 Following the management 's rejection of the track , Stewart and Nash dealt it out to other record labels . It was also given to English singer @-@ songwriter Taio Cruz , who failed to convince his record company to release it . It was then opted by Island Def Jam chairman Antonio " L.A. " Reid , a friend of Stewart who established his first studio . By early February 2007 , the demo was sent to Reid 's right @-@ hand woman , A & R executive Karen Kwak , who passed it along to Reid with a message confirming that they had found a song suited for Rihanna , who was working on her third studio album , Good Girl Gone Bad , at the time . Reid immediately sent the demo to Rihanna , who was also positive of it : " When the demo first started playing , I was like , This is interesting , this is weird . ... But the song kept getting better . I listened to it over and over . I said , ' I need this record . I want to record it tomorrow . " 
