Credit: CNN’s TALK ASIA
She recently won her third Grammy, has collaborated with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry and is still only 22. This week on TALK ASIA, CNN’s Anjali Rao heads to Seoul to sit down with singer/songwriter sensation Rihanna who talks in-depth about her latest album “Rated R”, her past relationship with Chris Brown, troubles in her childhood and her first nerve-wracking meeting with Jay-Z .

ANJALI RAO, CNN ANCHOR (AR): Rihanna it’s great to have you on the show with us.

RIHANNA, SINGER-SONGWRITER, (R): Thank you so much.

AR: You know for one so young, you have obviously had a completely packed life, professionally, personally, the whole lot. Does it kind of make your head spin when you think about it all?

R: At times, it’s overwhelming, it all is really surreal the whole thing, just being signed, having my dream come true, having it be a lot more than I expected, a lot more in a good way I mean there’s the ups and downs of course but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

AR: You’ve just won your latest Grammy for ‘run this town’ with Jay-Z and Kayne West. What’s it like to win Grammy number three?

R: It feels like Grammy number one. With the Grammys you can’t expect too much, because it’s really tricky and there are a lot of tough nominees in the categories, so you just go into it not expecting it, so when you do win, it’s a big surprise, it’s a great feeling.

AR: So your latest album is out and the more albums that you do, the more saucy the titles get I notice, because you start off really innocent with “Music of the Sun” and “A Girl like Me” and then it gets a bit more racy with “Good Girl gone Bad” and now “Rated R.” What should that tell us about you?

R: I think it’s just a progression, I just think that when I first started making music I was 16 years old, now I’m 22 and I’m gonna sing about different things, talk about different things, I’m really just growing up and I think if I started at “Rated R”, people probably won’t be that shocked but they’ll always have that memory of ‘pon de replay’ in their head.

AR: It wasn’t that long ago that you were the “pon de replay” girl and you know a lot of people if they even make the charts, they have one hit and that’s it, but you have just been able to churn out hit after hit after hit, just constant catchy tunes.

R: Thank you.

AR: How do you do it?

R: Well I remember in the beginning of my career “pon de replay” came out and it kind of made people say “she’s gonna be a one hit wonder” because it was my first single and it did so well, so they were kind of just waiting to see “ok what? What’s gonna happen now?” and that motivated me to work harder to prove them wrong and to just make people see that I’m a real artist and I love making great music and it’s not just about a song but it’s about the overall.

AR: Arguably, still, your most famous song has got to be “Umbrella”!

R: Yes.

AR: Can you sing a bit for us?

R: Under my Umbrella, ella, ella- I ain’t sung that song in so long!

AR: You know, the thing is about that song is that practically everybody can attach it to a time or a place or a person.

R: Yes.

AR: For you what sort of memories does it bring up?

R: “Umbrella” for me was about friendship. When I sang the song, every time I sing it too, it’s really about my friends and my fans and telling them “I told you I’ll be here forever and we can ride together and I have your back if you have my back” and that’s how I am with my friends also. Every time I perform “Umbrella” I still get excited about it somehow. “Pon de Replay”- I definitely have had it with that song! But “Umbrella” it’s just when I start to sing it when the track comes on, the energy that comes alive in the audience- I just forget that I’ve sung it 20 million times it just feels good because people embrace it so well.

AR: What’s different about this album?

R: This album is absolutely the most personal album I’ve done so far. It was very honest, very vulnerable as aggressive and defensive as it sounds and it feels. It actually took a lot of vulnerability for me to reach into those places to get those feelings out and put them on paper and actually share it with the world.

AR: So you were writing about experiences in the last couple of years- that sort of thing?

R: Yes, a lot of personal experiences, also emotions, you know…kinda vented really! And you hear it on certain songs for sure, you definitely feel that.

AR: Lets go back before any of this started, when you were just little Robyn Rihanna Fenty growing up in Barbados. Talk to me about the sort of childhood that you had.

R: Growing up, I have to say we had a very…my mum never let us know what our financial status was, so we never felt poor, we didn’t know if we were poor or rich. we just felt happy, and no matter how many negative things were happening in the household we always felt happy like we always had a good vibe like it was good energy, and very free, like she made us enjoy being children and that’s really important, right?

AR: You allude to the hard times- I assume that the hardest thing about that was the drug addiction of your Dad-

R: Yes.

AR: And he says that the lowest point in his life came when you were nine and he was in the kitchen doing crack and you caught him.

R: Wow. I didn’t know he said that. Yeah, I caught him a few times and I didn’t even know it was crack. I didn’t know what it was, I just saw something that just, it was happening too often and my Mum didn’t like it. I just remembered that, that made me know it was wrong. She just every time, she saw this specific thing- the foil and the ashtray. She would just go off and they separated several times because of it, and eventually it ruined their marriage. She was just like ‘you’re gonna either kick that drug habit and see your kids, or you’re not gonna see your kids at all, cause they can’t see you like that.’

AR: He says though that you are way too smart to ever go down that road, but I imagine in your industry it must be easier to get hold of drugs than it is to get a pint of milk?

R: It’s very easy! You know, in the entertainment industry, drug is as accessible as alcohol, you know you just have to…I’ve seen it first hand enough to know the results and there’ve been a lot of entertainers who’ve passed because of overdose of drugs and I don’t wanna be another one of them.

AR: In your Grammy acceptance speech, Grammy number one, you got up there and said that you’d promised that award to your Dad- that sounds like things are better?

R: Uh well, that was also two years ago and well, I’m lying, was it two years? Yeah two years ago- and I was a different, different…we had a different relationship two years ago than we do now.

AR: What’s it like now?

R: It’s almost non-existent.

AR: I’m very sorry to hear that.

R: I mean it is what it is, I did my part so…

AR: Let’s talk about happier times then. In 2003, life totally changed for you when you did an impromptu audition for a record producer who was on holiday in Barbados at the time and you and a couple of mates decided to get up there and sing for him. He said that when the three of you walked into the room, suddenly there was only one of you in the room. The other two were totally eclipsed. Did you feel, I don’t know, a bit guilty about leaving them behind?

R: Absolutely, absolutely now…It really put a strain on our friendship, it damaged our friendship completely because…

AR: you don’t know them anymore?

R: There was jealously and it just…And I could understand why they were upset, you know…I would feel unfair. But this is my dream and I was not gonna let go of it.

AR: Well it didn’t take long for you to come to the attention of Jay-Z. He said it took him a couple of minutes to work out that you were gonna be a massive star.

R: Uh-huh that is awesome.

AR: Tell me about that day.

R: Uh that day was one of the most nerve wrecking experiences of my entire life. I remember sitting in the lobby, just kinda waiting for them to call me into the room and all that was going through my head is “oh my gosh, I’m gonna see Jay-Z. I’m gonna see Jay-Z!” I could not believe it and not only that, there was the pressure of that fact that it was the audition of my life. It was do or die, you know. It could’ve gone either way, so I was really nervous. And then, on top of that, meeting an international superstar of that calibre was insane. I couldn’t get over it.

AR: You know when things started happening for you Rihanna, they really, really started happening! You went from basically nowhere to couple of months later touring with Gwen Stefani! Were you not completely petrified?

R: I was so excited, I was just ready for the world you know, like I could not wait to get out there. This was my dream for, for all those years, so when I was presented with this opportunity I just grabbed it with both hands and I just kept going.

AR: What about working with the guy that can just do no wrong- Justin Timberlake!

R: Amazing! Justin, he’s just a fun person to work with. When we were working, we worked before and we worked with Timberland before, and we just kinda clicked and I really, really enjoyed working with him, I had a completely different respect for Justin after working with him so closely in the studio. He’s an amazing song-writer, as well as a musician and producer, which I didn’t know he did until we worked together on “Good Girl Gone Bad” and then he came back on this album and did “‘Cold Case Love” which is one of the most heartbreaking records. It was really a difficult song for me to even start thinking about recording because it was so real and he just really spelt it out the way it was, like that song tells it all.

AR: What’s that song about, in particular?

R: “Cold Case Love” is a song about my past relationship.

AR: With Chris Brown?

R: Yes. It’s a song that everybody wanted to hear, that’s exactly what everybody wanted to hear. Everything that I didn’t say for the past eight months, exactly how I felt about that relationship and how I feel about it now. That song says it all.

AR: Your personal life has gotten a huge amount of attention and what happened with Chris Brown when he assaulted you that was massive news at the time, not least because I think people actually really, really cared about you, they didn’t want to see you hurt. How do you feel about things now?

R: I feel like it’s behind me. I think it’s something that, when there’s something exploited in the media, in such a big way, it’s hard to ever just completely get rid of because people wanna know, so I know that I’ll asked about it probably for the next couple of years unfortunately but I’m in a different place now. It was a rough time for me I’m gonna admit, it was tough and when I think about it, it was a really dark time for me. But I have a good balance in my life now and I feel like we’ve done a great job at ploughing through and moving forward, because it was a lot to get through to get to this point and now the focus is the music, the focus is the fashion, the focus is the tour and people aren’t so focused on Chris Brown anymore, you know.

AR: That was part of your private life but of course it was massive great splash in the public arena. I imagine that that would make it doubly difficult to deal with, as opposed to handling it behind closed doors?

R: Definitely. Absolutely. It would have made it a lot different only because that’s something no one wants anyone to know that’s happening in a relationship. Even if it just happened one time nobody wants to talk about that. That’s just a memory you want to erase right away. So seeing it plastered over every news channel like I felt like it was a natural disaster that was happening, the amount of attention that it got. Every time I tried to watch TV, I mean, if it wasn’t breaking news, it was the line at the bottom going across the screen. I just felt like “wow, is that me that they are talking about?” It was crazy. It was hard for me to deal with that.

AR: You are said to be in a new relationship with LA dodgers player Matt Kemp. True?

R: We’re not in a relationship, no. We’re just friends. We’re just hanging out, getting to know each other. But we’re not in a relationship.

AR: You’ve had some amazing musical collaborations, despite the fact you’re massive in your own right. Do you get intimidated at all with the Justin Timberlakes, the Kanyes and people like that?

R: Intimidated… I would say the person I was intimidated by the most was Bono. Working with him, I couldn’t believe it was happening. That was something that I just put on a pedestal like it would never happen, or if it did happen, it would take a very long time until I was worthy of being on a record with Bono – but that was definitely the most intimating but exciting. Working with my other collaborators like Jay-Z, Kanye West and Justin Timberlake – they’re all family so it’s exciting because I also respect them a lot as artists, individual artists. So being able to team up with them was more an event for me.

AR: Who would your dream duet be with?

R: I would love to work with Depeche Mode.

AR: Really?

R: I also wanna work with Kings of Leon. They are like hands down my favourite band right now.

AR: Yeah, they’re pretty hot, definitely. So if you’re watching, Kings of Leon or Depeche Mode…

R: Me and my girlfriends we actually got in our car and drove all the way to Vegas to go to their concert. I was a little groupie. We went all the way to Vegas from Los Angeles and we just partied. We ended up partying with them as well as going to their show so that was an exciting weekend for us.

AR: You have made millions and millions of dollars, Forbes magazine estimated that in 2008 alone, you raked in 15 million. What’s the craziest thing you’ve done with that cash?

R: Um, what is the craziest thing? I would say my biggest purchase so far is my house. My new house. Because I don’t have a car because I don’t have a license so it doesn’t make sense to just have a fancy car to look at…

AR: It’s so nice to meet someone else who doesn’t have a license.

R: I feel much better now, trust me, because everyone makes fun of me that I don’t have a license. But whatever. I don’t really make big jewellery purchases or anything like that. I like jewellery but I like delicate stuff or costume jewellery rather but my house … that’s my heaven, I can’t wait to make it perfect, I can’t wait to move in.

AR: So musically speaking, where do you go next?

R: Next, wherever my heart is at that time. It has to be real. I really enjoyed being honest and authentic this time around and I think that if I’m going to make music then it has to be something that is really coming from me. It doesn’t have to be sad, it probably won’t be as dark because I don’t want to ever want to experience that time ever again. When I was making this album, it was a very rough time in my life. So next, I won’t be in that place, so I don’t know where I’ll go next.

AR: That’s so fantastic, thank you for being so open to us.

R: Thank you, thank you.

To watch the interview online and for more information on Talk Asia, please go to www.cnn.com/talkasia