Rihanna graces the cover of Paper Magazine and spoke to them on who she is “visually inspired” by…

“The other stuff I did was easy breezy–a lot of [it] I felt was stuff that any artist could have done. This one only a certain artist can do. . . . I want to be the black Madonna. When I did that metallic stuff for my ‘Umbrella’ video, I didn’t do it to show my body. I didn’t do it for people to like me. I did it because it was a cool visual, unexpected, and it looked hot. I just find myself leaning toward stuff that only Madonna can pull off.”

Paper