Apparently Rihanna almost never recorded “Work”?! The horror!
Our love for Rihanna extends far and wide, and along with the rest of the world, we’re fairly obsessed with her smash hit “Work” (Seriously. Merely typing the word has us now singing at our desks). But apparently… she almost passed on the track!
One of the song’s co-writers, PartyNextDoor, told the New York Times that Rihanna’s people weren’t really interested in pursuing Caribbean music at the time, so he considered passing it on to another R&B badass… Alicia Keys!
Okay, Alicia Keys is amazing, but whoa. The song would have had an entirely different vibe, and we’re really not sure how we feel about that.
Luckily, Rihanna was super enthusiastic about the song pretty much from the get-go (phew). “[It was] all that [Rihanna] could sing around the house … she fought for it,” the writer said.
Rihanna’s passion for “Work” motivated the label to reconsider, and the rest is history. THANK THE LORD! Can you imagine if it had been recorded by someone else? Or worse, never recorded at all? The mere idea of a world in which “Work” doesn’t exist is so incredibly disturbing to us that we seriously cannot stand to dwell on it for much longer. What’s that? We’re being dramatic? Possibly. But it doesn’t mean we’re not genuinely so glad to have this gem of a track in our lives.
So let’s celebrate the fact that it WAS recorded by the mega-talented Rihanna, and play the song in all its glory! We’re already dancing in our chairs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL1UzIK-flA?feature=oembed