Rihanna by Lorna Simpson for Essence

In the accompanying text, the writer and actor shares how Rihanna helped shape her womanhood at an early age: 'I am deeply grateful that at a formative time in my life, it was Rihanna’s voice and art that became my portals to so many questions about sexuality, sexual exploration and sexual autonomy. I was thirteen when Anti and ‘S&M’ introduced me to the subject of kink in general.'

‘As a reflection on rage and an expression of regret, ‘Man Down’ helped me imagine the possibilities of power, vulnerability and complexity that one might hold as a Black woman. When the accompanying music video was released a year later, I experienced this song as a meditation on the gravity of sexualized violence and a recognition of the sacrosanctity of one’s voice and bodily autonomy. My mom and I often blasted ‘Man Down’ from the car stereo while she drove me to school. I reveled in its ragga influence as a celebration of self and a means of connecting to my mother and her Afro-Caribbean father.’—Zora Simpson Casebere

Visit Essence for more on this historic collaboration, and learn more about artist Lorna Simpson.