Admittedly, the evenings of Mawazine have always been successful, but this time, all records were reportedly broken. At the time when the concert on the OLM stage was supposed to start, tens of thousands of people were eager for the Barbadian to make her appearance. And so we were entitled to the wildest speculations and the sweetest wishes. Five years after her first production in Morocco, in 2008 in Casablanca, Rihanna literally set the fans on fire, in a sold-out concert. Entire families made the trip. The fans of the sumptuous singer converged from all regions of the country towards the capital, which experienced an evening less peaceful than usual. As soon as the lights were turned off, the tension rose a notch. The fateful moment approached. Impatience was at its peak in anticipation of the superstar's entrance on stage. And in two seconds, euphoria took over the place. The few tens of thousands of fans who invested the OLM stage, at full gallop, forgot the moments of waiting. And if they didn't want to forget it, the enormous roar that came from the stage meant they could no longer hear their own thoughts. Yes, it was Rihanna and the show started at full blast. Dressed all in black, the 25-year-old pop princess stormed the stage with her dancers. “Thank you for being here. It's been a long time. Morocco, I miss you,” said the 25-year-old singer after singing her famous hits “My Birthday”, “What's My Name?”, and “Diamonds”. “The Only Girl”, winner of six Grammy Awards and seven Billboard Music Awards, was already jumping to the rhythm of what she was playing, while the staff in charge of immortalising this moment tried to contain the enormity of what they were seeing and feeling on a screen. If her intention was not to let anyone breathe, Rihanna well and truly achieved her goal. No one took their eyes off the stage, dominated in particular by giant screens in the form of operating theatre lamps. The desired effect was obtained as much through the accumulation of stimuli as through the quality of the visual design. Until the end of a breathtaking concert, the most popular songs of this superstar followed one another, galvanising, for an hour and a half, the crowds who came to appreciate the frankly robust throat and the enticing choreography of the Barbadian diva, who dedicated to the public, mostly youthful, “The Rockstar”, “Cheers”, “Don't stop the music”, or even the indestructible “Umbrella”. The most followed artist on Facebook, who has clearly distinguished herself from her contemporaries by selling more than 37 million albums and 146 million singles worldwide, currently holds the record for the best-selling digital artist of all time.
News 25 May 2013 3 min read
Rihanna is a hit in Rabat
The show given, Friday evening, by Rihanna will remain as one of the biggest successes of the Mawazine Festival: the world-famous R&B singer was a real hit at the opening of the concerts at the OLM Souissi in Rabat.

