Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.It’s hard to imagine now, but her status back then meant she was far from the first name that sprang to mind when the writers of “Umbrella” started to shop the song around. It was written by Christopher “Tricky” Stewart, Terius “The-Dream” Nash and Stewart’s cousin Kuk Harrell, who together formed the Atlanta-based production house RedZone Entertainment. Feeling inspired by a booming beat that Stewart was working on, Nash dashed to the vocal booth and began to sing. “The first verse was written in 60 seconds,” he has said. The whole thing was finished in two hours. “We knew it was special,” Harrell said. “We didn’t know it was a hit. Nobody knows that.”Like Rihanna, the RedZone team have since found stratospheric success, writing smashes including Justin Bieber’s “Baby” and Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”, but at that point they were less powerful. Their best contact was Britney Spears, for whom Stewart and Nash had co-written “Me Against the Music”, a 2003 duet with Madonna. But in early 2007 Spears was at a low ebb, going in and out of rehabilitation facilities and shaving her own head in front of dozens of paparazzi in a Los Angeles hair salon. It’s not clear whether she was given the chance to hear “Umbrella” and reject it personally. But her record label, Jive, said they already had enough songs for her next album.Stewart and co really wanted the song to be sung by Mary J Blige, who again was much a bigger star than Rihanna back then. When “Umbrella” was on the table she was the most nominated artist at the 2007 Grammys, up for eight gongs. She didn’t need it.Its deluge of catchiness made it an obvious pop smash, but the song was boosted to the status of genuine cultural moment by fortunate timing — for its makers at least. Jay-Z’s verse mixed appropriate weather metaphors with reference to the global financial crisis that was just beginning (while reassuring worried listeners that he was so unimaginably wealthy that it wouldn’t affect him). In the UK, a series of serious floods in June and July 2007 made it seem as if Rihanna was moonlighting as a weather forecaster at the Met Office.Let us know your memories of ‘Umbrella’ in the comments section belowThe paperback edition of ‘The Life of a Song: The stories behind 100 of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by ChambersMusic credits: The Island Def Jam; Mercury; Big Machine; Universal; 14th Floor/The All Blacks; Fearless/Concord; Sony
