I've recently grown to love the Rihanna song "Man Down." At first, I hated it for a very specific reason: the police sirens. I'm a nervous wreck if I hear police sirens while driving and this song uses them as part of the background track. I get why they're used. It works thematically. They're just very prominent in the mix, just loud enough to sound like you need to pull over on the highway to let a state trooper or ambulance through. The more I've listened to it, the more I realized how great it is that this particular track has been charting so well in America. Rihanna has released authentic dancehall music in America as a single before, but not reggae. This is a reggae track. The reggae music that normally does well in America is more rap driven. This is a sung reggae song getting major airplay. That's unbelievable in today's music climate.
Then you start to get further into the song. The influence of something like "I Shot the Sheriff" is undeniable. It is a song about shooting someone down for no real reason. It's all about violence against another person with minimal accounting for why it happened.
It gets better. The song isn't so much about the act of pulling the trigger, but the regrets of doing it. Just look at the first verse.
I didn't mean to end his life I know it wasn't right I can't even sleep at night Can't get it off my mind I need to get out of sight Before I end up behind bars
What started out as a simple altercation Turned into a real sticky situation Me just thinking on the time that I'm facing Makes me wanna cry
Cause I didn't mean to hurt him Could've been somebody's son And I took his heart when I pulled out that gun
This is not how violence is discussed in modern music. It's either glorified, turned cartoonish, or glossed over. This is a woman who immediately regrets what she did and realizes the implications of her actions. She's haunted by the vision of taking another life but can't even face what caused it. What kind of "simple altercation" results in a gun going straight through the chest? There's nothing "simple" about it and that's the one thing she can't face.
While it would be easy to go with an "I don't want to face punishment" angle to this song (and there is a nod to it with the line "Tell the judge please gimme minimal"), but that's not where this track goes. This track washes over you with grief on an island beat. It's brilliantly produced.
My favorite part of the whole track is when Rihanna starts doing the rhythmic sounds with the vocal. "Rum pa pa pum" over and over, as if she's become the music. Or else it could be how she imagines the sound of the gun, its compartments smacking together, the recoil against her arm. Or maybe its how the man's body fell to the ground. It is, once again, a direct reggae element opened up to a more unusual context that drives me wild.
So what do you think of this Rihanna song? Sound off in the comments below.