Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century: No. 3 — Rihanna

With the first quarter of the 21st century coming to a close, Billboard has spent the last few months counting down our staff picks for the 25 greatest pop stars of the last 25 years. You can see the stars who have made our list so far here — and now, we examine the century in Rihanna, who pushed her way into the center of pop music and pop culture for a game-changing decade of absolutely dazzling dominance, then headed back to the sidelines. (Hear more discussion of Rihanna and explanation of her list ranking on our Greatest Pop Stars podcast, with her episode debuting Wednesday, Nov. 20.)

In 2007, Rihanna told Paper that she wanted to be “the Black Madonna.” Nearly 20 years have passed since, and the billionaire pop icon has taken the 20th century’s greatest female pop star template and fashioned into a blueprint of her own. Rihanna’s version – the Rihprint, if you will – combines a unmistakable vocal tone, a rarely faulty ear for hits, an eye for fearless, futuristic fashion and a complete rejection of the role model archetype in favor of a gleeful embrace of sexual liberation. It’s now arguably the most prized and clamored-after playbook for burgeoning 21st century pop singers. 

Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty in Bridgetown, the capital of the picturesque island country of Barbados, Rihanna’s musical odyssey boasts a familiar beginning: she and two childhood friends started a girl group. Without a name or any original material, the trio scored an audition with Evan Rogers, a veteran producer with credits dating back to 1984’s landmark Beat Street soundtrack, who remarked to Entertainment Weekly, “[Rihanna] carried herself like a star even when she was 13. But the killer was when she opened her mouth to sing [Destiny’s Child’s cover of ‘Emotion’]. She was a little rough around the edges, but she had this edge to her voice.”  

Those two things – her effortlessly natural allure and her distinct vocal tone that infuses her Bajan accent with trademark throaty rasp – proved to be the most important building blocks for her impending domination. That initial audition impressed Rogers so much that he spent the next year helping Rihanna sharpen her craft in Stamford, Conn. during her breaks from school. In 2004, she signed to Roger’s and Carl Sturken’s Syndicated Rhythm Productions, allowing her four-track demo tape – which included an early cut of “Pon De Replay” from her then-unreleased debut studio album – to begin circulating. 

Upon hearing “Pon De Replay” for the first time, Jay-Z, Def Jam’s president and CEO at the time, felt that track was too big to be a new artist’s first single. But after hearing her sing the song live during an audition in NYC, he was convinced and honored L.A Reid’s request to make sure Rihanna didn’t leave the building without signing a deal with Def Jam. In a 2005 appearance on The Tyra Banks Show, Rihanna recalled Jay-Z saying, “There are two ways to leave here. I go through the door with the deal signed or through this window, and we’re on the 29th floor.” That day, Jay-Z locked down a six-album deal with Rihanna that would go on to completely revolutionize the pace of modern pop music production and the expectations fans have with how often their favorite artist’s release music.  

With “Replay,” Rihanna introduced herself in 2005 as the girl next door with an island twist. Her sweet, flirtatious vocal tone and casual exchanges with the DJ kept her in lockstep with top 40’s proclivity for the dancefloor, but she did all of it over a handclap-laden, dancehall-lite beat that recalled Skatta’s “Coolie Dance” riddim, which owned pop radio the year prior. A no-brainer pick for her debut album’s lead single, “Pon De Replay” reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100; Music of the Sun, its parent album, would debut No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and spawn the follow-up single “If It’s Lovin’ That You Want” (No. 36), announcing Rihanna as one of pop’s most promising newcomers, but not doing enough to fully convince the world that she’d be in it for the long haul. Though “Pon De Replay” was a verifiable success, Teairra Mari was still the “Princess of the Roc” at the time, and more of a priority for Def Jam. 

Exactly six months after the release of “If It’s Lovin’,” Rihanna obliterated the one-hit wonder allegations and unleashed “SOS” as the lead single for her sophomore effort, 2006’s A Girl Like Me. “SOS” became her first Hot 100 No. 1, clearing a path for the set’s future top 10 hits “Unfaithful” (No. 6) and “Break It Off” (No. 9, with Sean Paul). While A Girl Like Me, which reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200, didn’t mark the stark change in image and sound that we’d later come to expect from a new Rihanna album release – after all, she was still cementing her spot in the pop ecosystem – it did help transform her into a pop girl who could spin hits out of dance-pop and R&B as easily as she could with more Caribbean-adjacent styles.   

If A Girl Like Me established Rihanna as bonafide pop princess, then 2007’s Good Girl Gone Bad solidified her as a capital-P, capital-S Pop Star. Every great pop star has an album or series of albums that demarcates exactly when they’ve transformed into a new animal. For Rihanna, Good Girl Gone Bad was that album– an aptly titled pop&B record that transposed the spunky, rebellious energy of her new shaggy, jet-black bob into a sleek collection of tentpole pop singles that housed some of the stickiest hooks of the late ‘00s. Led by the utterly enormous “Umbrella” — the 2007 Jay-Z collaboration (their first of many!) that topped the Hot 100 and earned her her first Grammy — Good Girl Gone Bad soundtracked the birth of Rihanna as a truly singular pop singer. Its eye-grabbing accompanying music video – who can forget that umbrella choreography?! — also helped establish Rihanna’s penchant for aesthetically rich visuals and won her first Moonperson for video of the year the MTV Video Music Awards. 

As would be the case with many of her singles, “Umbrella” embarked on quite the journey — including stints in Britney Spears’ and Mary J. Blige’s camps – before landing in Rihanna’s hands. “When she recorded the ‘ellas’ [in the hook], you knew it was about to be the jump-off,” “Umbrella” songwriter and producer Christopher “Tricky” Stewart told MTV News in 2008. “[You knew] your life was about change if you had anything to do with that record.” With her Bajan lilt evolving into a de facto Riri idiosyncrasy, Rihanna’s delivery single-handedly turned the last two syllables of the word “Umbrella” into one of the most unforgettable refrains in pop history. She made the song her own in a way that even those other legends probably wouldn’t have been able to. With “Umbrella,” Rihanna became the strongest producer of rap/sung collaborations since Mariah Carey effectively pioneered them with 1995’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard-assisted “Fantasy” remix; to date, five of Rihanna’s nine Grammy wins are for best rap/sung performance. 

In addition to “Umbrella,” Good Girl Gone Bad birthed hits in “Shut Up and Drive” (No. 15) and the No. 3-peaking, MJ-sampling “Don’t Stop the Music.” Rih also visited the top 10 with “Hate That I Love You” (No. 7), a duet with Ne-Yo, another pop&B Def Jam labelmate seeing success under Jay-Z’s guidance. In 2008, Rihanna revamped Good Girl Gone Bad with a deluxe edition that tacked on the Grammy-nominated Maroon 5 collaboration “If I Never See Your Face Again” (No. 51), a Halloween anthem in “Disturbia” (No. 1, two weeks) and “Take A Bow,” her first Hot 100-topping ballad. After barely scraping more than one hit off her sophomore LP, Rihanna had morphed into a pop music behemoth by her third album. To close out the year, she joined forces with T.I. for “Live Your Life,” which spent six weeks atop the Hot 100. Outside of the music, the Good Girl Gone Bad era also helped position Rihanna as the fashion icon and sex symbol she remains today; her edgy bob (she finally deaded those pesky Beyoncé comparisons) and seductive stage show shredded the girlish image of her first two albums and properly cast her as an adult pop star. 

The night of the 51^st Grammy Awards (Feb. 8, 2009) – where she earned three nods for the deluxe edition of Good Girl Gone Bad – was supposed to be a victory lap moment for Rihanna. But the pop superstar ended up canceling her scheduled performance. Initial reports claimed her then-boyfriend Chris Brown – one of the few teen-pop stars on Rih’s level at the time — had physically assaulted her. By March 5, Brown was charged with assault and making criminal threats. 

It’s hard to overstate just how deeply this incident rocked the world. Here were two of music’s biggest and brightest young stars – essentially America’s pop&B sweethearts — at the center of harrowing public example of intimate partner violence (IPV) – a haunting echo of the experiences Rihanna described of growing up witnessing her father physically abusing her mother. Just weeks after closing out an incredibly dominant year in music, Rihanna was cast by some fans and members of the media as the villain and endlessly harassed by those who felt Brown did nothing wrong. Two weeks after the incident, TMZ published an unauthorized photo of a battered and bruised Rihanna that appeared to have been leaked from the Los Angeles police department, effectively changing the public’s relationship to celebrity survivors of IPV forever.  

Those photos circulated cable news stations and gossip blogs alike, with any and everyone clamoring for access to jeer at Rihanna while she was at her lowest. This phenomenon even spurred the proposal of “Rihanna’s Law” — which, if enacted, would have discouraged law enforcement employees from releasing photos or information that exploits victims. By June, Brown pleaded guilty to felony assault, and he received five years of probation and an order to stay 50 yards away from Rihanna barring public events. Brown and Rihanna would reconcile both romantically and musically a few years down the line, but their reunions would always be met with some degree of discomfort, disapproval and confusion. 

By August, Rihanna would return to music alongside Kanye West and Jay-Z with “Run This Town” (No. 2), which won a pair of Grammys and served as her first post-assault release. Meanwhile, the events and subsequent chaos of the 2009 Grammys loomed large over Rihanna’s next release, Rated R, her fourth studio album. Led by the somber “Russian Roulette,” Rihanna processed the emotional trauma of the preceding months and the demise of her and Brown’s relationship through rock-infused ruminations on love, lust, loss, violence, longing and how all of those different energies intersect. Her commanding tone took on a more militant vibe that was reflected in music videos like the clip for her Jeezy-assisted “Hard,” while her fashion became even more punk-influenced, exacerbating the album’s overall grayscale bleakness.  

Both “Russian Roulette” (No. 9) and “Hard” (No. 8) reached the Hot 100’s top 10, but Rated R’s sole No. 1 hit, “Rude Boy,” found Rihanna returning to the dancehall influences that she first captured America’s attention with. Perhaps one of her most important Hot 100 chart-toppers, “Rude Boy” marked the moment Rihanna committed to a truly unapologetic embrace of her sexuality – a daring, provocative and admirable choice in an era where most expected her to dial down her forwardness following Brown’s assault. Rihanna’s decision to double down on owning and flaunting her sexuality in spite of the patriarchy’s attempts to silence and conceal her became paramount to her brand going forward. The more she stood firm in her expression of her sexuality, the more loved, hated and influential she became. But she outwardly rejected the “role model” label – and would continue to throughout her career – making her pop’s favorite rebel and one of celebrity’s greatest challengers. 

Before Taylor Swift (Folklore and Evermore) and Ariana Grande (Sweetener and thank u, next) were putting out “sister albums” in quick succession, Rihanna was doing it with Rated R and Loud. Released just three and half months after the final Rated R single (“Te Amo”), Loud traded Riri’s heavy eyeliner and highlight-streaked bowl cuts for fire-engine red curls and a bold red lip. Musically, buoyant dance-pop and explosive love-centric choruses took the place of Rated R’s penchant for foreboding rock ‘n’ roll. Returning to the commercial glory of Good Girl Gone Bad, Loud launched three Hot 100 chart-toppers: “Only Girl (In The World),” “What’s My Name” (with Drake) and “S&M,” with Britney Spears’ much-hyped remix appearance pushing the song over the top. (Fascinatingly, “Only Girl” remains the only solo Rihanna song to ever win a Grammy, for best dance recording.)  

Across Loud — which earned four Grammy nominations, including album of the year – Rihanna added much-needed levity and verve to the artistic strides she made on Rated R. She dialed up her embrace of her sexuality to 100 – live performances of “S&M” sparked concern for producers at both the 2011 Brits and Billboard Music Awards – while beloved cuts like “Man Down” continued Rated R’s exploration of vengeance and loving things that may not always be good for you. In addition to its bevy of hits, Loud also spawned a tour of the same name that saw Rihanna performing at London’s iconic O2 arena for a whopping 10 dates. As pop entered the 2010s, that Rihanna reign had indeed not let up. Such was the magic of Rihanna’s yearly album releases, she offset her near-constant presence with radically different sounds and looks, making her a chameleon, always a step or two ahead of where pop music was at a given time. 

To bridge Rated R and Loud, Rihanna linked up with Eminem for “Love the Way You Lie,” a haunting rap ballad that topped the Hot 100 for seven weeks during the summer of 2010 and earned five Grammy nominations. Inspired by her own experiences in an abusive relationship, Skylar Grey penned the track’s chorus for Alex da Kid’s demo before Eminem heard it and specifically asked Rihanna to hop on it. Both Rihanna and Eminem have had public stints in abusive relationships – albeit on different sides of the equation – so their real-life experiences infused the song’s exploration of the IPV cycle with stunning gravitas. (She made another cameo on another similarly themed hit later in the year, with her appearance on Kanye West’s spellbinding and brutal “All of the Lights.”) At once a grueling emotional undertaking and an expertly constructed pop song, “Love the Way You Lie” marked the beginning of a union that would spawn three more collaborations – including 2013’s Grammy-winning Hot 100 chart-topper “The Monster” — and a joint six-date stadium trek in 2014. 

By the time Rihanna dropped Talk That Talk in 2011, top 40 was comfortably in the throes of its love affair with EDM-driven dance-pop. Having already visited similar styles dating back to “SOS,” Rihanna easily and unsurprisingly adapted to Eurodance dominance of the times with “We Found Love,” the era-defining lead single for Talk That Talk. The rousing dance track simultaneously doubled as a thesis for Rihanna’s entire musical career – what’s a Rihanna song without searching for a love in places that should be devoid of it? — and helped further introduce Calvin Harris, who was about to break out with “Feels So Close.”  

With an acclaimed Grammy and VMA-winning music video (she’s the first woman to win video of the year at the MTV Video Music Awards twice), millions of copies sold worldwide and 10 weeks atop the Hot 100, “We Found Love” is arguably the defining song of Rihanna’s career. Just as her commanding voice developed a militant edge for Rated R, Rihanna morphed her voice into something closer to the anthem-belting house divas of the ‘90s with a robust, joyful timbre. When she slips into her falsetto each time she sings the word “hopeless,” effortlessly capturing the whimsy of the Harris’ blaring synths, that’s the stuff pop greatness is made of. “We Found Love” was so massive and so undeniably great that everyone wanted to be part of its lore; both Leona Lewis and Nicole Scherzinger claimed to have had the song before Rihanna, a testament to Riri’s evolution from perusing other pop stars’ scraps to being the biggest get in the world for a pop songwriter. 

Talk That Talk reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and spawned five additional singles: “Where Have You Been” (No. 5), “You Da One” (No. 14), “Talk That Talk” (No. 31, with Jay-Z), “Birthday Cake” (No. 24, with Chris Brown) and “Cockiness,” which did not reach the Hot 100 but did earn a remix with A$AP Rocky, the future father of Rih’s two sons who also performed a notably frisky, booty-grabbing rendition of the track with Rih at the 2012 VMAs. While some critics derided the album’s overt preoccupation with sexual themes, Talk That Talk reiterated Rihanna’s position as a hit machine who was unafraid to court controversy. 

After years of seamlessly shifting in and out of seemingly disparate styles and looks, 2011 and 2012 were the years when it seemed like Rihanna was finally getting recognized for her gifts as a master aesthetic curator in real-time. In simpler terms, everyone wanted to be like Rihanna, and the explosion of the Instagram era put that collective yearning for her specific cool on full display.  

Between her Twitter (now X) clapback era, the Isis chest tattoo, pitch-perfect street style, her black pixie cut and her affinity for blunts and free nipples, Rihanna’s cavalier, mess-with-me-if-you-dare attitude dictated an entire generation’s curation of their own personalities and styles. You couldn’t scroll Instagram without coming across several accounts that were trying to recreate some part of Rihanna’s aesthetic. Whether she was sparring with Ciara or dismissing Kendall Jenner, Rihanna was pop’s favorite mean girl during this time, Regina George be damned. (2012 was also the year of Rih’s acting debut – Peter Berg’s critical and commercial stinker Battleship; a more successful foray into live-action film would come in 2018 with Gary Ross’ $300 million-grossing Ocean’s 8.) 

Less than a month after “Cockiness” closed the Talk That Talk era, Rihanna launched the Sia-penned “Diamonds” as the lead single for Unapologetic, her seventh studio album. Though “Diamonds” slowed down the tempos of her previous records, the soaring ballad wasn’t entirely representative of its parent album’s high-octane combination of trap, reggae, R&B and dance-pop. The rest of the album’s singles – including “Stay” (No. 3, with Mikky Ekko) and “Pour It Up” (No. 19), “Right Now” (No. 50, with David Guetta) and “What Now” (No. 25) — all reached the Hot 100.  

Both her first album to top the Billboard 200 and win a Grammy (best urban contemporary album), Unapologetic is – in quite a few ways – an unofficial sequel to Good Girl Gone Bad. Not only did Rihanna spend the set feeding her cross-genre inclinations, but she also infused her songwriting and themes with the high drama of celebrity; anxiety-wracked tracks like “Get It Over With” complemented more jaw-dropping moments like “Nobody’s Business,” an unsubtle Brown duet that explicitly winks, nods and scoffs at the expected, horrified reactions to the two ex-lovers’ reunion. Aided by a nifty mixture of hip-hop/R&B samples and an all-star roster of songwriters and producers, Unapologetic, for many, remains Riri’s magnum opus. 

Before Rihanna got to 2016’s Anti – the other album most frequently considered her masterpiece – she spent some time completing side quests and getting a little weird. She commenced 2014 with “Can’t Remember to Forget You” — an underrated Shakira duet – and a planned break from music. After spending summer 2014 on tour with Eminem, Rihanna wouldn’t return with new music until the very beginning of the next year. At the top of 2015, she recruited West and Paul McCartney for “FourFiveSeconds,” a folksy acoustic pop ditty that peaked at No. 4 on the Hot 100 and signaled a massive shift from digitized soundscapes of Unapologetic. Rambunctious trap banger “Bitch Better Have My Money” arrived in March, reaching No. 15 on the Hot 100, with a cinematic, Mads Mikkelsen-starring music video that played into the theory that song was (at least partially) inspired by the former accountants Riri sued in 2012. Finally, the American Dream-exalting “American Oxygen” (No. 78) arrived in April with an accompanying patriotic music video; the dubstep ballad would unwittingly herald President-Elect Donald Trump’s arrival in the U.S. political arena two months later. 

Despite each of the three singles earning critical acclaim, none of them ended up attached to a larger project, and details on what would eventually be known as Anti remained muddied. In fact, the only musical project Rihanna released in 2015 was Home, a tepidly received companion soundtrack to the children’s animated film she starred in that year. While she cooled off on the music side, this is when Rihanna truly started to make strides in the fashion world beyond her capacity as a pop star; she was appointed creative director of Puma in 2014 and expanded her fragrance line to men’s scents that same year. By this point, Rihanna was a MET Gala regular, but her 2015 appearance in Chinese designer Guo Pei’s dramatic yellow gown cemented her as the undisputed queen of the fashion event. Easily the most-memed MET Gala fashion moment of all time, Rihanna’s regal pose and eye-popping train once again reminded us of her ability to dominate the news cycle with a single garment – just as she did with her sheer, Swarovski crystal-encrusted gown at the 2014 CFDA Awards, where she was honored with the Fashion Icon award. 

In late 2015, Roc Nation successfully orchestrated a deal with Samsung to sponsor the rollout and tour for Rihanna’s forthcoming album. The album in question, of course, was Anti. That deal gave way to “AntiDiary” — a series of digital and in-person activations that brought fans inside the world of the album. Ultimately, the “AntiDiary” endeavor fell flat, with its accompanying visuals uninterestingly reflecting on past Rihanna eras in anticipation for the one on the way. Plagued by a start-stop creative process, the looming shadows of Samsung and Tidal, West dropping out as executive producer and an eleventh-hour leak, Anti finally arrived on Jan. 28, 2016. The Hot 100-topping, Drake-assisted “Work” preceded the album by a day, and the full set was accidentally uploaded prematurely to TIDAL, through which one million copies of the album were available for free download via Samsung. Due to its messy release, Anti earned a meager No. 27 debut before peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 after its first full week of release.  

Despite the extremely messy rollout, the album ended up being a resounding success. Nominated for six Grammys, Anti harnessed the emotional turmoil and faith-based crises of Rihanna’s post-Unapologetic years into a liberating journey through soul, hip-hop, folk, trap, dancehall and more. Though the Prince-evoking “Kiss It Better” topped out at No. 62, two more Anti singles joined “Work” in the Hot 100’s top 10: the doo-wop-infused “Love on the Brain” (No. 5) and “Needed Me” (No. 7), a continuation of the murderous path she first ventured on with “Man Down” that doubles as the longest-running Hot 100 entry of her career (45 weeks).  

With Anti, Rihanna reached levels of artistic triumph that she had never previously seen. From the Dido-nodding “Never Ending” to a beloved cover of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Old Mistakes,” Anti fearlessly flaunted the full breadth of Rihanna’s musical influences and interests. For the first time since Rated R – maybe ever – people were lauding a Rihanna album as a musical and artistic statement, not just an impressive hodgepodge of hit singles. Despite its rocky start and the Grammys’ cold shoulder, Anti remains on the Billboard 200 today, now the longest-running album by a Black woman in the chart’s history (445 weeks and counting). 

While the business side of things may have been hectic, 2015-16 housed some of Rihanna’s best and most defining performances. In addition to her routinely lauded career-spanning medleys at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards – where she was honored with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award and hilariously curved a kiss from Drake on national television – Rih also shut down the 2016 Brits with SZA and Drizzy, made a green fur coat and an onstage helicopter nothing short of iconic with her 2015 iHeartRadio Music Awards performance and brought the 2016 BBMAs crowd to tears with an impassioned rendition of “Love on the Brain.” Rihanna’s stage show has never been the single most vital part of her artistry, but she certainly found her pocket in this era – probably because the songs finally sounded the most like what Rihanna wants to make versus how other cooks think her music should sound. That level of artistic maturation after already debuting with such a keen eye and ear is what made – and continues to make – Rihanna such an outstanding and alluring pop star.  

Outisde of her own music, Rihanna spent the rest of 2016 and 2017 pumping out collaborations. In retrospect, she was probably giving the world as much music as she could before she shifted her focus to her growing business empire – but at the time, it just felt like Rih was meeting the public’s bottomless demand for more of her, as 2016 spawned more Rih-assisted hits for West (“Famous”), Harris (“This Is What You Came For”) and Drake (“Too Good”), while the following year found her linking up with N.E.R.D. (“Lemon”), Future (“Selfish”), Kendrick Lamar (“Loyalty”) and DJ Khaled and Bryson Tiller (“Wild Thoughts”). 

With the launch of Fenty Beauty in 2017, Rihanna effectively quiet-quit pop stardom – kind of. The makeup brand continues to be a resounding success, cementing Rihanna as a pioneer in beauty industry inclusivity and a powerhouse brand across mediums and disciplines. She has since launched skincare (Fenty Skin) and healthcare (Fenty Hair) offshoots for the brand. In 2018, she debuted Savage x Fenty, a lingerie brand whose annual fashion show quickly became a worthy competitor to the iconic Victoria’s Secret fashion show. By 2019, she launched the now-closed Fenty fashion brand under luxury goods company LVMH, which made her both the first woman to create an original brand for LVMH and the first woman of color to lead an LVMH brand. Of course, these business strides came years after she teamed up with Puma for products like the “Creeper” sneaker, which allowed fans an avenue to literally buy Rihanna’s swag for themselves. 

The last five years or so of Rihanna’s career have seen more personal developments than musical ones. Currently in domestic bliss with longtime beau A$AP Rocky and their two sons, RZA, 2, and Riot, 1, Riri has popped back into music for two major moments since the turn of the decade. In 2022, she contributed two original songs to the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack: “Born Again” and “Lift Me Up,” a moving tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman that peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and earned Academy Award and Grammy nominations. The following year, she reversed her Colin Kaepernick-inspired NFL boycott and headlined the 2023 Super Bowl Halftime Show. She played hits from across her career, cheekily promoted Fenty Beauty, and revealed a then-unannounced pregnancy in one fell swoop, earning two Emmys and the most-watched halftime show in history (121.017 million viewers). 

With 14 Hot 100 No. 1 hits (the most chart-toppers of any artist this century), two Billboard 200 No. 1 albums, nine Grammys, an endlessly imitated voice and a single name that can make virtually any door open from music to cosmetics to fashion, becoming the “Black Madonna” is comfortably in Rihanna’s rearview mirror. She’s something arguably even more awe-inspiring: a Black Caribbean immigrant woman whose talent, grit and inimitable charisma made her one of the important and successful pop singers in history. She’s Rihanna – there are tens of hundreds of pop stars out there eager to put a modifier in front of her name and fashion her blueprint into something of their own. 

Read more about the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century here — find our accompanying podcast deep dives and ranking explanations here — and be sure to check back next Tuesday (Nov. 26) as we reveal our No. 2, before unveiling our No. 1 Greatest Pop Star on Dec. 3!

THE LIST SO FAR:

Honorable Mentions

25. Katy Perry

24. Ed Sheeran

23. Bad Bunny

22. One Direction

21. Lil Wayne

20. Bruno Mars

19. BTS

18. The Weeknd

17. Shakira

16. Jay-Z

15. Miley Cyrus

14. Justin Timberlake

13. Nicki Minaj

12. Eminem

11. Usher

10. Adele

9. Ariana Grande

8. Justin Bieber

7. Kanye West

6. Britney Spears

5. Lady Gaga

4. Drake

3. Rihanna