NBC's Today Showcases Edgy Singer Rihanna

June 20th, 2008 12:00 AM

Girl Scouts looked on with starstruck eyes as pop diva Rihanna sang about getting sexually aroused on this morning's Today show.


Rihanna opened with “Don't Stop the Music,” a song about a girl at a club getting hot and heavy with a guy on the dance floor. 


One verse of “Don't Stop the Music” reads:


Do you know what you started?
I just came here to party
But now we're rocking on the dance floor, actin' naughty
Your hands around my waist
Just let the music play
We're hand in hand, chest to chest and now we're face to face


Another verse reads:


Baby are you ready cause it's getting close
Don't you feel the passion ready to explode?
What goes on between us no-one has to know
This is a private show


Co-host Meredith Vieira introduced Rihanna, saying, “And the 20-year-old beauty from Barbados, Rihanna, already a veteran of our summer concert stage in the plaza.  Also, a newly honored Grammy award winner, and this week she's out with a reloaded version of her third album, 'Good Girl Gone Bad.'  She's definitely the good girl in that one.”


Rihanna went on to perform “Take a Bow,” a song about a girl leaving a guy after finding out he cheated on her.  One verse of the song reads:


Grab your clothes and get gone (get gone)
You better hurry up
Before the sprinklers come on (come on)
Talkin' bout'
Girl, I love you, you're the one


Several of the young girls in the audience said “Take a Bow” was their favorite Rihanna song.


Later on the show, Kathie Lee Gifford called Rihanna “an absolute doll,” suggesting that she's someone young girls can look up to.


Referring to the recent teen pregnancy pact in Massachusetts, Gifford said, “Celebrities have a huge impact on the youth, they do.  We're watching Rihanna all morning long and you see all the little girls just—you know, they dream to become that.  So, careful what you dream.  I mean Rihanna seems like an absolute doll.  But, I think sometimes we worship all the wrong things in our culture.”


Julia Seward is an intern at the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the MediaResearchCenter.