97 on the Billboard Hot 100 that June, and later soared to its No.
2 peak a month later.
The song that blocked it from snatching the top spot?
Mariah Careys comeback single, We Belong Together, which spent a total of 14 nonconsecutive weeks at No.
While Rihanna went on to experiment across genres fromdubsteptodoo-wop the Caribbean influence of Pon de Replay hasnt waned.
MJestie:I dont hear [the song] as often now.
But when I go on YouTube, I always see people who say they miss that Rihanna.
I dont know what that means, but I think its just the nostalgia of it.
What the song did to her career as a whole was set the tone for her personality and attitude.
All the songwriters that came after, they couldnt follow the lyrical tone that Pon de Replay set.
It had a lot of swagger before swagger was a thing, and that was my style.
I havent had placements since then, really.
Its not some bubblegum thing from when she was a kid that was cool then but not now.
When she came to the States, she stayed in the tristate area.
And I think the songwriters have kept that vibe.
Nobles:I still hear it when I travel and it still makes me want to move.
I think the standing power is tremendous.
Everybody believed the record was bigger than her at the time.
But Rihanna just proved that shes bigger.
Its always been who she was.
It was always the foundation.
But at the same time, being West Indian doesnt mean you got to do West Indian music.
She was 17 when we did the first video and now shes in her 30s.
Shes grown not even as an artist, but as a woman and businesswoman.
Shes this very mature, secure, good, intelligent persona real natural leader.
Also if you watch the Work video, theres a guy that Rihanna walks over and starts dancing with.
Thats the same kid from Pon de Replay.
Thats not set up; he was just dancing around.
Thats Toronto video dancer history right there.
Rogers:Every time I hear that song come on, that beat always sounds cool to me.
But she sounds as edgy, cool, and undeniable as ever.
And thats what it takes to launch a career, something that distinctive.
That one is just always going to be magical.
They might say that now because shes so profound, but its not true.
This was her destiny.
Like, Pon de Replay what?
]I made the record for that time and it actually worked.
The genius of her legacy is that she has an ear and keeps the right creative people around her.
Rogers:Our original deal [with Def Jam] was for a five-album deal.
But she actually extended our deal for two additional albums, which is pretty unheard of.
Were very much Uncle Evan and Uncle Carl to this day.
We keep in touch.
Its always a family thing.
That song was the thing that kicked it all offit changed all of our lives.
Theres a big plaque above the bed with her first platinum album.
[I want to be] remembered as Rihanna.
Remembered as being the artist from the Caribbean who came here and made it internationally.
These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
