Here Are Rihanna’s Top 5 Songs On Genius

Here Are Rihanna’s Top 5 Songs On Genius

Celebrating the Super Bowl LVII Halftime performer’s biggest songs on the site.

Last night, some guys played football and Rihanna finally performed the concert we’d all been eagerly waiting for. The Barbados-born pop superstar took the Super Bowl LVII Halftime stage to run through her seemingly never-ending list of hits and reveal her second pregnancy. Over the course of her 13-minute set—which notably included no special guests—RiRi sang everything from her 2007 JAY-Z-assisted smash “Umbrella” to her 2016 Drake collab “Work”—just two of her whopping 14 No. 1 hits over the last decade and a half.

In honor of her show-stopping performance, we decided to dig through the data and celebrate Rihanna’s Top 5 songs on Genius, according to pageviews. Our tally includes features, since RiRi seems to turn anything she touches to gold—even if it’s someone else’s song. Keep reading to find out which tracks made the cut.

5. “Too Good,” Drake ft. Rihanna (2.7M pageviews)

“Too Good” is one of two Drake collaborations to make this list and RiRi’s fourth time linking up with the Canadian rapper. The song appeared on Drake’s 2016 LP Views, and it features a dancehall-infused beat—cooked up by Nineteen85, Supa Dups, Maneesh, and Adam Martin—similar to the one heard on “Work,” their collab released earlier that year for Rihanna’s ANTI album and the first the pair recorded of the two. Lyrically, the song is about feeling like your efforts to keep a relationship afloat are being taken for granted by your partner, which Ri and Drizzy trade off singing about on the chorus.

I’m too good to you
I’m way too good to you
You take my love for granted
I just don’t understand it

“Too Good” only rose to No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100—a not-so impressive feat for two stars who are used to sitting comfortably at the top—but the song continued to fuel rumors about the nature of the duo’s relationship outside of music. Drake argues that’s part of what makes the track so good. “Because there’s something genuine there, we’re not like forcing some story on people,“ he told Zane Lowe. “A lot of the music that we make and the energy that we bring is genuine.”

4. “LOYALTY.” Kendrick Lamar ft. Rihanna (2.8M pageviews)

“LOYALTY.”, Rihanna’s team-up with Compton MC Kendrick Lamar for his 2017 Pulitzer-prize winning LP DAMN, takes the fourth spot on this list. It’s no surprise the song made such a splash on our site—it marked the A-listers’ first time linking up, and of course, they delivered.

Featuring an interpolation of JAY-Z’s “It’s a secret society/ All we ask is trust,” line off his 2000 Memphis Bleek-assisted track “Get Your Mind Right Mami” on the chorus, “LOYALTY.” finds Lamar and Ri pondering the importance of loyalty in different types of relationships now that they’ve found fame and success. Rihanna takes the second verse, where she claims to be the same person she was before she hit it big—it must be the people around her who’ve changed.

Been a bad bitch way before any cash came
I’m established, hundred carats on my name
Run the atlas, I’m a natural, I’m alright

Like “Too Good,” “LOYALTY.” only climbed to No. 14 on the Hot 100, but the song did wind up taking home the Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Performance in 2018.

3. “Wild Thoughts,” DJ Khaled ft. Rihanna (3.1M pageviews)

DJ Khaled reportedly waited seven or eight years to work with Rihanna, and in that time, he kept an ear out for the perfect track to suit her voice. He finally got his wish on 2017’s “Wild Thoughts,” which rides a seductive Latin groove borrowed from Santana’s 1999 smash “Maria, Maria.” “Wild Thoughts” pairs Ri with Bryson Tiller, and the two play lovers who are very into each other and not shy about telling the world. Here’s Rihanna in the opening verse, ensuring you’ll never view laundry day quite the same way again.

I don’t know if you could take it
Know you wanna see me nakey, nakey, naked
I wanna be your baby, baby, baby
Spinnin’ and it’s wet just like it came from Maytag

In the second verse, she compares her man’s sexual prowess to the dominant play of the 1968 New York Jets, who finished the season 11-3 and beat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in the Super Bowl.

Kitty, kitty, baby, give that thing some rest (You’re the best)
’Cause you done beat it like the ’68 Jets (Uh)

“Wild Thoughts” peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100—one place shy of “Maria, Maria.” Amazingly, it was Ri’s 31st Top 10 pop hit.

2. “The Monster,” Eminem ft. Rihanna (4.8M pageviews)

Rihanna had already worked with Eminem on three songs—including the 2010 chart-topper “Love the Way You Lie”—when she agreed to sing the hook on “The Monster,” off Em’s 2013 album The Marshall Mathers LP 2. “The Monster” is all about the corrosive effects of fame and other demons Em was battling at the time, and Rihanna’s hook illustrates how we can’t always conquer that which plagues us. Sometimes, we have to live with the darker aspects of ourselves and learn how to manage them.

I’m friends with the monster that’s under my bed
Get along with the voices inside of my head
You’re tryin' to save me, stop holdin’ your breath
And you think I’m crazy, yeah, you think I’m crazy
Well, that’s nothin’

That hook was co-written by a then-unknown Bebe Rexha, who hoped that her voice would wind up on the finished record. But once Eminem heard the demo, he immediately thought of Rihanna. “The perception of the record, what it’s saying, I thought it would be a good idea to have her on it because I think people look at us like we’re both a little nuts,” Em told MTV News. “That’s one of the things that I was telling her in making the record: I think that people look at us a little crazy.”

“The Monster” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, matching the performance of “Love the Way You Lie.” It also topped the U.K. charts and earned Em and Ri a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.

1. “Work,” Rihanna ft. Drake (8M pageviews)

Rihanna and Drake were once pop’s great “will they or won’t they” couple, and on 2016’s dancehall smash “Work”—their third collaboration—they sound like two lovers drifting apart, sort of. “People think [‘Work’ is] a party song,” the track’s lyric writer, PartyNextDoor, told Rolling Stone. “It’s a breakup song. It’s blues. I went from braggadocious to blues.” One reason some people might’ve missed the message is Rihanna’s use of Caribbean patois on the chorus.

Work, work, work, work, work, work
He said me haffi
Work, work, work, work, work, work
He see me do mi
Dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt

The Barbados-born singer wasn’t too concerned with people fully understanding the lyrics. “I felt like if I enunciated the words too perfectly, it would just not be the same attitude or the same sass,” Rihanna told Vogue. “Because that’s how we speak in the Caribbean. It’s very broken and it’s, like, you can understand everything someone means without even finishing the words. This song is definitely a song that represents my culture, and so I had to put a little twist on my delivery.”

Built on the “Sail Away Riddim,” a dancehall staple dating back to 1998, “Work” came together at a “beat factory” convened at Drake’s house while Drizzy was out of town. Jamaican Canadian writer-producers Sevn Thomas and Boi-1da got the ball rolling, as Thomas explained in a Complex interview.

“We basically banged this track out in half an hour, and we were just jamming out because we could just feel that island vibe, and we knew that the sound of the industry is sort of shaking up its little island vibe, and we knew we were really authentic, we had the Jamaican culture, and we took it upon ourselves to hone in on that and make our new futuristic dancehall songs that we like to call the new wave,” Thomas said.

“Work” nearly went to Alicia Keys, as Rihanna’s label “didn’t care for Caribbean music at the time,” according to PartyNextDoor. But Rihanna couldn’t stop singing “Work” around the house, and the record company relented. That was a wise move, since “Work” became Rihanna’s 14th No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It also made her the first artist to score No. 1 hits on seven consecutive studio albums.

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Looking Back At The Top Hip-Hop Artist Of 2010 On Genius

Looking Back At The Top Hip-Hop Artist Of 2010 

Kanye West’s “Rap Camp” redemption story.

In honor of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary year, we’re looking back at the top artists, albums, producers, and songs of “The Genius Era,” 2009 to the present.

Going into 2010, Kanye West wasn’t exactly everyone’s favorite guy. In fact, his infamous 2009 VMAs incident with Taylor Swift had—for the first and certainly not the last time—made him something of a villain in popular culture. But while his public image may have been suffering, his creativity certainly wasn’t, and with his first album since the controversial stage-bomb, Kanye saw the opportunity to alter his rep through music.

Calling on producers like Mike Dean, No I.D., and Emilie Haynie, as well as artists like Pusha T, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, and Kid Cudi, Kanye headed to Hawaii in 2010 for what Complex editor-in-chief Noah Callahan-Bever—who was invited to observe the process—called “Rap Camp.” Amid friendly games of basketball, family-style meals, and late-night studio sessions, Kanye’s brainstrust worked on crafting My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Spanning 13 tracks, Twisted Fantasy is filled with sonic references you wouldn’t expect, like the sample of King Crimson’s 1969 Vietnam War critique “21st Century Schizoid Man” on “POWER” and the electro guitar riff from Enoch Light and the Glittering Guitars’ “You Showed Me” on “Gorgeous.” Lyrically, Kanye did his best to repent for his ill-received VMAs behavior, even calling himself a “scumbag,” among other choice names, and urging others to steer clear on the stark, piano-driven cut “Runaway.”

Let’s have a toast for the jerk-offs
That’ll never take work off
Baby, I got a plan
Run away fast as you can

“Dark Fantasy was my long, backhanded apology,” Kanye told The New York Times. “You know how people give a backhanded compliment? It was a backhanded apology.”

Ye’s weeks-long, 24/7 recording camp and quasi-apology paid off—Twisted Fantasynot only arrived to widespread critical acclaim and topped the Billboard 200, but it also seemed to redeem his image, solidifying West as the most popular hip-hop artist on Genius in 2010, according to pageviews. Sonically, Kanye moved onto other things in years that followed, and he’ll appear in a few more of these Genius lists. But his scumbag ways? Well, those wound up being harder to outgrow.

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Gracie Abrams Searches For Clarity On A Past Encounter With New Song “Amelie”

Gracie Abrams Searches For Clarity On A Past Encounter With New Song “Amelie” 

It’s the latest single off her forthcoming album, ‘Good Riddance.’

Today, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams dropped her new song, “Amelie,” the third single off her forthcoming debut studio album, Good Riddance. “Amelie” follows “Where Do We Go Now?” and “Difficult,” all three of which include production by The National’s Aaron Dessner. The pair have been working together since early 2022, when Dessner co-wrote and co-produced Abrams’ single, “Block Me Out.”

Abrams says Good Riddance is all about asking herself the hard life questions that force you to grow up and “be accountable.” On “Amelie,” those questions all come back to a past encounter with a girl named Amelie. Their interaction was so brief, Abrams worries she might have dreamed it.

On the first verse, Gracie recounts their fateful night together. Their conversation was pretty one-sided, and Abrams worries she didn’t leave an equally lasting impression on Amelie.

I met a girl once
She sorta ripped me open
She doesn’t even know it
She doesn’t know my name

On the chorus, Abrams searches for a sign that the whole thing wasn’t just her imagination.

Where did you go
Amelie, Amelie, Amelie?
Where’d you go?
Or were you all in a dream
Amelie, Amelie?
I don’t know

Unfortunately, distance only made Abrams’ curiosity grow, and as hard as she tries, she’s unable to shake her conversation with the elusive girl.

Why’d it feel louder
When all of it went unspoken?
All I can do is hope that
This will go away

On the bridge, Abrams would give anything to talk to Amelie again.

Tell me more, I would give all my time
All your words felt like a nursery rhyme

By asking the hard questions on Good Riddance, which is set to arrive February 24, Abrams was able to find some much-needed closure. “It allowed me to walk away from versions of myself that I no longer recognized,” she told Rolling Stone. “It allowed me to let go.”

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Jessie Murph’s New Mixtape ‘drowning’

Jessie Murph’s New Mixtape ‘drowning’ 

The project features three brand-new tracks.

Pop singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Jessie Murph returns today with her highly anticipated debut mixtape, drowning. The 18-year-old Alabama native broke through in 2021 with her single “Upgrade,” and she’s been steadily racking up millions of streams and TikTok followers ever since, earning her a place on Genius’ Artists to Watch list for 2023.

Leading up to the release of drowning, Murph shared a plethora of singles from the mixtape, including “Pray,” “How Could You,” and “Always Been You,” the latter of which has already amassed over 100 million Spotify streams alone. In fact, only three of the 11 tracks on the project have never been heard before: “Where Do You Go,” “What Happened to Ryan,” and “They Leave.” Murph told Ones to Watch that she hopes her new music shows “all different sides” of herself.

drowning isn’t the only reason Murph is poised to have a big 2023. This spring, the singer will embark on her first-ever North American headline tour, which includes 29 dates and kicks off in Columbus, OH, on February 23.

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Paramore’s New Album ‘This Is Why’

Paramore’s New Album ‘This Is Why’ 

It’s the band’s first album since 2017’s ‘After Laughter.’

Paramore return today with This Is Why, the pop-punk band’s sixth studio album and first full-length since 2017’s After Laughter.Leading up to the release of the LP, the Nashville trio—comprising lead singer Hayley Williams, drummer Zac Farro, and guitarist Taylor York—shared three singles: the titular “This Is Why,” “The News,” and “C’est Comme Ça.” All three tracks climbed into the Top 20 on Genius’ Top Songs chart upon release.

Made on the heels of the pandemic, This Is Why is a reflection on how much the world has changed over the last five years. The band considers the record their most political yet—but also maybe their most emotionally charged.

“There’s a lot more aggression than we’ve had in a while,” York explained to Entertainment Weekly. “There’s different types of an emotional release in certain songs that I don’t think we’ve had in a little bit. A lot of that was a product of the times, and not only trying to reflect on what had happened, but also taking that long of a break, we were able to rediscover different sides of ourselves musically that was fun to dive into.”

This Is Why also concludes Paramore’s label contract with Atlantic Records, but that doesn’t mean the group will be done making music. “As long as we stay healthy and people continue to want to hear what we have to make and go to shows, then all eyes are just set on continuing,” York said.

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Kelela’s New Album ‘Raven’

Kelela’s New Album ‘Raven’

It’s her follow-up to 2017’s acclaimed ‘Take Me Apart.

Electronic-leaning R&B singer-songwriter Kelela returns today with Raven, the long-awaited follow-up to her acclaimed 2017 debut album, Take Me Apart. In an Instagram post, the D.C.-born child of Ethiopian immigrants describes the new album as “a 15 track deep-dive into facets of dance music that have always excited me.”

Take Me Apart includes five previously released singles: “Washed Away,” “Happy Ending,” “On the Run,” “Contact,” and “Enough for Love.” Kelela worked with 15 producers on the project, among them LSDXOXO, Florian T M Zeisig, and Yo van Lenz. According to a press release, the LP’s theme of broken relationships derives from Kelela’s “feelings of isolation and alienation as a Black femme in dance music.”

Kelela told The New York Times that she wants the songs on Raven to “help Black femmes heal.” “It’s gotta be a lyric that Black and brown women and nonbinary people, marginalized people, can scream in their cars on the way to work a job that they actually don’t want to do,” she said of her approach to writing.

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d4vd Emerges From A Fundamentally Flawed Relationship On New Song “Placebo Effect”

d4vd Emerges From A Fundamentally Flawed Relationship On New Song “Placebo Effect” 

It’s the buzzworthy singer’s first single of the year.

After a breakout 2022 in which he landed two songs in the Top 5 of Billboard’s Hot Alternative Songs chart, indie balladeer d4vd returned yesterday with “Placebo Effect,” his first single of the new year. It debuted in the lower reaches of the Genius Top Songs chart, about 12 places behind “Here With Me,” one of last year’s tunes that remains popular on the site.

“Placebo Effect” was produced by Dan Darmawan, the beatmaker credited on “Here With Me” and d4vd’s other 2022 hit, “Romantic Homicide.” (There’s little info about him online, but he’s got a bunch of similarly vibey tracks for sale on the website BeatStars.) This latest song fits neatly with those other two, offering mellow, chiming electric guitar and minimal drums and bass—a natural bed for dv4d’s wounded crooning.

As the song opens, we find d4vd (real name: David Burke) in the aftermath of a breakup. Turns out what they had wasn’t real—it was just a case of his brain convincing him it was, like sometimes happens with fake medical treatments. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Days go by
So rapidly
Oh, won’t you comfort me
I know what we had
It was make believe, oh
A placebo

He ends the verse with a realization: “But maybe this is how it’s supposed to be.” He decides to take a wait-and-see approach, and in the next section of the song, he imagines how he’ll feel with a little more distance from this heartbreak.

On the other side
Where the grass seems to be greener
On the other side
Where my rib cage could be cleaner
On the other side
Where the light will not go out
Oh on the other side

At 1:32, the drums finally come in. The lyrics leave plenty of room for interpretation, but it feels like d4vd is addressing his ex, asking for some space to process everything.

Take my time
Please stop rushing me
For company
I can’t figure it out
I need you here but you’re not near

Looking back, d4vd can’t make sense of the relationship he’s just been through. The whole thing has left him jaded and cynical, but on the bright side, dude’s only 17. He’s got plenty of time to figure it out.

I can’t
Remember what was a dream
Or a memory
Love isn’t real
Not to me
Not to me

“Placebo Effect” arrives ahead of d4vd’s debut headlining tour, which kicks off February 17 in his hometown of Houston and hits Los Angeles, Paris, London, and New York City before wrapping in Toronto on March 6. In an Instagram post announcing the new song, d4vd promised “ALOT more” new music coming soon.

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Logic Teams With Norah Jones, Details Shifting Priorities On New Song “Paradise II”

Logic Teams With Norah Jones, Details Shifting Priorities On New Song “Paradise II” 

It’s the third single off Logic’s forthcoming ‘College Park’ album.

Logic has returned with a third taste of his forthcoming album, College Park, and this time, it’s the sequel to the Jessie Boykins III-assisted song “Paradise,” off his 2015 album The Incredible True Story.

Titled “Paradise II,” Logic’s third single follows “Highlife” and “Wake Up,” and features vocals from singer-songwriter Norah Jones. This isn’t the first time the Maryland rapper has linked with Jones—in 2022, he called on the jazz singer to help record an acoustic rendition of his 2015 song “Fade Away” for the Norah Jones is Playing Along podcast.

Produced by Conor Albert, “Paradise II” features a smooth jazz-infused beat and finds Logic in a new phase of life. Now that he’s a dad, music no longer comes first.

Fatherhood my hustle, nowadays I’m makin’ music on the side
I confide in the page, weed smoke fill the air, like Sage

Fatherhood isn’t the only thing that’s changed him, either. Natural signs of aging have also altered how he lives his life.

Thirty-two my age, I spot a couple grays
Feel my blood pressure raise
No longer are the days of my childhood
My priority nowadays is making sure my wife and my child good

In the second half of his verse, Logic shifts from focusing on the present to reflecting on his past. He reached some major music milestones—like performing at Madison Square Garden—only to find out success isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

From the cover of XXL to my moment of clarity (Ooh-ooh-ooh)
As I excel at Madison Square, I swear
The rap game will split your shit, like an affair
Prepare for the worst

Through it all, Logic has learned an important lesson—you can’t live life to please others. You have to do what’s best for you.

No longer needin’ approval and feedin’ into the vision of the public
I’m above it, used to do it how they did it
’Cause I thought that’s how you did it, now I do it, ’cause I love it
I don’t covet everything they got that I don’t (Ooh-ooh-ooh)

Jones takes the outro, where she sings about finding peace, no matter the costs.

Take me into paradise
Gotta keep our heads tonight
Even if it makes a fight

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