Music Friday: Rihanna and Boyfriend Are Yellow Diamonds in the 2011 Hit, 'We Found Love'

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you awesome songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the lyrics or title. Today, Barbadian singer Rihanna compares herself and her boyfriend to yellow diamonds in the very first line of her blockbuster 2011 hit, "We Found Love."

She sings, "Yellow diamonds in the light / And we're standing side by side / As your shadow crosses mine / What it takes to come alive / It's the way I'm feeling I just can't deny / But I've gotta let it go."

in 2009, Rihanna and singer Chris Brown were precious and rare diamond-grade performers on the verge of superstardom. They were an A-list couple enjoying the glow of the media spotlight, but what most fans didn't know was that Brown had an abusive dark side — a side Rihanna describes in the song as his "shadow crossing mine."

She finally comes to the realization that no matter how much she loves him, she can't be with him anymore. She's got to "let it go."

Written by Scottish DJ Calvin Harris, "We Found Love" appeared on Rihanna's sixth studio album, Talk That Talk, and rapidly ascended the charts in 25 countries. It topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for 10 weeks and went on to sell more than 20 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time.

"We Found Love" is described as an electro house song with elements of Europop, pop, techno, trance and Euro disco.

Interestingly, the song's composer, Calvin Harris, cautioned a Q magazine writer against reading too much into the song's hook phrase, "We found love in a hopeless place."

While some believe that it represents two people finding each other when both are down on their luck, Harris described the origins of the phrase this way: "I don't know exactly what I was thinking about. I was just playing the song and doing nonsense singing to see if the syllables fitted the song. It was like that. I was singing nonsense and that's how the lyrics happened."

Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born in Saint Michael, Barbados, in 1988. She grew up listing to reggae music and, as a 15-year-old, dropped out of high school to form a musical trio. The girls were lucky enough to land an audition with American record producer Evan Rogers, who recognized Rihanna's talent and invited her to record some demo tapes. The tapes landed at the studios of Def Jam Recordings, where she was signed to a record deal by singer Jay-Z, who was also a record company exec.

Please check out the audio clip of Rihanna singing "We Found Love." The lyrics are below if you'd like to sing along...

"We Found Love"
Written by Calvin Harris. Performed by Rihanna, featuring Calvin Harris.

Yellow diamonds in the light
And we're standing side by side
As your shadow crosses mine
What it takes to come alive

It's the way I'm feeling I just can't deny
But I've gotta let it go

We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place

Shine a light through an open door
Love and life I will divide
Turn away 'cause I need you more
Feel the heartbeat in my mind

It's the way I'm feeling I just can't deny
But I've gotta let it go

We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place

Yellow diamonds in the light
And we're standing side by side
As your shadow crosses mine (mine, mine, mine)

We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place

We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place

Credit: Image by Sam Collart [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Flawless 10.64-Carat Purplish-Pink Diamond Is Top Lot at Sotheby's HK Auction

An exceptional 10.64-carat flawless vivid purplish-pink diamond is expected to sell for as much as $26 million when it hits the auction block at Sotheby's Magnificent Jewels and Jadeite sale on October 7 in Hong Kong.

In Sotheby's auction catalog, the top lot is described as a cut-cornered rectangular mixed-cut diamond, but it also can be described as a radiant cut, which incorporates the shape of an emerald cut with the faceting array of a round brilliant. The stone is set in an 18-karat white and pink gold ring and is flanked by trapeze-cut white diamonds.

Sotheby's established a pre-sale estimate for the headliner at $20 million to $26 million. If it achieves the high estimate, the diamond's price per carat would be $2.44 million — a number on par with some of the most famous pink diamonds in the world.

For instance, in November 2018, the 18.96-carat “Pink Legacy” was purchased by Harry Winston for $50.3 million, establishing a record price-per-carat for a fancy vivid pink diamond at $2.7 million per carat. The previous record holder was the 14.93-carat "Pink Promise," which sold at a 2017 auction for $2.2 million per carat.

In April of 2017, the 59.6-carat Pink Star — a flawless, fancy vivid pink diamond — shattered the world record for the highest price ever paid for any gem at auction. The Pink Star’s hammer price of $71.2 million at Sotheby’s Magnificent Jewels and Jadeite sale in Hong Kong.

It is believed that pink and red diamonds get their rich color from a molecular structure distortion that occurs as the diamond crystal forms in the earth’s crust. By contrast, other colored diamonds get their color from trace elements, such as boron (yielding a blue diamond) or nitrogen (yielding yellow), in their chemical composition. Pink diamonds larger than five carats are rarely encountered. In fact, fewer than 10% of pink diamonds weigh more than one-fifth of a carat.

Other top lots at Sotheby's Hong Kong auction will include a spectacular ruby ring and a super-size flawless diamond, both of which feature the number "88" in their carat weights. The number 8 is the luckiest number in Chinese culture and is believed to bring good luck and prosperity. With each hundredth of a carat equally 0.002 grams, precision cutting and care was required to finish the polishing of both gems at just the right moment to achieve double eights in the final weight.

• Superb Ruby and Diamond Ring. This ring by designer Raymond Yard features an oval Burmese ruby weighing 11.88 carats. The ruby is set in platinum and is accented by various shaped diamonds. The pre-sale estimate is $5.6 to $8.1 million.

• A Magnificent Unmounted Diamond. Weighing 80.88 carats, this unmounted D-flawless emerald-cut diamond has excellent polish and symmetry. It is reportedly one of only five emerald-cut diamonds larger than 80 carats to have come up for auction. The gem is graded Type IIa, the most chemically pure of all diamonds. It is expected to sell in the range of $9.9 million to $12.7 million.

Credits: Images courtesy of Sotheby's.

Here's a First Peek at Apple Designer Jony Ive's All-Diamond Ring

Last November, Sir Jony Ive, Apple’s Chief Design Officer, and renowned industrial designer Marc Newson, collaborated on "The (Red) Diamond Ring" — an all-diamond ring that would be honed from a 45-carat rough gem.

The piece — which has no precious metal components — was specially designed to benefit the third (RED) Auction in Miami, a charity supporting AIDS research. An anonymous bidder purchased the ring for $256,250, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation matched 90% of the bid, nearly doubling the total donation.

At the time of the auction, the ring did not exist in real life. However, Ive and Newson promised to custom make an actual ring for the winning bidder in any ring size up to 5. This past Friday, the ring was finally revealed.

The Diamond Foundry, which supplied the lab-grown diamond for the project, announced on Twitter that the ring was completed, and released a video showing how it was meticulously carved and faceted using laser beam and water jet technology. The ring was created by removing material rather than adding it. The original blueprint boasted 2,000 to 3,000 individual facets. A typical round brilliant-cut diamond has 58 facets.

According to the company, the shape and model of the finished stone are revolutionary since there were no guidelines. The Antwerp-based cutters had to create it from scratch using custom tools that had to be ordered from a specialized diamond tools supplier in Belgium.

Ive is reportedly leaving Apple this year to form a new design company called LoveFrom. He has been with Apple for 30 years.

Shawish Geneva was the first company to form a ring from a single diamond. Shawish unveiled the innovative ring to the public during the 2012 Baseworld Watch and Jewelry Show. That ring was laser-cut from a 150-carat rough diamond. While the Shawish ring was groundbreaking, the Ive-Newson design is said to be more wearable.

Credits: Screen captures from Diamond Foundry video.