L.A. Reid (the Chairman and CEO of Island Def Jam Music Group) was on Oprah Winfrey Show yesterday. He and Oprah talked about “Rated R”, Rihanna’s upcoming album, then Oprah said to her audience something like “didn’t she do an outstanding job on 20/20?”, the audience “yes” and L.A. agreed she did a wonderful job. They also showed the album’s cover and played a snippet of the “Wait Your Turn” music video.

The Oprah Winfrey Show is the highest-rated talk show in American television history.

By the way, Rihanna should go to Oprah’s show. That would be amazing!

Thanks, Rosimae and Fallingup!

Ester Dean has more bragging rights. A track penned by the singer-songwriter has made Rihanna’s new album.

“I just found out a couple days ago,”

Dean told Rap-Up.com about making the cut. An official tracklisting for Rihanna’s fourth album Rated R, which also includes contributions from Tricky Stewart and The-Dream, Ne-Yo, Young Jeezy, will.i.am, and Slash, was released by Def Jam on Monday.

Track number eight, otherwise known as “Rude Boy,” was written by Dean, who’s penned hits for artists including Mary J. Blige, Pussycat Dolls, and Keri Hilson, and also has a hit of her own with “Drop It Low” featuring Chris Brown. The Rihanna track was produced by Stargate, she informed Rap-Up.com.

Rihanna’s fans are not the only ones rooting for her. One of her most famous supporters, hip-hop star Drake, has heard his peer’s new music and is sharing his excitement over her fresh start exclusively with Rap-Up.com.

“Rihanna has a great album,” the 23-year-old rapper said after hearing the pop singer’s fourth effort Rated R. “She’s got great records that she’s using, she’s got great records that she’s not even using that she has for a later date. I’m excited for her. She deserves everything that she gets.”

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Hahaha, that’s funny. Watch the video below. He talks about her after 2:30 minutes.

Thanks, Powerless!

Soulja Boy Tell’em revealed to MTV News this week that he will have the unique distinction of appearing on the upcoming albums by both Chris Brown and Rihanna.

“With this particular project [it was] like, ‘Whoa!’ because it was like, ‘Yo, I need you to do something for Rihanna’s album. You got 11 hours. Go,” Soulja Boy said about the last-minute call to work on an unspecified track from Rihanna’s upcoming Rated R disc.

“It was like, ‘What?’ ” The challenge, he said, was how to cook up some verses that would help make a #1 hit in such a short time. Luckily, he had plenty of experience with working fast, thanks to the 30 minutes he said it took him to write his breakthrough hit, “Crank That.”

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Rihanna’s Rated R will come out November 23 and feature new collaborations with the man behind her biggest hit so far. The-Dream, who wrote “Umbrella,” penned a couple of tracks for the new LP.

“Me and Rihanna, she just cut the last of the two records we did. It’s a record called ‘Rock Star,’ ” the singer-song writer divulged earlier this week, backstage at the Izod Center in New Jersey. “The first record is a record called ‘Hard,’ which features [Young] Jeezy. Both of those records are pretty insane.”

Dream declined to go into much detail about the tracks, but said the Rihanna/ Jeezy collaboration is one for the record books.

” ‘Hard,’ I want that song to explain itself,” he said. “Most of the stuff I wrote — still to this day what I write — I try to find out through people — what they’re going through or what they gotta say. Then we put that in.”

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AllHipHop.com: There were quite a few debates in online communities comparing your style to Rihanna’s. Yet people would often say that you were always consistent and somewhat of a prototype for what you both do musically. Any thoughts on the comparisons?

Fefe Dobson: Rihanna and I are both Black women that perform music that has an edge. I believe that this is the reason why people would say that we are similar in style. But if you are a true music lover, you can easily hear the difference between us.

Thanks, kenyanpebbles!

SL: We saw pictures of you laughing and hanging out with Rihanna at Fashion’s Night Out. Are you doing any projects with her?

GZ: During that event I suggested some special shoes just for Rihanna that would be incredible. I explained that they would have fireworks and explosions on them. She loved the idea and she said she needed them immediately. They’re in production now and they are beautiful.

Thanks, Sammy28!

With Timbaland, Lady Gaga, Birdman and more releasing albums on the same day, SOHH asked Rick Ross how he felt about his Def Jam labelmate Rihanna going head-to-head against 50 Cent.

“Of course,” Ross said about Rihanna’s new album out-selling 50. “That’s Rihanna, one of the most beautiful, talented human beings on the planet. You can’t even say her name next to woodface. But more importantly, that’s a nice line-up of artists. Birdman, that’s my brother. I look at 50 Cent and Lady Gaga as the same. So I really recognize Lady Gaga, I mean Birdman and whoever else you said but at the same token but I feel like we’ve won already because the state that the industry is in, you know, it’s hard to break new artists and you know, we’ve brought Triple C’s to the table six months after me receiving the number one album [with Deeper Than Rap] and we pretty much did this hands-on by ourselves.”

Ne-Yo and Rihanna certainly have a special working relationship. After collaborating on some of Rihanna’s most memorable hits, they came together, with the help of producer Chuck Harmony, for her latest single, “Russian Roulette.” But the new track, off her upcoming Rated R album, sounds very little like “Hate That I Love You” or “Take a Bow.”

Ne-Yo said Rihanna requested the song’s somber vibe. “She wanted to be dark, but not just dark for the sake of being dark,” he told MTV News. “Dark with kind of a meaning, dark with some kind of thing to it.”

Ne-Yo called the track “my first ventures off into the fictitious,” as he explained how he came up with the haunting Russian roulette theme, which appears to be a metaphor.

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