14 DAY TRIAL // Three years after they broke up because he put her in the hospital in a fit of rage, Chris Brown and Rihanna have teamed up again for two tracks. Now, The-Dream is saying it was all Rihanna's idea.
The two tracks emerged online last week and, since then, that haven't ceased to get people divided on whether such a collaboration was a good idea or not.
As far as The-Dream is concerned, they were. He produced the remix for Rihanna's “Birthday Cake,” which also features a very smutty verse from Chris Brown.
He tells Entertainment Weekly that, when Rihanna came to him with the idea, he simply couldn't say no, because he'd be a cool thing to do.
“It was Rih’s idea. Not only do we work together, but [Rihanna] is a friend of mine. I don’t know how she got the logistics and how it happened – maybe she’ll talk about it one day. I showed up at the studio, and it was like, 'All right, cool, let’s finish this record',” The-Dream says.
If Rihanna had it in her to forgive Chris for what he did to her so that she can work with him again, then the world shouldn't have a problem doing the same, the producer believes.
Obviously, he's not bothered by the implications of such a collaboration, like the message it's sending to Rihanna's female fans, who might conclude from this that it's ok to get back with an abusive ex after a while.
“For me, it’s just music. Two talented people doing a record together, doing two records together, and that’s what it was. It wasn’t about an incident that happened. The true thing really is to forgive, and… you want to believe in people,” The-Dream tells EW.
In fact, he adds, Rihanna forgiving Chris could be seen as a model of good behavior, one that should be emulated.
“I think [the topic] that should be more on the tongues is: how do we proclaim to be a nation of forgiving, and we go by all of these rules and everything, but we can’t actually do it? It actually makes you look weaker than your adversary – if you don’t have the power to forgive, but you lie and say that you did,” he goes on to say.
“Because this is about her. If she can forgive, that’s where she is mentally,” The-Dream concludes.
As of now, neither Rihanna, nor Chris has responded in any way to attacks in the media for their most recent collaborations.