Buzzin Pop Music

Rihanna’s latest hit single Rude Boy leaves little to the imagination, and its accompanying promo video left even less to its apparent fabric budget.

Less is more as they say, but in this case, the phrase can only be applied to the amount of clothing worn in the clip – everything else is excessive bordering on obscene.

The super-stylized, Warhol-esque video begins with a scantly-clad Rihanna playing air-drums on a less than responsive kit, while the background drum machine lets a dance-hall beat rip and shake. One of the next shots comprises multipe Rihannas, shaking in a bright kaleidoscope of African colors, stylized with comic book style Pop Art layering and animated lions, before moving onto the super-ripped object of her desire, whose pants she soon pulls back to check for sufficiency.

The style is impressive, and the overt sexuality of Rihanna herlyricsand video itselfhaveensured the song’smega-hit status. Speaking of which, the video has received over 8.4 million hits on Youtube as of March 4th.

In a kind of backwards victory for women’sequality, the lyrics of the song, both, advocate male teasing and mockery, and a love of rough sex – a wise and winning combination in anyone’sbooks, and a surefire way to win over millions of young, sexually-frustrated fans. Lyrics include:

“Come here rude boy, boy
Can you get it up
Come here rude boy, boy
Is your big enough
Take it, take it Baby, baby
Take it, take it Love me, love me.”

and:

“I like the way you touch me there
I like the way you pull my hair
Babe, if I don’t feel it, I ain’t faking
No, no.”

Whatever you think about the lyrics, or the apparent direction of today’s youth, the sound, technique and style are undeniable. Both, Rihanna and the object of her desire, are super-fit, clad in designer clothes, and edited at a super-stylized and perhaps seizure-inducing pace.

It seems that Rihanna’s superstardom will continue its upward trajectory at a seemingly unlimited velocity, or at least, as far as censorship is willing to allow