GOOD GIRL GONE GREAT

But last year, just as some critics were about to write off Rihanna as another fresh-faced R&B flirt with, you know, stuffing where her soul should be, she unleashed a monster. Over futuristic drums and a shimmering bass line, the 20-year-old gave us "Umbrella," a synthesized love poem that Jay-Z, then president of Def Jam Records and Rihanna's mentor and boss, anointed when he rapped a few tightly written rhymes for the intro.

However, it was Rihanna's delivery, clear and clipped in all the right spots, and that MTV Music Award-winning video that cemented "Umbrella." Unlike one of those carb-free pop tarts trying her hardest to nail the choreography and muddying up the choruses with vocal acrobatics, Rihanna lets her Bajan accent lace itself through the -ella, -ella, -ella, ey ey eys. Her hips float in fishnets, swaying back and forth—she's the hottest girl in the club. And yet, even in the video's many phallic moments involving an actual umbrella, she comes off as simultaneously sexy and adorable. The combination is organic; how can we help but compare her to a sexually emerging Britney, who first made us aware of her budding talents by throwing on a thigh-high pleated skirt and doing school-girl slutty? Maybe the dichotomy within Rihanna is the birthright of an island girl who spent a lot of her life in a bathing suit with the beach as her backyard. Wherever it comes from, the idea that a young performer could be so incredibly game, so comfortable in her own skin, and not yet (maybe never?) affected by the physical and psychological weirdnesses American fame brings is like candy to us. We just want to gorge ourselves.