FEATURE:
The Digital Mixtape
IN THIS PHOTO: Rihanna/PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
So Shine Bright: Female Artists with Diamond Singles
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IT is great when we get to…
IMAGE CREDIT: Rihanna
celebrate women in music and their successes. Rihanna has just been named the female artist with the most diamond singles to her name. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) bestows a diamond award upon those songs that have moved at least ten million equivalent units, combining actual sales and equivalent streaming figures. It is an incredible honour for a song to achieve that. Relatively few artists have achieved multiple diamond single successes. Rihanna is one of the biggest artists in the world, so it is not that surprising she would have some to her name. Even so, it is a monumental achievement. It also means we can shine a light on other women who have diamond singles. I am going to end this feature with a playlist of female artists and their diamond singles. Queens of music who have accomplished something remarkable. NME were among those who reported the news of Rihanna’s triumph:
“Rihanna has shared her response after it was revealed she has received the most amount of diamond singles for a female artist.
As of May 31, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has confirmed via their website that Rihanna has achieved seven certified diamond singles – ‘Umbrella’, ‘We Found Love (feat. Calvin Harris)’, ‘Stay’, ‘Love the Way You Lie’, ‘Needed Me’, ‘Work’, and, yes, ‘Diamonds’.
Four of these (‘Umbrella’, ‘Work’, ‘Needed Me’, ‘Stay’) were the latest to be awarded diamond, following ‘Diamonds’, which received it back in April. Four are solo leads while two feature guest verses by Jay-Z (‘Umbrella’) and Drake (‘Work’), and the last a feature she did for Eminem (‘Love the Way You Lie’).
With this achievement comes the accolades by RIAA for having the “Most Diamond Singles for a Female Artist” and “Most Diamond Certified Titles for a Female Artist”. To this, Rihanna responded with a tweet, accompanying a visual of these feats, saying: “ain’t no back n forth”.
A single is awarded diamond by RIAA when it reaches 10 million equivalent song units. According to the RIAA, one song unit is equal to a sale of a single digital song, or an accumulation of 150 audio and video streams.
Per Forbes, the artist previously in the lead was Katy Perry, who holds four diamond singles in ‘Firework’, ‘Dark Horse’, ‘Roar’, and ‘California Gurls (feat. Snoop Dogg’). In June 2023, Perry beat out Lady Gaga’s total of three diamond-certified singles (‘Bad Romance’, ‘Just Dance’, ‘Poker Face’) before she was dethroned by Rihanna in April with ‘Diamonds’.
Rihanna’s last release was 2022’s ‘Lift Me Up’ recorded for the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack, while her last album was 2016’s Anti.
Last April, Rihanna shared her latest update on new music. “It’s gonna be amazing. It has to be — that is the only reason it’s not out yet,” she told Extra at a Fenty Beauty event in Los Angeles. “If I’m not feeling it and I’m not feeling like it represents the evolution, the time I spent away. There should be a show of growth, right?”
“I want to play, and I feel like music is a playground, and I want to have fun with it and show truly where I am at.” She also prefaced that she’s “not a big collaborator”, so any guest performer on a new record would have to be “very intentional”.
As we think about possible new music from Rihanna, it is worth celebrating the fact that she has earned more diamond singles than any other female artist. To mark that, and with songs from other female artists who are in the ‘diamond league’, this playlist combined huge singles that…
SHINE bright.