Rihanna unleashed the second single from her mysterious upcoming project yesterday. She named it “Bitch Better Have My Money,” in which sounds like the female version of Trey Songz nowadays. I mean, Rihanna’s always had at least a sprinkle of Hip Hop on her records but this is full on trap lord – “cake, cake” type of hype.
This banger is credited to Roc Nation’s newcomer Deputy, but he had help. Kanye West co-produced it and Travi$ Scott assisted with his “Uptown” producer in training, Wondagurl. If you know anything about Hip Hop production cliques, this won’t be surprising. Ye’s been working with Rihanna and he’s also known for his Kentucky Basketball style of recruiting. The Chicagoan artist takes talent off the street and then locks them up to compete for him. Many would call that pimping. There is something to be said about Kanye’s pimping though, he puts on for a lot of unsigned hype, especially in the Midwest region where there are virtually zero outlets for success in entertainment. The “Bitch Better Have My Money” instrumental in itself is crazy, there’s definitely a lot of Kanye-Travis synth and trap influence, but near the end there’s a Hip Hop-EDM breakdown too. Ye, whatever you’re doing, keep doing that.
What is surprising is the turn Riri took after that last Paul McCartney collab. She mentioned that she’s trying to make a different kind of record now, “I find that when I get on stage now, I don’t want to perform a lot of my songs because they don’t feel like me. So I want to make songs that are timeless.” That would be a good look for her and a nice change of pace from mainstream Pop for us. Thank you, Rihanna bae. Her words speak to her open mindedness too, hopefully we see a much more dynamic Rihanna in the future.
