A museum dedicated to pop singer Rihanna could soon be a reality, according to the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley. The Caribbean island’s most famous daughter, born Robyn Rihanna Fenty, deserves to be honored in her hometown with a permanent cultural attraction, Mottley said during an event in London.
Mottley revealed that conversations are already underway between Rihanna’s manager brother and the Barbados government, according to The Voice.
Anybody who could go from Rihanna’s humble beginnings to become “the most successful woman entertainer in the entire globe, in my view deserves to be recognized in her life as a living legend of Barbados as well,” Mottley said.
Rihanna was born in the town of Bridgetown, where her father’s alcoholism and drug addiction cast a shadow over the family. After an American music executive in Barbados spotted Rihanna singing with two schoolmates, he set her on a fast-track to pursue a professional singing career, and she moved to the US when she was 16 years old.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley addresses the 73rd session of the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York in 2018. Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP.
In 2018, Rihanna was appointed an ambassador by the Government of Barbados, with duties related to education, tourism, and investment for the island.
In addition to her singing career, Rihanna has made her mark on the fashion and film industries, becoming the first woman of color to launch a brand with luxury group LVMH with the debut of her fashion label FENTY in May. She also starred alongside Sandra Bullock, Akwafina, and Cate Blanchett in the film Ocean’s 8 and served as a co-chair for the Met’s “Catholic Imagination” Gala in 2018.
Rihanna attends the 2018 Met Gala. Photo by Taylor Jewell/Getty Images for Vogue.
Just this week, a museum in Singapore unveiled the canary-yellow embroidered cape the singer wore to the 2015 Met Gala, as part of the exhibition “Guo Pei: Chinese Art and Couture,” and you can check out the “Rihanna Experience” at the Museum of Science in Boston, where a light show set to a soundtrack of her greatest hits takes place under the Planetarium Dome.
Mottley’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on plans for the new museum.
Though she’s encountered some controversy within the art world, most recently for starring in a Juergen Teller photo shoot that garnered accusations of plagiarizing the work of Mickalene Thomas, if the new museum becomes a reality, we’ll be pon de replay.