My loyal readers already knew this, but Rihanna’s producer, The-Dream, has confirmed that Rihanna’s “Birthday Cake” remix with Chris Brown on the track was her idea.
The-Dream tells MTV’s Sway that he was driving alone in his car when he got the surprising call from Rihanna.
“I think I’m gonna put Chris on it,” he remembers Rihanna saying to him over the phone. “I don’t know which Chris you talkin’ about, [but] OK, cool, whatever you say,” The-Dream responded.
“At the end of the day, she’s my friend, so whatever she wants to do is whatever she wants to do,” The-Dream told Sway
Of course there is really only one Chris, and The-Dream came to grips with the reality that the two would be coming together in song after the damaging 2009 assault that left Rihanna battered and bruised and Brown public enemy #1. “She’s pretty smart too. The same questions that went through my mind, and I’m an artist also, had to have gone through hers,” The-Dream told “RapFix Live.” “When she raised the question to me, I know she’s not crazy. So my thought was you’ve been thinking about this, you’ve already thought it out, so evidently you know what reaction you gonna get.” Source
The-Dream went on to say he was happy that Rihanna forewarned him of the drama that was to come.
But sources tell Sandrarose.com that both Def Jam and Rihanna’s management, Roc Nation, strenuously objected to Brown’s feature on the track — and they advised her against putting it out.
Roc Nation was debating putting the track out “after all the controversy,” said a well-connected source who had intimate knowledge of Rihanna’s behind-the-scenes machinations.
Rihanna eventually made the decision to release the track on her own, because controversy is always good.
