"Umbrella" is a song by Barbadian singer Rihanna, released worldwide on March 29, 2007, by Def Jam Recordings, as the lead single and opening track from her third studio album, Good Girl Gone Bad (2007). It features a guest performance from the singer's mentor and Def Jam-label boss Jay-Z, who co-wrote the song alongside American singer the-Dream. Its producers, Tricky Stewart and Kuk Harrell, also received songwriting credits.
"Umbrella" was met with universal acclaim upon release and was a global commercial success, topping the charts in 19 countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, the Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the UK, where the song's chart performance coincided with prolonged rain and flooding, it was one of the most played songs on radio in the 2000s. It managed to remain atop the UK Singles Chart for 10 consecutive weeks, the longest run at number one for any single of that decade, and is also one of the few songs to top the chart for at least 10 weeks. As one of the highest digital debuts in the United States at the time, it remained atop of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for seven consecutive weeks.
The single's accompanying music video, directed by Chris Applebaum and featuring Rihanna's nude body covered in silver paint, earned her a Video of the Year at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards and Most Watched Video on MuchMusic.com at MuchMusic Video Awards. "Umbrella" has been covered by several notable performers across various musical genres, including All Time Low, the Baseballs, Train, Manic Street Preachers, McFly, Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park, OneRepublic, Taylor Swift, and Vanilla Sky. Rihanna performed the song at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards and at the 2008 BRIT Awards, and also included it as the closing number of the Good Girl Gone Bad Tour (2008), the Last Girl on Earth (2010), and the Loud Tour (2011) as well as in the Diamonds World Tour (2013), and the Anti World Tour (2016). In 2021, Rolling Stone ranked "Umbrella" #332 on their revised list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Background and development American songwriter and producer Christopher "Tricky" Stewart convened with Terius "The-Dream" Nash and Kuk Harrell in January 2007 at the Atlanta-based Triangle Studios to create new material. In the studio, Stewart was "messing around with a walloping hi-hat sound", which he found in GarageBand. With his attention caught by the sound, Nash asked Stewart what he was doing: "Oh, my Gosh, what is that beat?". When Stewart incorporated chords onto the hi-hat, "immediately the word popped into [Nash's] head"; he went to the vocal booth and started singing. Nash wrote the first two verses and the chorus over Stewart's skeleton track. They quickly wrote the lyrics, completing the first verse in 60 seconds. They continued into writing, adding the hook while "[Stewart] would put the next chord". In a matter of hours, they had recorded a demo of the track. The song was written with American pop singer Britney Spears in mind, whom Stewart had previously worked with on her 2003 single "Me Against the Music". Stewart and Nash thought that Spears, who had "her personal life ... a little out of control" at the time, needed a hit as a musical comeback. Spears was working on her fifth album, Blackout, so they sent a copy of the demo to Spears' management. However, Spears did not hear of the song because her label at the time, Jive rejected it, claiming they had enough songs for her to record.
Following the management's rejection of the track, Stewart and Nash dealt it out to other record labels. It was also given to British singer-songwriter Taio Cruz, who failed to convince his record company Mercury to release it. It was then opted by Island Def Jam chairman Antonio "L.A." Reid, a friend of Stewart who established his first studio. By early February 2007, the demo was sent to Reid's right-hand woman, A&R executive Karen Kwak, who passed it along to Reid with a message confirming that they had found a song suited for Rihanna, who was working on her third studio album, Good Girl Gone Bad, at the time. Reid immediately sent the demo to Rihanna, who was also positive towards it: "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."
However, since it was the Grammy season of 2007, Stewart and Nash eyed American R&B singer Mary J. Blige for the demo. Upon calling them to set the record aside for Rihanna, Stewart had played it to an associate of Blige, subsequently promising the song to her. Having heard the move of the writers, Kwak and A&R Angel Maldonado began calling Stewart and his manager, Mark Stewart, incessantly. Meanwhile, considering Blige's nominations at the Grammys, Stewart and Nash agreed to wait for her response. However, Blige failed to hear the song in full due to her obligations to the Grammys at the time and "had to sign off on the record before her reps could accept it". Finally, Reid "stepped in, trading on his power-broker status and longstanding relationship with Stewart", and admits, "I made the producers an offer they couldn't refuse." By the time Reid had successfully persuaded Stewart's camp, they "just couldn't say no". On giving up the record to Reid's camp, Mark Stewart comments, "We knew Rihanna's album would be out in a few months. Mary wasn't even in an album cycle yet. We made the sensible business decision."
Recording and composition
Rihanna recorded "Umbrella", with vocal production by Thaddis "Kuk" Harrell, at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles. Initially, Stewart admitted he was still reluctant as to whether Rihanna was the right artist to record the song, but following the recording of the "ella, ella" catch phrase, he felt they were onto "something". Following Rihanna's recording, Def Jam CEO-rapper Jay-Z added his rap. However, Jay-Z rewrote his verse without the awareness of Stewart and Nash. Stewart could not understand it, but later realized it "made sense" instead of the first version. Stewart noted that "from a songwriter's standpoint, he just really made it more about the song, with the metaphors about umbrellas and about the weather versus what he had before".
"Umbrella" is a pop, hip-hop and R&B song with rock influences. The song's musicscape is based on the hi-hat, synthesizers, and a distorted bassline. According to Entertainment Weekly magazine, the song's beat can be recreated through a drum loop from the Apple music-software program GarageBand (Vintage Funk Kit 03). The sheet music for "Umbrella" shows the key of B minor (G major for the bridge), with a tempo of 87 beats per minute. The song's lyrics are written in the traditional verse-chorus form. They open with a rap verse, and the hook "ella, ella" follows every chorus. A bridge follows the second hook, and the song ends in a fadeout.
Release and reception "Umbrella" was released worldwide on March 29, 2007, debuting on Rihanna's Def Jam website. It received airplay across mainstream, rhythmic and urban radios in the US the same day. The song was released digitally in the United Kingdom on May 14, 2007, along with its physical release following two weeks later.
"Umbrella" received universal critical acclaim. Andy Kellman of AllMusic commented: "'Umbrella' is [Rihanna's best song] to date, delivering mammoth if spacious drums, a towering backdrop during the chorus, and vocals that are somehow totally convincing without sounding all that impassioned – an ideal spot between trying too hard and boredom, like she might've been on her 20th take." Alex Macpherson of British newspaper The Guardian, "Umbrella" is "evidence" that Rihanna's "strict work ethic is paying off", adding that she "delivers [in the song] an impassioned declaration of us-against-the-world devotion". Tom Breihan of Pitchfork, though he complimented the production, dismissed Rihanna's voice which "takes on an unpleasant icepick edge when she tries to fill the space between the slow-tempo beats", adding that the song is "uncompelling as event-pop, particularly because of the disconnect between Rihanna's cold, clinical delivery and the comforting warmth of the lyrics". In comparison, Breihan's retrospective review on Stereogum acclaimed "Umbrella". Especially reflecting on his contemporary, more critical Pitchfork review, he admitted that her vocal performance was moreso that of "self-assured power" than "[disconnection] from a song that’s all about visceral connection"; however, he expressed criticism towards Jay-Z's guest verse for sounding uncommitted and adding "nothing" to the song besides "branding".
Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine wrote "That the song is just plain good, regardless of genre, proves that Jay and Rihanna, who's already scored hits across several formats with a string of singles that couldn't be more different from each other, are dedicated to producing quality hits—however frivolous they may be." Quentin B. Huff of PopMatters said that ""Umbrella" is a monster, so much so that I'll even confess to spending a portion of a rainy afternoon practicing the hook." Jonah Weiner of Blender magazine called the song the album's highlight and stated that it "would be far less engrossing if it wasn't for the way Rihanna disassembles its ungainly title into 11 hypnotic, tongue-flicking syllables". The New York Times Kelefa Sanneh described the song as "a space-age hip-pop song". Gabe Saporta of Cobra Starship noted in an interview on MTV's Total Request Live that the song's hook can be misheard as a reference to girl power: "I love that song but when I first heard it I thought she was saying 'My Beretta,' you know, like a gun? And I'm like whoa, that's a little edgy." This transcript does not state the exact date on which the interview occurred (though as archived, the Web page includes metadata indicating it was published in 2007). However, the transcript refers to the Honda Civic Tour and the appearance of Rihanna's song on TRL's Countdown, which together imply this interview probably occurred in late May 2007.
Entertainment Weekly ranked the song number one on the 10 Best Singles of 2007, while Rolling Stone and Time listed the song at number three on the 100 Best Songs of 2007.
Chart performance Oceania "Umbrella" entered the Australian Singles Chart at number one on June 10, 2007, becoming Rihanna's second number one in the country following "SOS" (2006). It spent six consecutive weeks at the top, and has since earned a 5× Platinum certification by the Australian Recording Industry Association, denoting sales of 350,000 copies. It spent a total of 32 weeks on the chart, ending the year as the country's third best-selling single of 2007. "Umbrella" debuted on the New Zealand Singles Chart at number 34 on May 14, 2007. Over the following two weeks, it dropped one place, then climbed to a new peak of number 33. In its fourth week on the chart, it leaped to the top of the chart, becoming Rihanna's second number one single following "Pon de Replay" (2005). It remained atop the chart for six consecutive weeks and on the chart for a total of 24 weeks. The song received a Platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand, denoting sales of 15,000 copies, subsequently becoming the country's best-selling single of 2007.
North America