My Secret Life As A Rihanna Stan

I won't lie, I'm pretty jazzed about seeing Rihanna on her Loud Tour this summer (28 North American dates, and thankfully I'll be able to catch the broad this time, since I was unable to hit up her show with Ke$ha last year).

I've actually been kind of picky about which shows I've taken in this year — Robyn (February), Cut Copy/Holy Ghost! (April), Kylie Minogue (last week) and, of course, the upcoming Take That/Pet Shop Boys gig in Milan.

But I've quietly been stanning for RiRi since her very first chart-topping Hot 100 hit, "SOS." I even got to interview her just before that jam climbed to #1 exactly five years ago, for the May 2006 issue of Instinct. This was pre-Chris Brown, pre-"Umbrella" and pre-majorly-sexed-up public persona Rihanna — a much younger, more naive Rihanna than the sex toys-prone one we read about in her recent Rolling Stone cover story.

From the D'luv archive, if you fancy a read (click to enlarge):

Side note: I've been toying with the idea of maybe creating a separate blog with all of my "day job" interviews from over the years. Does that sound like anything of interest, from a reader perspective?