Live Your Life [Featuring Rihanna]

Does Rihanna need to release 38 singles a year? And do 37 of them really need to have some kind of 'aaa, aaaa, aaaaa' hook to them? Seriously, her songs sound like she's learning her phonics (ella ella ella aaaa aaaaa aaaaa) vs. actually singing.

This song sounds cobbled together from 2-3 individual songs from the beginning, and like most Rihanna songs, overproduced to hide her rather thin vocal abilities.

Message of the song is fine, but please get someone who isn't totally and completely overexposed and oversaturated to sing it next time.

There is such a thing as too much of an artist, that can make a song really feel like it is less merit, and lack of heart. That is the case with Rihanna. She has really been truthfully the most overexposed artist of 2008. She has done a lot of songs that really have lacked chemistry, whether it has been with Maroon 5 on If I Never See Your Face again, which was remade into a artifical duet, or with others, she has shown to weigh down a song. That even shows with her latest collaboration with rapper T.I. on Live Your Life. The duet with the rapper lacks feeling and chemistry. I really didn't feel the song was from the heart, and that is sad. I think that T.I. needs to find someone else to sing with for awhile, if he really is someone who wants to become bigger to live his life with.

Song: D

When I first listened to this song, I was totally shocked and perplexed. Not only was Rihannna doing a decent rendition of 'Numa Numa,' but T.I. starts off the song with the line of "be thankful for what you got." WHAT?!? He's not wanting more money, more girls, more bling and more hollering? Nope, he's telling people to be thankful for what they got, and criticizing people who just keep wanting more and more. A positive message with strangely few cuss words, and a Rihanna isn't half-bad, it's a good rap song for Thanksgiving, but not much more beyond that. It might be just me, but it's not exactly something I'd want to hear every other song, a week from now. Its beat isn't that great, and makes the shelf-life here rather short. But for a mainstream rap song, it isn't half-bad.

T.I. scored his second #1 single of his career with this hot new song. "Live Your Life" gets its hook from an unusual source - the hit single "Dragostea din tei" by Moldovan pop group O-Zone. You've probably never heard of O-Zone, but you've heard this song. It's also sometimes known as the "Numa Numa Song" and was featured in that internet video with the rather rotund European kid singing the lyrics - Mai-ia-hii/ Mai-ia-huu/ Mai-ia-ha/ Mai-ia-haha. Ah, now you probably remember it.

It's a bizarre sample for a rap single, but T.I. and producer Just Blaze are talented enough to blend it seamlessly into the song without making it seem like too much of a novelty. Of course, another savvy decision was to have diva-of-the-moment Rihanna sing the numa numa opening and then incorporate the same rhythm later in the song; she seems to have the midas touch lately. Every element just really works together in this song that promises to be around until well after the winter holidays.