“Yeah I Said It”: Rihanna, the Real Rap and the Parable of the Trickster

Abstract

The location of culture where diaspora meets in hip hop is only thematically defined by a narrow set of artists, that can  incorporate the polyrhythmic sound and communal dissonance of black people in today’s increasingly collapsing  “global society.” Because hip hop and digital culture grew contemporaneously, greater access to mainstream communication modes has been facilitated by the more democratic voice of social media and greater control for  formally marginalized groups has been advanced, most prominently by black women in hip hop, rising to the top of the  bottom, if you will, as they are still frequently challenged by the historic wealth of their white male peers. The most  exceptional of this lot, singer/model/fashion icon/entrepreneur, Rhianna, has a unique “small island” migrant narrative  into U.S. corporate mogul. Well poised to challenge the legacy of Jamaica’s Bob Marley around the diaspora, her narrative of assent is steeped in the importance of flight for Western blacks and voice, within a specific black feminist  context, that speaks truth to power in new ways and with extraordinary reach.