Rebekkah ran into Rihanna on the streets of NYC the other day and decided it was too big of a deal to not vent about so here’s her story:

She’s a GODDESS.. Rihanna that is. On Sunday, somehow some way, I randomly ran into her and life just hasn’t been the same. Prior to this, I’ve seen Rihanna many times in person (premeditated of course) so since this run in was completely at random, it legit means so much more!

It all went down like this; I decided to go to lunch with a friend at one of my favorite Italian restaurants which just so happened to be next to Da Silvano (which was closed). We ate and then decided to walk around SoHo. While walking there, Rihanna’s apartment was along the route so as we walked by, I noticed her car wasn’t there. I said to my friend ”aw, Rih must be out.” After that, we got pretty tired so we started to walk to the train station to go home. On the street before the train, there was a HUGE crowd standing in front of the MAC store so of course I figured there was a celebrity inside. I heard a girl whisper ”omg Rihanna is in there” while I was walking by. I completely stopped, turned around, looked through the window, saw queen, died a little, then waited for her to come out. With my ”luck” so were 50 other people who found out she was in there. I texted Rayven (@sheberayven__) and Bermuda (@thottiepebbles) to tell them to FaceTime me and right when Bermuda called, Rih walked out…

Everyone freaked out. I mean obnoxiously putting phones in her face, grabbing her, and pushing. I felt so bad for her and mostly embarrassed for them. I’m not gonna lie, I kinda freaked out too but on the inside. I was standing RIGHT next to her for like 5 seconds just getting my life and then she got in the car and drove off. It lasted 10 seconds but these memories will last a lifetime. What a time to be a stan!

Here are the live tweets I tweeted when it happened and a pap shot:

We talked to Juan Sebastián Peláez, the artist behind the giant RiRi in Berlin, to get to know him and his work a little better. Happy reading!

Hi Juan! Congrats on the success with Ewaipanoma (Rihanna) at the Berlin Biennale! Can you tell us a little more about yourself and the piece?

Hi! I’m an artist currently based in Bogotá, Colombia. The piece was made for the Berlin Biennale. It’s about a myth of a monster that was supposed to have lived in the Americas long ago. When Christopher Columbus did his first voyage to the Americas he wrote on his logs that the ”ewaipanoma” people lived there, headless humanoid people. They made engravings that were later shown around Europe about how Americans looked like.

How did you develop that into the piece we can see at Berlin Biennale?

For this piece I got a series of pop icons that were born in the same places where they first traveled and did the process of making them look like they were supposed to have been 500 something years ago.

What other icons have you portrayed this way, besides Rihanna?

I’ve done Falcao, J-Lo, Sofia Vergara, Ariadna Gutierrez, Belinda and some more.

Cardboard cutout standees.

And all can be seen in Berlin?

No. For the biennale we just made on huge RiRi.

There’s millions of pictures of Rihanna to choose from, how did you decide on which one to use?

I wanted one that was full figure cause it was gonna be a cutout. I didn’t want it to have like a cut side, you know what I mean? And I wanted to have visible tattoos to make her visible. So after trying a bunch of options we chose that one. But I made at least 8 more Riris.

What happened to the other Riris? Where are they?

In my computer <3

Since this is a Rihanna blog, I have to ask: are you a Rihanna fan?

Of course!

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us Juan! We love giant RiRi!

Ewaipanoma (Rihanna) can be seen at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art from June 4 ‘til September 18.

The world’s biggest Desperado fan is also our Fan of the week. Everyone say hi to Tara!

1) Name and age?
Tara Turnpenny, aged 17.

2) Where do you live?
I live out the outskirts of Manchester, UK.

3) Occupation?
Currently, I have a part time job which I work on weekends. As well as being a full time college student studying law.

4) Number of times you’ve seen Rihanna live?
Unfortunately, none. Due to my age my parents only really started letting me go to concerts in 2014/2015 and because they didn’t really want to come with me it meant that I missed out on her previous tours….which sucks but I’m sure there’s many more to come to make up for it!

5) Are you attending ”ANTI WORLD TOUR”?
Yes!!! I’ll be attending Wembley, Coventry, Manchester and Malmo! Im super excited, with it being my first time seeing her live I’m struggling to contain myself. It’s been stressful planning but thankfully it has all worked out and I’m sure I will have the time of my life. It still doesn’t seem real that I’ll be meeting so many of my twitter friends who I’ve known for year whilst we all go and embrace what we love the most.

What does it mean to be a navy?
Honestly, it means everything to me. It doesn’t seem two minutes ago when I made my Stan account and started making so many friends. They’re all like my family. I couldn’t imagine how my life would be if I wasn’t a navy. It brings so much joy and happiness out of me that could never be replaced. I truly believe I’ve made friends for a life time and thats all because of Rihanna, and I don’t know what i’d do without them.

Will you share a personal Rihanna encounter with us?! Something she’s told you, taught you or done.
There’s quite a few that comes to mind, one that really stands out for me was when she followed me on Twitter a month after she had on Instagram back in 2014. I remember it so clearly, and it seems to be an hysterical moment within the navy. I just remember being in the car on the way to go see my horse and I was having one of those moments where I was praying she’d follow me back, and as I walked to the field to get my horse…literally as soon as I clipped the lead rope onto her my phone went crazy and thats when I saw it; and me being me of course lost the horse in the whole excitement of it and that was the first thing I tweeted. I laugh about it whenever I think about it.

A more recent one which really touches me is from February this year; I was having a really rough month due to an illness and it marked 6 months since I had to sell my horse after nearly 4 years of owning her. I really felt down and so I told Rihanna about it in her DM’s and she replied. It was my first DM from her, and I was just so glad and relieved that she knows about my illness and me losing my horse which was a huge part of my life for so long. I can honestly say that she helped me get through, her advice was so heart warming and now I can go about my daily business without that feeling of being lost. I really couldn’t thank her enough.

You’re kinda famous for editing videos in the navy. Is that something you wanna work with when you get older? And with Rih perhaps?
Yes! Editing videos is something i’ve enjoyed for so many years. It all began when I was around 10 and I used to edit videos of my horses that fitted with different music…I really fell in love with it. I really feel like i’ve progressed whilst being in the navy with the types of videos I produce, I mean I actually go through my old videos and I’m shocked at how much I’ve improved. I’m planning on leaving college and doing a film degree at university, focussing in on the editing side of it…although I’m not totally sure what career path I would go down as i’m stuck between music videos, tour visuals and other marketing campaigns, so I guess I’m just waiting for what works out the best!

My dream is to work with Rih, either on a music video, campaign or tour visuals…because i’ve been doing fan made videos for her for so long it would really be a dream come true for her to notice my work. I have many more unseen projects to come, and I’m so excited to share them with everyone.

You’re also (very) famous for being a Desperado Stan. What’s the deal about that song?!
Oh yes, Desperado is my song. My obsession with it is actually becoming laughable. I just don’t know what it is with this one song…it just does something to me?! It belongs in a art museum because that’s purely just what it is…Art. When I found out it was on the ANTI World Tour Setlist I honestly started fitting, I’ve never loved a song so much in my life until Desperado came into my life. I am so excited, yet scared to witness it live….i’m sure its a spiritual, out of body experience when she hits that high note but, I really don’t even think i’ll make it that far? I think everyone else is eager to see my reaction as much as I am to be honest!

In 10 years, what’s your dream life? Will Rihanna be a part of it?
In 10 years I hope to be enjoying life with my dream job of video editing, hopefully in the US which is where i’m eager to move to and study whilst at University. I’ll be 27 by then, and no doubt I will probably still have twitter, still talking about Desperado. I don’t know if things would change, I mean as I’m getting older my love for Rih doesn’t change so I’m more than certain I will still be up to my old ways doing what I love the most.

The 9th Berlin Biennale for contemporary art, open to the public from June 4 until September 18, has a giant RiRi on display. The piece entitled Ewaipanoma (Rihanna) was made by Colombian artist Juan Sebastián Peláez and can be seen at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art.

The Ewaipanoma are old mythical creatures described as having a mouth in their chest and eyes in their shoulders. As grand colonizer Walter Raleigh went to strip Guyana (where Rihanna’s maternal family is from) of its resources and hand them over to the British crown in 1595, he came across the rumor/tale of these ”headless men”. Quoting local children and the occasional anonymous Spanish bastard, he went on to pen down the myth of the Ewaipanoma in a book called The discovery of Guiana (as if the land wasn’t discovered long before his white ass settled down on it…).

Juan Sebastián Peláez work is described to the visitors as ”featuring upright, oversize photo-cutouts of headless human bodies—captured in athletic positions, sporting bikini swimwear, or posing in the limelight in glitzy, bling gowns—with faces surreally integrated into their chests. Both the bodies and faces are sourced from pop queens and soccer stars from the Caribbean or Latin America. A giant Rihanna welcomes visitors here in the courtyard. While hinting at the sometimes monstrous body modifications typical of celebrity culture, these works also reference longstanding projections of otherness. For these works Peláez was inspired by drawings from sixteenth-century explorers of the New World (like Sir Walter Raleigh), who on returning home described having encountered so-called “Blemmyae,” headless natives with faces on their upper, naked bodies.”

I see it as a comment on pop stars’ mythical status in today’s society and how stories of these larger than life creatures are just as man made (and manipulated) as the old myths. Spoken by one person, passed on to the other, spread at the hands of whomever sees a gain from spreading them. What Raleigh did by writing a book in the 16th century, fans/management/the person themselves do today by posting on social media. Yes? No?

And what happens when hundreds of people post pictures of themselves in front of a giant Rihanna that’s been manipulated to look like an Ewaipanoma, followed by hundreds of fans reposting those images as well? Is it possible for the piece itself to reach mythical status? Wandering millions of miles from the original sighting on it’s way through the thick jungles of cyber space.

And here I am forwarding, interpreting and manipulating the message through a blog post. Because I too want to be part of the myth building simply because I feel part of Rihanna (both myth and person). In that way, it’s not just her or the Ewaipanomas that evolve with each person whispering their name. So does the whisperers as we engage with the world through and with them.

Maybe RiRi will stop by herself during her AWT show in Berlin on August 16? I can definitely see it happen.

/Alex

IT’S HERE! Nothing is Promised has been released! First single off of Mike WiLL Made-It’s Ransom 2 and long time Instagram snippet favorite the Rihanna featured track is finally with us.

Available on iTunes and Tidal.

Congratulations to Rih for killing it once again. Sitting pretty on that rap trap pop dancehall reggae country folk throne.