Maybe it�s because in terms of sparkling and outright stardom only one or two names can come close to Rihanna – who will be performing at the Sports Arena in Budapest on the upcoming 8th of December (http://en.budapestarena.hu/html/) – her concerts are always an event which are able to raise interest, attention, passion and even obsession with a capital O in an extraordinarily diverse crowd, which can be illustrated by the fact that even CocoRosie, someone who would position themselves as the polar opposite to Rihanna in terms of music, have declared being a big fans of her.

According to the musical producer Evan Rogers, during a visit to Barbados in 2003 when he agreed to carry out an audition to the Caribbean singer, who was not yet 18 years old, he had the feeling that the rest of the girls at the audition disappeared completely, as if the presence of Rihanna when entering the hotel where the audition was taking place had the power to make it impossible to see anyone else. Anyone who has seen Rihanna won�t find it hard to believe.

Together with her fascinating capacity to change her appearance continuously without giving up taking risks (however she says herself that Madonna is her biggest influence and has declared her aim to become the �black Madonna�), it�s probably the aforementioned and unforgettable energy charge in her presence, which combines sexuality close to the surface of an unsettling and even terrible exhuberance (all the numinous power of a goddess of sex) with features of delicate and unquestionable beauty where you can see triumph, exposing for the umpteenth time the ethic purisms, the truth of goodness and aesthetic privileges of the mixes (her mother is Afro-Guyanese and her father Barbadian from Irish descent), on top of her, on the other hand, undisputed gifts as a singer, managing to seductively mix contemporary R&B, dance-hall, hip-hop, reggae and Caribbean music, which is the true key to her success.

Such an overwhelming success has taken her, in barely six years, among other things, to reach the sixth position in the Google list of most searched people, having her own wax statue at Madame Tussaud�s, managing worldwide sales of over 30 million albums and over 100 million singles, as well as being the first woman who has managed five number 1s in five consecutive years in the UK charts, where, partly due to the controversy raised by her vibrant song �S&M�, along with its even more controverted and powerful video, it smashed all the sales records (more than ten million sales) with her album �Loud� (2010).

Paul Oilzum

Perhaps for this reason, under the numinous power of her unique presence, her concerts are, at least until now, more of a frantic succession of spectacular scenes that someone has compared with the action of randomly zapping through different pop video channels, than some kind of concept idea, which is something to be grateful for in present times. If you rent apartments in Budapest you shouldn�t miss it.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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