Switched on Pop - The Umbrella Effect: How Rihanna’s Breakout Hit Changed Pop Music Forever

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

In 2007, a 19-year-old Barbadian pop singer released the lead single off her third album. By doing so, she didn't just give us a timeless, undeniable banger -- she changed the way pop music is made, and became the global superstar that we know Rihanna to be today. In this episode we go back in time to unearth the origins of "Umbrella," and how the song blossomed as a result of many shifting currents in the music industry, the democratization recording technology, and the persistence of Rihanna and her team to record the song instead of the artist for whom it was intended. SONGS DISCUSSED James Brown "Funky Drummer" Funkadelic "Get Off Your Ass and Jam" Soft Cell "Tainted Love" N.W.A. "100 Miles and Runnin" Mya "Case of the Ex (Whatcha Gonna Do?)" Britney Spears featuring Madonna "Me Against the Music" Nine Inch Nails "The Hand That Feeds" Rihanna "Pon de Replay" Rihanna "S.O.S." Shakira "Hips Don't Lie" Rihanna "Umbrella" Justice "Stress" Usher "Love in This Club" Childish Gambino "Bonfire" A$AP Rocky featuring Skepta "Praise the Lord (Da Shine)" Asher Monroe "Synergy" Justin Bieber & Lil Dicky "Running Over" Sabrina Carpenter "Espresso" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm a songwriter Charlie Harding. Charlie, this is Modern Classics, a series where we take deep dives into songs from the recent past that have shaped the sound of our contemporary pop landscape in foundational ways. And today I'm enormously excited because we are going to pull apart one of the songs

that I feel like is such a defining part of our 21st century soundtrack. A song that just with one word instantly conjures whole galaxies of sound and emotion. And what is that word, Charlie? Umberrella. I love this song. And I'm sure you've prepared all sorts of fabulous material for us today. But I want to ask you an important question. Shoot.

How many syllables does the word umbrella have in it? 12, I think. Wait, let me count it out. Um, bur-ele, four, four-syllable word. So umbrella or umbrella? Maybe it used to be a three-syllable word, but now after this song, it's no longer. We now have an extra syllable, thanks to Rihanna. Okay.

Umbrella. We're recording this in 2025, and Rihanna is one of the biggest global pop superstars, right? so huge that she still commands a massive audience, even though she hasn't released a new album in, I think, 10 years. Nearly 10 years. Ante came out in 2016. But I want you to cast that image of Rihanna out of your mind. I want to listen through the ears of someone in 2007

who barely knows this young up-and-coming singer who hails from Barbados and has yet to have a world-beating smash. I think that's why this song is so fascinating, Charlie. not only because of its cultural legacy, the way it literally changed the way we think about the word umbrella, but also because it put Rihanna on the map. I won't stand for the pollen to replay or ratio, but I'll let you finish.

And not only that, Charlie, it also changed the way we make music. Ooh, all right. Bold proclamations today. And I will back them up, but I think we just need to start with the story of this song. Where does it begin? In mid-January 2007 in an Atlanta recording studio, Terrius, the Dream Nash, and Christopher Tricky

Stewart are working together at Triangle Studios. These two would go on to work with luminaries like Beyonce, but they're still looking to make a name for themselves. And let's acknowledge something. The Dream, he's been embroiled in a lot of legal issues. He's been accused of assault and sexual assault by multiple women. He's a complicated figure, but he is a cool. poor part of the story of Umbrella.

So he's going to figure largely in this narrative, okay? Now, Tricky Stewart began producing as a teenager. He first scored a hit in 2000 with Maya's Case of the X. I love those 2000 beats, really syncopated, so much percussion. They're really fun. The dream, meanwhile, had started as a singer, but turned to lyric writing. And when the two of them hooked up, Tricky Stewart brought that 90s, 2000s, syncopated R&V sound that you just identified.

And the dream brought his kind of flowery, lyrical language. And they came up with their first hit song, which was the 2003 Britney Spears, Madonna, Collab, Me Against the Music. It doesn't get better than that. I agree, but this team was not satisfied. They wanted to aim their sights even bigger. They wanted a massive smash. So during this January 2007 session in the Atlanta,

recording studio, Tricky is working with this very specific drum pattern. The dream hears it, and he says, quote, oh my God, what is that beat? Then Tricky starts putting some chords over it. And according to the dream, immediately this word pops into his head. Umbrella. Does that make you think of umbrella, Charlie, that beat? It doesn't sound like it's raining. Ticka, tick, tick it.

Well, that's why you're not a platinum songwriter, Charles. I'm not hearing rain, but our. All right. He runs over to the vocal booth and he starts singing. And he says at first he was thinking about God. Like God would say, I've got you under my umbrella. I'll protect you. Wait, can I tell a quick side story?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what he's talking about. There was this one time I was on vacation in Japan and it was lightly raining out and I didn't have an umbrella with me. And as I was crossing the street, this very nice elderly man walked up next to me, put me under his umbrella and walked me across. the crosswalk to get me safely to the other side. Oh, my gosh. So I wouldn't slip and to keep the rain off. And then he went on his way and I thanked him.

That's unbelievably sweet. Yeah. Charlie, you could always stand under my umbrella. Thanks, Nate. Now, that drum pattern that got the dream so excited, that's like a whole chapter of this story. We're going to come to that. That's the thing that changed the sound of modern music forever.

But right now, I want to talk about this chorus. When the sun shines will shine together. They were literally getting goosebumps as they were assembling this. Hearing the songwriters describe it as almost quasi-religious, I feel like it makes me understand the success of this song a little more because it is a love song, but it's also something a little more profound than that. Because it's not like, I love you, I want to marry you,

I want to have babies with you, I want to kiss you. It's like, I want to take care of you. I want to protect you. I want to show you compassion. That's like kind of a little eccentric. to the usual message of a pop love song. It's kind of devotional love. Makes sense that it was inspired by the Almighty.

And there's something kind of spiritual in the way you have these really sustained pads that are just giving you this sort of sweeping texture over which Rihanna is singing. And she's singing in this way where it's very full, it's very chesty, it's projecting, and the effects on her voice are making it seem even bigger than it is. If we take away the instrumentation and just focus in on Rihanna's voice, we can hear what's actually going on here. When the sunshine, we'll shine together. Told you, I'll be here forever.

Said I'll always be a friend. Took a no thumb. I must stick it out to the end. Her voice cuts like a knife. Yes. It is so present. But, yeah, it's made even bigger with all of. these delay throws that make it feel like it's spinning all around us.

When she says forever, it sounds like forever because there's this echo. It extends it forever, ever, ever, ever. It's like every word has this greater impact because of that delay effect. Know that we'll still have each other. You can stand under my umbrella. You can stand under my umbrella. I totally agree with something you said, Charlie. It's really the quality of Rihanna's,

voice that makes the song work. But it was not a given that she was going to perform this track. After Tricky and the Dream finished the demo and it just took them a few hours, the dream took that demo home to his wife, Nivia, and she started crying when she heard it. She said, quote, boy, you done did it now. Now who's going to sing this? And the answer to that question might have changed the course of pop as we know it. Enter Rihanna, Charlie. She is only 19 years old. Oh my gosh. She had already released two albums. The first was 2005's Music of the Sun, which gave us the song you mentioned earlier, Charlie, pawn to replay, her first real breakout single.

Pondet, please. Such a great introduction to this singer because it makes her dance hall influence so plain. I mean, she's not trying to be something she's not. She's really saying, this is where I come from, this is the style I bring, this is the accent I have. It was a really strong opening for an artist. She's singing under a kick drum playing a Caribbean clave beat. It's perfect. And on her next album, 2006's A Girl Like Me,

she showed that she could produce straight up pop bangers like SOS. Which is a song based off on an interpolation now. Yes, Tainted Love. That's right. Soft-Sell. Oh, Tainted Love. Tainted Love. Kind of ahead of the curve of the interpolation game in 2006 there.

But definitely a different style. I mean, leaning into sort of 80s, dance pop, more forward-to-the-floor kind of thing. So in 2007, Rihanna's at work on her third album. Good Girl Gone Bad. And she's looking for an image makeover, something with rougher edges and sophistication. She told MTV News, I'm not the innocent Rihanna anymore. I'm taking a lot more risks and chances. I felt when I cut my hair, it shows people I'm not trying to look or be anybody else.

The album is very edgy. I need a haircut. I'm inspired. I could see you with a green mohawk, Charlie. I don't think it's going to happen. Is that edgy enough? Very brat, but yeah, I don't think it's for me. If you go the full Rihanna route, you could also cover yourself in body paints like she does in the music video.

Well, think about it. So she has this new image. She has her haircut. She has her edgy vibe. but she still needs that big single, right? So let's go back to Tricky and the Dream. They sent their demo of umbrella to Britney Spears management, but they didn't hear back from her.

They pitched the song to Mary J. Blige's camp, the weekend of the 2007 Grammys. Okay. And the same day they pitched to Mary J. Blige, they almost by accident ended up pitching it to Def Jam executives, L.A. Reed, and Karen Kwok. Okay. In a 2007 piece in Blender about the origin of the song,

L.A. Reed said, I'm a melody guy. And the melody got me from the very beginning. I expected to be let down when it got to the chorus. Instead, it went through the roof. Or through the umbrella. Reed and Kwok took it to Rihanna, and she had a similar reaction. She said, when the demo first started playing, I was like, this is interesting.

This is weird. But the song kept getting better. I listened to it over and over. I said, I need this record. I want to record. it tomorrow. What about Mary J. Blige? Did she not have rights to this thing? I mean, imagine her and Brittany are like, man, I wish I took that song. Yes. In fact, Charlie, Tricky and the Dream had already kind of promised the song to Blige. But she didn't get to hear it right away because she was nominated

for eight Grammys and she was nowhere near producing her next album. And she had to discuss the song with her label. Meanwhile, the Def Jam Camp was relentless in obtaining the song for Rihanna. Karen Kwok was calling Tricky around the clock the entire weekend in the middle of the night. And eventually Tricky in the Dream decided to go with Def Jam and Rihanna because the Mary J. Blige thing was just too far out in the future and they had to get this song out now. Okay. So just two days after they finished the demo, Rihanna was at Westlake Studios in L.A. recording her vocals with Tricky and the Dream manning the mixing board. Wow. And they all agreed there was this one moment where they felt like this record was just inevitable.

And it's when she recorded the Ella's. The Elas. My umbrella, Ella, Ella, eh, eh, eh, under my umbrella, Ella, Ella, Ella. Gosh, you can hear the mouth noise on that recording. Tricky said, when she recorded the Ella's, you knew it was about to be the jump off, and your life was about to change if you had anything to do with that record.

And, you know, when I listen to this now, these Ellas are kind of astonishing, because they really come out of nowhere. You don't see this coming, this deconstruction of the word umbrella, which has already been transformed into this four-syllable word. Right. Now it's being broken down into its constituent parts, almost as if Rihanna's like Noam Chomsky or something, or some linguist exploring all the different phonemes of this word. We break it down to just Ella, and then we break it down even further just to like a single syllable.

A, A, A. Yeah. So from Umbrella to Ella to A, not only is it becoming this elemental thing, this idea of, I'm going to be there for you forever, and I'm going to demonstrate this by stripping everything down to its barest essentials. At least that's how I might come up with some narrative reason for this. But in terms of the sonics of it, it's just like pure rhythm. It's pure sound.

It just sinks up with the drumbeat in this incredibly satisfying way. and it kind of takes us back to her dance hall roots to a degree. Because when I hear her go, hey, it makes me think of like Pondar replay. It makes me think of that Barbados sound, that Caribbean dance hall sound. It's a way of subtly connecting to her cultural and musical roots as well. That makes so much sense. I often tell my students that it's not always important exactly what you say. It's how you say it and how it sounds.

And this is a perfect example of that. You don't want to intellectualize too much. What does it mean when you sing Ella A? Doesn't matter. It sounds good. It feels good. And it connects her to a larger cultural history just through sound. Now, I don't want to forget about the bridge of this song.

Take us to the bridge. That is a bridge. That is a bridge, right? I've tried not to say this in 10 years of making the podcast, but they don't make them like that anymore, Charlie. It's a real bridge because it gives us this real reprieve from a very, repetitive underlying beat, and then harmonically just builds up to this huge, tense moment to bring us back into the chorus. It's amazing. Without that contrast, I don't think the song would be as effective.

No. But they still had one more trick up their sleeve, one more secret weapon to really launch this song into the stratosphere. What's up? It's this guy. That's the drummer, right? He goes, uh-huh, uh-huh, right on the beat with a snare. Well, it's very percussive, Charlie, but that is J-Z. And he is giving us a sort of prologue to Rianna's A-A is when he goes, uh-uh, uh-uh.

Uh-A, uh-A, call in response. I like that. Uh-huh. No clouds in my stones. Let it rain, I hide your plane and the fan coming down like the cow Jones. When the clouds can we go. And he is there just to make sure, if there's any doubt of this song exploding, he's going to just put the Marasino cherry on top because he's literally going to reintroduce Rihanna to the world

at the start of this song. Shout out her album title and her new persona, Good Girl Gone Bad. I mean, this song was just perfectly crafted in order to have maximum appeal. What an MC to have promoting your next project. And Rianna didn't even know he was going to be on the track. Wait, what? Jay-Z was the CEO and president of Def Jam, and he sort of anointed this track and surprised Rihanna with it. Nice to have the musical Lord's Blessing, if you will. The song drops on March 29th, just two and a half months after that initial demo.

It tops the Hot 100 by May, stays there for seven straight weeks. Wow. It breaks the iTunes record for biggest debut, which was previously set by Shakira's Hips Don't Lie. Within a year, the song has covers by My Chemical Romance, Amy Winehouse, plain white teas, Mandy Moore, Tegan and Sarah, and more. Everyone wants to get under that umbrella. And Rihanna is gracing covers of 17 magazine, Complex, Giant. She wins two VMAs.

And of course goes on to release five more bestselling albums. This is Rihanna's coming out party, umbrella. And still today, it's like an instantly recognizable bop. Now, as we say during Pesach, Charlie, Dianu, right? It would have been enough. We say, die, Dianu. I love that you shows Dessachianu. because Dai Dai Dai'enu has the repetition of the vowels.

It's very umbrella. But it wasn't enough because I made that bold claim earlier, right? It also changed the way we make music. Right. I'm going to tell you how after the break. Attention, Spotify. Has arrived at the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Caroline Herrera. A fragrance intense with character Gourman and addicivio.

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and millions of criminal of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president.

So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want border at the border.

They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. Okay, Charlie, let's go back to the very start of the instrumental version of Umbrella. And let's listen to that drumbeat that got tricky and the dream so excited in that Atlanta studio in January 2007. It's such a good beat.

It's such a good beat, right? You can totally see how they would hear this and be like, yeah, we're going to make a hit song out of this. But there's something else special about this beat, Charlie. It was not perfectly crafted snare by snare and bass drum by bass drum and high hat by high hat by by tricky Stewart in the studio. It came wholesale from the program that comes with an Apple laptop by default garage band. I do know this one. I've heard this story.

Is this true? Like, I feel like we could verify it right now. If it supposedly comes with garage band, I have garage band and all of its sounds installed on my computer. Do I have that same loop on my computer right now? You do. Go to vintage funk kit three. Vintage funk kit three. Set the BPM to 90 and you will hear the opening measures of umbrella.

Okay. Whoa. Fascinating. That is the sound. but the producers beefed it up so much. Like layered in other kicks, I think, sent it through a ton of compression. It hits way harder in umbrella, excuse me, umbrella than it does in, what is this? Vintage Funk Kit-03.

Totally. They're not just taking it right out of the box. They're putting their own special sauce on it. But it is unmistakably the same beat, right, Charlie? Yes. Yeah. Anyone could use this. Just as an experiment, what is vintage funk kit for?

sound like. It's kind of similar, a little bit of a variation. Let's take it all the way down to number 12. Not as good. It's a little more like a rock song. Yeah, it's a really cheesy bad rock loop. Yeah. I challenge somebody to make a number one hit with vintage funk loop for 12. The idea that you could make a hit song with a pre-recorded loop from your laptop, this was a very new and radical idea. In fact, it was only three years earlier in January 2004 that Steve Jobs went up on stage at his big Apple keynote and announced this new software. Garage band a pair of headphones and a USB keyboard,

and they've got a $50,000 grand piano in their bedroom. Free-recorded loops. Not only do we have over 1,000 pre-recorded loops by great professional musicians, but these things adjust their tempo and pitch automatically to whatever you're doing. In addition to being able to record yourself on your laptop, one of the big cells of this software

was that it came programmed with all of these loops for you to use. And just to really place you in the 2004ness of it all, Charlie. Shortly after that, he brings out a special guest to help him introduce this new garage band software. And it's John Mayer wearing a zip-up hoodie and jeans looking so disheveled. It's pretty funny. he's making music in his garage garage band oh i see what you i see very yes this is a music podcast but the visual

element of music can say a lot now musicians besides john mayer also start to embrace this new garage band technology in 2005 nine inch nails into my heart right here love my nine inch nails they make the master tracks to their song the hand that feeds available for free download so anyone can remix them in garage band I did it in 2005. I know. No way. Yeah. I don't know if I still have the remix.

But it's umbrella and its use of vintage funk kit 3 that really mainstreams the idea that these tools could be used for making big hit records. After umbrella drops, a lot of bands follow suit. Friend of the show, Justice, in 2007, this French electronic music duo for their album, Cross, uses garage. band on songs like Stress. Most terrifying French house track ever created. That's suspense, accent six from the I-Life sound effects

package textures. No way. Cool. And the next year, 2008, Usher's Love in This Club drops. No. This one too? You're I do it for the ladies, but I gotta keep a hood.

What about, Pollo? You're telling me that little transgated beat is an apple loop? Eurohero synth? No way. Now, to be clear, this is not a drum loop. This is like a synth setting that is being used in a new and creative way by these groups. Got it.

Okay, okay. But still, this is from inside the box, so to speak. Right. All pre-programmed into garage band. In 2011, Childish Gambino releases Bonfire. So you're telling me that air horn is not a real air horn? Not the air horn, Charlie. The vocals, the gang vocals.

That's Andre Background 7. What? Oh. And even as recently as 2018, Aesop Rockies, Praise the Lord, featuring Skepta. That's Andean stroll panpipe two. What? from the garage band Jam Pack World Music

Wait a minute, I think I've used that one before Wait, hold on a second What is, which project is it? Only open a project that I have not opened Since 2011 No way Ah Yeah

Oh my gosh Okay, that's not the same panpipe but I thought I had used that same sound. Oh, God. Dude, you need to resurrect that track. Forgive me ASAP. Oh, thanks. Wow, that's funny.

That is sick. So you're a living, breathing testament to how garage band changed the game for producers. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I mean, this podcast itself is evidence of that. Like, when Apple put out garage band, it was the first time I felt like I could start to make high-quality recordings at home.

I trained on garage band, upgraded to Logic, which is sort of the pro garage band. And then when we started making the show, I was like, I think I can engineer the show because I know how to use Logic and started making the podcast there. There's been lots of loops in the background of Switched on Pop throughout the years. Our whole theme song was based off of Apple Loops. Like, we are part of this story. But I don't think it's just the technology. I also think it has to do with a major change in the law. Like, there's a reason why Randa's producers might have sought out these loops, and it's not.

just accessibility. It's that, you know, you look at the whole history of the creation of hip hop and electronic-based music. And it's based off of using short drum brakes like funky drummer or the Amen break and building whole new songs around them. And right around the time that garage band's coming out, in 2005, there's this huge lawsuit, Bridgeport Music Incorporated versus Dimension Films, right? Yes. where NWA has a song called 100 Miles and Running, and it features a short two-second sample from Funkadelix 1975, get off your ass and jam.

It's hardly discernible in there. And everyone kind of figured that you didn't have to get copyright clearance for this because of a thing called the de minimis rule, which said if something was very small, short, you couldn't quite identify what it was, then no big deal. You don't have to get the license for it. It's free to use about this bridge.

Port versus Dimension Films case establishes that the minimus no longer counts, you have to get a license for every single song that you want to sample, no matter how small, even if it's a really short little drum break. So fast forward to years, 2007, when the producers of Umbrella are thinking, where are we going to grab a drum break? It might not just be, oh, we've got garage band on the computer. It's our whole library of music that we have been crate digging our entire life. no longer is accessible to us without getting permission. Getting permission might mean handing over up to 100% of the royalties of that song. And so part of this change in how people are making music is how can we stay connected to that

history of sample-based music, even though we can't use samples anymore, well, enter the library of sample packs. And people had distributed sample pack libraries on CDs. You could buy them. but now that you have the computer connected to the internet with garage band with already thousands of great samples and loops on there, why not just use those and get the same kind of effect as a funky drummer break that's just built right into your Apple computer.

You have permission. That legal historical context explains so much about why this software technology suddenly took off, Charlie. Right. And I feel like it also raises an artistic question that I want to end with here. So we live in this post. umbrella world now, where it essentially democratized these tools, not only to be used by the amateur, but to be used by the professional as well. Now, in doing so, do you feel like it unlocked

new creative potential for artists, or do you feel like it may be homogenized music in a way? If everyone's using the same set of vintage funk kit loops, how can we expect people to create new path-breaking music if you're locked in to these presets? samples. I have no issue with it. The foundation of hip hop and dance music is based off of just a few samples that have generated whole genres. If not for the aim and break, we wouldn't have break beats. We wouldn't have so much of hip-hop. We wouldn't have drum and bass. We wouldn't have jungle music. And now there are more loops than ever that you can draw from, right? Yes. Moving from Apple loops to the creation of services like Splice, where there are millions and millions and millions of samples available to you.

I don't think it's so much about hindering your creativity, but rather throwing yourself in the path of creative ideas that then you can expand upon. The song Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter based off of a splice loop that they then explode out into this incredible pop track. But I think there are, of course, warnings. We reported years ago on a story of Justin Bieber and Lil Dickie, they put out a song called Running Over. And it turns out the producers on that track had used a splice loop that another artist had used. And that loop was kind of the foundation of the song in such a way that there was frustration from Asher Monroe who had released the song Synergy using the same loop that had been made by a producer named Laxidy that had been posted to splice. And so this all, I think, begs the question of like, if you have a piece of pre-recorded content that is going to be in your song, how do you manipulate it? How do you let it inspire your creativity so that you can mold that sound into some kind of new creation, just like how the producers.

of umbrella took that kind of like meh loop and beefed it up and turned it into an entire song a whole world of music that's beautifully said charlie and i feel like this song the next time you hear it you can not only enjoy it for all the reasons we've talked about rana's incredible vocal performance the multisyllabic umbrella the deconstruction down to the ls and the a's the bridge that gives us this breath of fresh air that would be enough but that wasn't it charlie this song changed the way that people make music in a fundamental way. And I'm with you. I'm optimistic about it. I feel like it was a change for the good, the power unlocked by these programs in our laptops, being able to take these loops and transform them into something new. This is what musicians have

always done. It just looks a little different following the world given to us by umbrella. Umbrella, Nate. Umbrella. Ella, Ella. A. A. This episode of Switched on Pop was produced by Jake Casman, edited by Art Chung, engineered by Brandon McFarlane, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb. Our theme song is by Zach Tenario and Jossi Adams of Arc Iris. Remember with a Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture, which is a part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe at NYMag.com slash pod. Find us on social media at Switchdown Pop and tell us what you love about Umbrella. Or tell us what your favorite vintage funk kit number sample is. And if anyone out there wants to follow Charlie's footsteps and create a track based on one of those loops and send it to us. If it passes muster, maybe we'll share it with the rest of our audience. I like that. Go to switchonpop.com, sign up for a newsletter.

Stick around. We'll be doing more episodes of modern classics in the coming weeks. And until then, thanks for listening.