 Baw! What's up everybody? It's Brandon Shawn and it's Monday which means it's time for an artist breakdown and today we are going to do Rihanna and how she created such an impenetrable brand. I mean seriously, when you look at Rihanna, she could do anything she wants to. You could see Rihanna in the strip club smoking in the cut somewhere in the hood but you could also see Rihanna in the Met Gala or just some kind of upscale event and none of those phase you. You'll also see Rihanna in the EDM world. She could do that kind of song and she also can do some kind of trap. She could do country and none of these things make people think differently about her brand. Now one of the more interesting things you can look at lately when it comes to Rihanna and how impenetrable her brand is, is the whole Thickana movement. Now if you don't know who Thickana is, Thickana is Thick Rihanna. Basically she's been looking thick in her pictures lately and a lot of times that can be a negative depending on your brand and for certain type of people. A lot of people don't want to be looking thicker and a lot of people, even if they're comfortable with it from the masses the fans might try to turn that into a negative. Oh they're looking big then lose weight etc etc etc. But when it comes to Rihanna, not only is her being thicker not something that's been looked down upon, it's been celebrated to the max. There's been articles posted about it. If you look at the memes in Twitter post about Thick Rihanna, people are loving Thick Rihanna and celebrating her in the same way they might celebrate Rihanna if she lost weight. Whether it's edgy, classy, thick, skinny, reserved out there, Rihanna wins both ways no matter what. Her brand is something that no other female has really achieved on this level. So the question is how is Rihanna being able to do this without the level of pushback people like Miley Cyrus did when she was supposedly being edgy and Christina Aguilera when she became more of an adult in her career and had more of a sexual undertone to a lot of things she was doing. Madonna back in the day, all the pushback that she got. What's so different about Rihanna? All right so let's go way back. Now if you look at Rihanna early on her career you know she was the girl fresh over from Barbados. That was kind of the image and she had the brown hair, sunshine always in her face you know sparkling eyes looking like the good girl type of image. Now there was a danger if she continued on that image because there was not too many places to go other than becoming the Barbados version of Beyonce from the masses perspective and that's basically brand suicide having to compete with something and come under something that's already bigger than you in the head. So it's not only amazing that Rihanna was able to do what she did today brand-wise but it was also necessary for her to have the level of career that she's had but how did she do that? So all right one you look at the early Barbados young girl and as many other female artists do that came out as a teenager once they get older they want to evolve they want to become more grown you know they might want to show more sexual feel. Now of course one of the more recent examples was Miley Cyrus we know how raunchy that was we know how that played out we know all the negative feedback that came from it but Rihanna did it in a completely different way. Number one she used a project to rebrand herself Good Girl Gone Bad. Now with doing Good Girl Gone Bad there's a theme to that so there's complete context if you have seen the video I did on Taylor Swift and her amazing rebrand you'll see the power of creating context when you decide to rebrand so she already had a vehicle that gave her leeway to do certain things that were edgier or more grown and maybe you know a little bit more sexual than what she did before in her previous videos because the title itself the theme was Good Girl Gone Bad and not only that there was additional context through the music there were songs about hey you treat a good girl the wrong way she's gone bad and she's gone forever. So there were a lot of different angles that justified her going from where she previously was brand-wise and pushing her into new realms but on top of that the most interesting part and the most important part is when Rihanna went bad quote-unquote they used colors like black things like that that showed dark side Rihanna didn't become overtly sexual or overly raunchy or anything like that Rihanna just simply dressed more adult right there was more sex appeal she might have been wearing the stilettos or just the outfits were different but they were still more I guess you could say let's just say classy for lack of better return right now and why this was so important is it set up an evolution because not only did she have this project and she created the context and now you can see Rihanna in a new light the trick was she just didn't go back remember your brand is to set up expectations that people have for you what they expect to experience when they see you or around you or listening to your music but whatever that experience is like Rihanna completely changed those expectations once she said good girl gone bad now if she had gone back and did the next project and she was back on the bright and sunny and things like that that actually would have completely negated the good girl gone bad project because that would have just made it seem like it was a theme it was a character she was just playing for the time but once again she didn't go back and from then on Rihanna basically always flirted with both sides if you don't believe me you can see it in every single project for example on the radio our project in 2009 she had songs like ruleboy which were obviously kind of in your face edgy and you know empowering from a woman but then she'll have a song like Russian roulette where even her clothing you see she's dressed a little bit more reserved it's more heartbreaking 2010 she had loud right on that project she had smm but she also had california king bed those are completely two different energies and you can see that also obviously individuals and how she's dressed in those projects she has both sides at all times there's always this duality that she's representing and you see it when she's out and just about as far as how she's dressed because she goes deep into fashion as well it's a movie really the album but i'm such a f***ing lady we take everything back to that especially in our style it's that playing with the the tough but not too tough and being a lady but not too girly because that's not me i i kind of play on both i like things are a little twisted a bit of bit of badass and a bit of lady her brand does have edge just because that's her personality but more than that more than anything her brand is about freedom she's definitely all about that as she's a risk taker but she's built a brand almost as an insurance policy that gives her the freedom to go to certain edges and push certain edges without even seeing as much pushback as a lot of other women brand see and this is why when you think about some female artists particularly in the hip hop realm you might be thinking about body and things like that but when you think about rihanna you pretty much just think badass and that's about it yes she has maybe even equivalent pictures of showing her body or doing certain things in terms of maybe smoking weed or just hood or a classy whichever one a lot of people get one of those pockets rihanna she's somewhere in the center and the thought is just badass she's not a bougie artist she's not an earthy artist she's not a hood artist she's not a artist that's exploiting her looks she's just a badass and that's all been branding and looking at a long-term career versus making moves just to get shock factor of a short-term career that's why she can do certain things and she has a higher respect level in certain environments when other artists might do certain things and people don't necessarily show the respect that they might show for someone like rihanna of course a lot of that criticism is unfair that some of the other female artists get but a lot of it can be avoided with the right brand moves if you want the freedom to explore certain environments and continue to elevate into new levels and environments but i want to talk about that stuff in another video particularly the exploitation of body and how that ends up pigeonholing a lot of artists for now i got a thing live free and so many other women that asked me to do a video on rihanna cause y'all have been asking for months like maybe even a year now my bad for a second so long i know other people are waiting for other videos on other topics have been waiting for a good minute i appreciate y'all's patience there definitely will be some more female artists coming so if you like this video go ahead hit that like button if you like it your minds will share it and if you're not subscribed you know what to do hit that subscribe button