"Work" is a song by Barbadian singer Rihanna featuring Canadian rapper Drake, from Rihanna's eighth studio album Anti (2016). It was released on January 27, 2016, by Westbury Road and Roc Nation as the lead single from the album. The song was written by Rihanna, Drake, Jahron Brathwaite, Monte Moir, Rupert Thomas, Allen Ritter, and Matthew "Boi-1da" Samuels, the latter of which produced the track while Kuk Harrell and Noah "40" Shebib were additional producers. Incorporating elements of dancehall, reggae, pop, and R&B, "Work" contains an interpolation of Alexander O'Neal's "If You Were Here Tonight" (1985). Written in the English-based creole languages of Jamaica and Barbados, its lyrics are about fragile relationships and yearning for intimacy.
"Work" was accompanied by two music videos directed by Director X and Tim Erem, and both were released on February 22, 2016. The first depicts Rihanna and Drake dancing in a club, and the second shows them in a room alone. Rihanna performed the song live at the Brit Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards, both in 2016, and it was included on the set list of her Anti World Tour. The single spent nine weeks atop the US Billboard Hot 100 and helped Rihanna surpass Michael Jackson as the artist with the fourth-most US number-one hits. It peaked at number one in Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, and South Africa, and received many multi-platinum certifications, including a Diamond certification in France and the United States, as well as nine-times Platinum certification in Canada. It was the fourth-bestselling song of 2016 in the US. "Work" had sold 32.5 million units worldwide by January 2021.
At the time of its release, critical response to "Work" was mixed; reviews that praised the song highlighted Rihanna's return to the dancehall sound of her early career and embrace of Caribbean culture, while reviews that were less enthusiastic labeled its production as repetitive and the lyrics as insubstantial. However, critical opinion improved over time; the song was nominated for Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 59th Grammy Awards, and publications such as NME and Pitchfork ranked it among the best songs of the 2010s decade. Some journalists credit "Work" with reinvigorating dancehall in mainstream popular music in the mid-2010s.
Background and release Following the release of Rihanna's seventh studio album, Unapologetic, and its accompanying tour, Rihanna took a step back from music. "I wanted to have a year to just do whatever I want artistically, creatively," the singer said. She then went on to state that this hiatus lasted only a week before she ultimately returned to the studio. Following the release of three singles in 2015—"FourFiveSeconds" (with Kanye West and Paul McCartney), "Bitch Better Have My Money" and "American Oxygen"—Billboard announced that Rihanna was set to premiere a new single on January 27, 2016, at 8 am EST. The same day, "Work" premiered on several radio stations worldwide, including BBC Radio 1 in the United Kingdom. Subsequently, it was made available for digital download in most countries, worldwide, via the iTunes Store, and was added for streaming on Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal.
Writing and recording "Work" was written by PartyNextDoor, Drake, Rihanna, Monte Moir, Rupert "Sevn" Thomas, Allen Ritter and Matthew Samuels, and was produced by Boi-1da, Sevn Thomas, Ritter, Kuk Harrell and Noah "40" Shebib. In the summer of 2015, Thomas, Ritter, Boi-1da, and Martin Mason, among others, stayed at Drake's house in Los Angeles for a mid-week period. Thomas described the time spent at the home as a "beat factory, everyone was sitting there working and collaborating with each other."
Thomas created a beat which was dancehall-influenced; he later played it for Boi-1da to which he positively responded, "We're both Jamaican-Canadian. It was just something in our DNA, so it woke him up, and we started remembering all these old dancehall songs from the '90s." Boi-1da came with up idea for sampling an "old school dancehall rhythm" and after that the chords were made with Ritter and past it, "everything went organically". The most recognizable sampling found in the "Work" riddim is from the 1998 riddim "Sail Away" which was produced by Richie Stephens and Mikey 2000, interpolating Alexander O'Neal's "If You Were Here Tonight".
When the song's music was finished, Boi-1da sent it to PartyNextDoor who wrote the lyrics. "He’s an incredible writer, and he's Jamaican as well. I think so that's how he's able to come up with those vibes and feels," noted Thomas. PartyNextDoor originally wrote the record as a breakup song; after Drake heard the song and loved it, he decided to write and record a verse, as well . The original reference track contained Braithwaite's vocals and a tweaked verse from Drake. It leaked as a snippet in February 2016, but the full version was released online in April of that year. Initially, the intention was to keep the song as a collaboration between the two, or to give to Alicia Keys. Shortly thereafter, Braithwaite stayed at Rihanna's home in Malibu, where he played her the song, saying afterwards "it was all that she could sing around the house" and it was her "family's favourite song".
Rihanna's vocals were recorded by Marcos Tovar and Kuk Harrell at Westlake Recording Studios, Los Angeles; the latter also served as a vocal producer. Drake's vocals were recorded by Noel Cadastre and Noah "40" Shebib at the Sandra Gale Studios in California and the SOTA Studios in Toronto. The vocal recording was assisted by Thomas Warren, while additional vocals were provided by PartyNextDoor. Manny Marroquin mixed "Work" at the Larrabee Studios, while Noel "Gadget" Campbell and Shebib did the mixing at the Studio 360 and SOTA Studios in Toronto. The mastering was done by Chris Gehringer at the Sterling Sound in New York City. "Work" marked the third collaboration between Rihanna and Drake, following "What's My Name?" in 2010 and "Take Care" in 2012.
Composition and lyrical interpretation "Work" is a dancehall, reggae-pop and R&B song, with a length of three minutes and thirty-nine seconds. Hugh McIntyre of Forbes described the song as "quite" urban and mixes hip hop influences with "island vibes". Zach Frydenlund of Complex wrote that the song "is slower and very rhythmic with Rihanna showing off her vocal skills over the crafty production." The song is in the C Dorian mode (written using the same key signature as G minor) in common time with a tempo of 92 beats per minute. The vocals in the song span from F3 to E5. Alexa Camp of Slant Magazine called it "an understated midtempo jam in the vein of Janet Jackson's recent 'No Sleeep', with a percolating beat, sinuous synth lines, and vocal samples stretched and pulled in a way that recalls Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis's masterful production work on Janet's 1997 album The Velvet Rope." The Guardian Harriet Gibsone wrote: "The glossy, modernist 'Work' skewers elements of dub and dancehall: her voice is at times Auto-Tuned, and a distant sample of what sounds a little like Grace Jones's "My Jamaican Guy" haunts its empty spaces."
Rolling Stone Daniel Kreps wrote the song contains "a tropical house vibe". In contrary, Taj Ran from Billboard wrote the song "isn't part of a new genre that many in the mainstream media are calling 'tropical house.' Anti lead single is undeniably drenched in dancehall, a genre with deep roots in Jamaica's club scene that spun off from reggae in the 1970s." According to The Atlantics Spencer Kornhaber, the single has "strangely unfinished quality" that features its verses, choruses and bridge fade into themselves, "forgoing soft-to-loud explosions or exciting rhythmic changes". He also noted that, Boi-1da also tries to create "escalation" in the song by adding additional drums for the second chorus, flutes, autotuned harmonies and back-off piano. The New York Times Jon Caramanica noted Rihanna at times "barely even relies on words, truncating her syllables past patois to something far less exact." Lyrically, "Work" is "about working for a paycheck no matter what else is going on in your life." Additionally, it focuses on "a fragile relationship" that can be seen in the lines, "If I get another chance to, I would never, oh never, neglect you," which Rihanna sings.
Reception "Work" has received mixed reviews from critics. Editor Joe Lynch wrote that the track finds Rihanna "reteaming with frequent collaborator/ex Drake, but that's the only predictable thing about this song—while it's hardly a 180-degree turn for Rih, its minimal production subverts expectations of what you'd expect a major pop star to release when they're gearing up to drop their long-delayed new album." Alexa Camp of Slant Magazine wrote: "the new track has the potential to at least partly justify the gold crown on the album's cover." BET's Kathy Iandoli called the song "comfortable, but still good." Spin's Brennan Carley thought Rihanna made the "lackadaisical song gel." Other critics were more skeptical. Hugh McIntyre of Forbes wrote "It's a well-produced song, but is it the pop hit that she needed?" Idolator's Robbie Daw's review was mixed, writing "Musically, the track is a charming, if also somewhat sparse, affair that feels like it blew in on a tropical, warm June wind and nestled up beside our ears."
Robin Reiff of The A.V. Club wrote: "the sheer repetition of the hook creates a built-in expiration date for when this song transitions from catchy to mildly annoying." Taj Rani of Billboard stated "Work" has brought the genre of dancehall to the forefront of American music (again), as it became the first dancehall song to top the Billboard Hot 100 since Sean Paul's "Temperature" in 2006. She opined that the song is a prime example of "an unapologetic black woman proudly showing her heritage at a time when our politics are dominated by #BlackLivesMatter and Donald Trump's racist, xenophobic and misogynistic tirades." Rani continued to state that although mainstream critics are "uncomfortable" with Rihanna's use of patois (describing it as "gibberish"), she was able to display West Indian culture, front-and-center, without appropriation from mainstream culture.
Accolades Rolling Stone named "Work" as one of the 30 best songs of the first half of 2016: "What would even you call a minimalist banger? One of America's most reliable singles artists created an arch, moody album instead of a handful of chart-ready pop confections, but we still couldn't resist this barely-there tune with a beat like a dancehall wisp and lyrics like a freestyle." The Guardian named it "best track of 2016", writing that "Work was off-kilter, lacked a big chorus and weaved in a dubious 80s ballad. It also clicked perfectly, a song that captured two era-defining artists and one all the more infectious for its rule-defying restraint." The British magazine NME named "Work" the best song of 2016 in their year-end critics' poll. NPR and Consequence of Sound both placed the song at number fifteen on their respective year-end lists. For Pitchfork, it was the seventh best song of the year. Billboard ranked "Work" at number 25 on their "100 Best Pop Songs of 2016" list, noting "Its hypnotic chorus burrowing its way into the year's subconscious." In the annual Village Voices "Pazz & Jop" mass critics' poll (of the year's best in music) for 2016, "Work" was tied at number 9 with David Bowie's "Blackstar". The song was additionally ranked among 2010s-decade-end lists by NME, Consequence of Sound, Slant Magazine, and Pitchfork.
"Work" was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Record of the Year at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards. "Work" was nominated for, and won, the categories of "R&B Song of the Year" and "Best Collaboration" at the 2017 iHeartRadio Music Awards.
Commercial performance