Rihanna's first single was "Pon De Replay" in 2005, where she tells the DJ to turn the music up. In "Don't Stop The Music," she makes a similar request, asking the DJ to keep the music going so can unwind. Most of Rihanna's songs aren't set in clubs - she covers a lot of musical and lyrical ground in her discography - but she could do dance music as well as anyone. These would have to be all-ages clubs: Rihanna was just 19 when "Don't Stop The Music" was released on her Good Girl Gone Bad album.
The songwriter Tawanna Dabney wrote the lyric, and the beat came courtesy of the Norwegian production duo StarGate (Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel Storleer Eriksen). StarGate previously helmed the #1 hits "So Sick" by Ne-Yo and "Irreplaceable" by Beyonce. When they first heard Rihanna's "Pon De Replay," they were determined to work with the singer.
A little over a minute into the song, the famous "mama-se, mama-sa, ma-ma-koo-sa" chant from Michael Jackson's 1982 track "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" sneaks in. Jackson got the line from the Cameroon saxophonist Manu Dibango's 1972 song "Soul Makossa (Funky Soul Makossa)" without permission and was forced to compensate Dibango in an out-of-court settlement over its use. Twenty-six years later, Dibango launched another compensation claim against Rihanna, as the Barbadian singer's use of the line came with permission from Jackson, but not him. It's Michael Jackson who is credited as a songwriter on "Don't Stop The Music."
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