Close to You

By Rihanna

“Close to You” was released in 2016 on Rihanna’s eighth studio album Anti. The song is the final track on the album, which has been dubbed by many, including Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times, Rihanna’s most varied and experimental album ever. Along with bringing us “Close to You”, the album brought us hits smash hits such as “Work” and “Love on the Brain”. The wide musical variety in these three songs exemplifies the experimental nature of the album and wide array of musical influences that Rihanna draws upon. Anti also acted as an avenue for Rihanna to reclaim and explore her Barbadian heritage by allowing more Caribbean influences into the album and displaying aspects of her native Barbadian accent into the work. Harriet Gibsone of The Guardian writes, “Rihanna has talked about the adaptations she has made to her accent before. In one interview, she said she learned how to adjust her phonetics for business meetings and interviews.” The issue of needing to change attributes that mark one’s heritage is an issue that many immigrants face and one that often stands in their way. As a successful Afro-Latina, Rihanna is a role model for future immigrants with mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Rihanna was born and raised on the Caribbean island of Barbados and grew up on the island until she was sixteen. At which point she moved to the United States to pursue her musical career. Rihanna was born into a ethnically mixed family with her mother Monica Braithwaite having Afro-Guyanese heritage and her father Ronald Fenty having Afro-Barbadian and Irish ancestry. Growing up in the Latin culture of the Caribbean with such an ethnically mixed background, Rihanna faced issues of ethnicity and race throughout her life. In a 2008 interview with Allure, she shared that she was bullied in school for being too ‘white’. However, in American society she is often viewed as black. In response to these experiences, Rihanna has made an effort to share here true identity as mixed race or biracial individual.