KEY POINTS:
Sing about the weather and the weather will come. Rihanna knows this all too well. Her hit song Umbrella is the longest running number one single in Britain since Wet Wet Wet's Love is All Around in 1994 (and no, she doesn't remember it). She's obviously to blame
for the flooding in England.
"That's not very fair at all," she laughs shyly on the phone from LA, where she hasn't had to use her umbrella lately, thank you very much. "But it will be pretty funny when I do."
The song has been a career-defining success for the former beauty pageant winner from Barbados.
Featuring thunderous, West Indian beats, Jay-Z's distinctive rap, and the singer seductively rolling the word "um-bar-ella" off her tongue, it shot to the top of the British charts 10 weeks ago. In New Zealand it's at number four.
What's not so easy to define is how a 19-year-old R&B singer with a previously innocuous persona became one of the world's biggest pop stars in the space of a few weeks.
"Luckily people love me right now, the new Rihanna," she says, managing to sound honest rather than egotistical. "It really is just me expressing myself completely."
Robyn Rihanna Fenty grew up in Barbados to a "very over-protective" mother and a father who, for a few years anyway, was hooked on crack.
"He's been clean for years now. My mom and my dad broke up years ago. But you know, I love my dad as much as I love my mom."
The Bajan singer's rise to superstardom began at 15, when she met music producer Evan Rogers who was holidaying in Barbados. Impressed by her clear voice (at the time she was singing Mariah ballads) he helped her record demos in the US.
One of them wound up on Jay-Z's desk at his label Def Jam, better known for their hip-hop releases. But the label put their marketing might behind her and her debut album Music of the Sun, released in 2005 spawned the hit Pon De Replay. The follow-up album A Girl Like Me, followed the next year, and SOS was used in a Nike ad.
Despite the early success, she was largely considered the pretty girl with a tame image, and her safe reggae-pop tended to reduce her voice to a chilly sound effect.
Things are different on her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, where she brandishes her new-found confidence over fiery beats, singing "Now I'm hot baby, and you won't get it."
Dancing in a pair of short shorts for her music video for Umbrella, her figure has the gym-carved chic of a sports car.
"I was so anxious for that video - it was a big deal for me, a new beginning." she says. "I just had to kill it, to be such a perfectionist. The only problem was that the body paint was uncomfortable.
"When the cameras came on, I forgot all about it and I just had fun."
It took two-and-a-half hours to wash the paint off, which is amusing as she's the new face of CoverGirl make-up.
Lyrically, she has also matured, getting stroppy on the New Order-inspired Shut Up and Drive and laying down the law on Breakin' Dishes.
"I have never had to literally break any dishes but I've sure felt like it. I think every other woman out there has. Not getting your phone calls returned, your text messages returned, you're just like, 'Can you just call me?' It's very frustrating."
But with her next two months booked out for tour rehearsals and promo, it's hard to imagine Rihanna has much time for wayward boyfriends, let alone writing about them. Much of her breakthrough comes down to other people. Jay-Z features on Umbrella, and NeYo on Hate that I Love You; Justin Timberlake and Tricky collaborated on songs. And while roping in big names is nothing new in the pop industry, Rihanna doesn't exactly share the chutzpah of an artist like Madonna. She did, however, set out to claim Umbrella by approaching the songwriters at a Grammy party and demanding they relinquish it.
"I fell in love with it instantly. I knew it was a good song because I loved it and I could not wait to record it."
She credits her songwriter, vocal coaches and management for the technical details.
"When I'm making music I just become someone else. I don't really stress about having to incorporate reggae music or Caribbean music in my music.
"I had a lot of creative input. I decided who to work with, the title of the songs, changing the direction, changing the image, changing the attitude. I'm a lot more confident, a lot more comfortable in my skin and you can see it.
"I've grown vocally, so I've changed a lot."
Lowdown
Who: Rihanna, the pop phenomenon of the year (so far)
Born: February 20, 1988
Albums: Music of the Sun (2005), A Girl Like Me (2006), Good Girl Gone Bad (2007)