Facts About Rihanna and Other Fun Information by Juliet Monkish

If you haven't already heard her name, Rihanna is a 20 year-old R&B singing sensation with a slew of music awards already under her belt. Boys love her because she's beautiful, and girls love her because she sings from a girl's perspective in her own unique mix of R&B, reggae, and hip hop.
The Basic Facts
Sometimes you just want the basic facts. Here they are:

Rihanna appeared on the scene in 2005 with her first album Music of the Sun.
Her other albums to date are: A Girl Like Me from 2006 and the most recent Good Girl Gone Bad.
Rihanna hails from Saint Michael, Barbados.
She was born on February 20, 1988.
She has two younger brothers.
Rihanna's musical inspirations include: Beyoncé and Mariah Carey.
What You Already Know
If you're a fan, then you probably already know a lot beyond the basics about Rihanna. Just in case you missed something, here it is again.

How It All Started
Rihanna met music producer Evan Rogers when she was only fifteen and he was vacationing in Barbados. After hearing Rihanna sing, he helped her record demos of her music that eventually landed in the lap of Jay-Z. So impressed with her music, Jay-Z signed her, at the tender age of sixteen, to Def Jam Records. Her very first hit, Pon de Replay, put her on the R&B map, and subsequent hits, such as SOS and Umbrella, kept her from being a one-hit wonder.

Awards and Records
Rihanna's number one singles on the Billboard charts include her most famous songs: SOS, Umbrella and Take a Bow. She is also accumulating a rather large collection of awards from the American Music Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, the MTV Europe Music Awards, the Billboard Music Awards and the Teen Choice Awards. After being nominated for a couple of years in a row, Rihanna just won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration with Jay-Z for Umbrella. To top it off, her most recent single, Take a Bow, just made history by making the biggest jump on the Billboard charts from number fifty-three to number one.

What You Didn't Know
While all those facts are interesting, here are some of the fun facts you may not already know, but always wanted to:

Rihanna is a pisces, which means she is creative, sensitive, and kind, but prone to melancholy.
Her first name is Robyn and her nickname is RiRi.
She made a cameo in the film Bring It On: All or Nothing and is set to appear in the upcoming Mama Black Widow.
Her celebrity crush is Adrian Grenier from HBO's Entourage.
Her first hit, Pon de Replay, was not a number one single (but it did hit number two).
She is rumored to be dating singer Chris Brown.
She once won a beauty pageant as a teenager at her school in Barbados.