Rihanna Performs Full Version of "American Oxygen" Live at March Madness Music Festival: Video
Barbados singer Rihanna headlined Day 2 of the March Madness Music Festival at White River State Park in Indianapolis, Indiana on Saturday night (April 4) and there she performed live, as promised hours before the event on Instagram, the full version of her new song “American Oxygen” whose snippet has been used as musical backdrop on the broadcasts of the 2015 DI Men's Basketball Championship in the last few weeks and which will appear on the R8 album.
Honestly, the song sounded real exciting from that NCAA Championship commercial but I just didn’t feel impressed by this Rihanna performance. I think I will hold judgment about “American Oxygen” until I hear it in its HQ studio version. Rihanna’s live debut of the entire song last night was a bit terrible. She sounded lazy and too nasally at times. I just didn’t enjoy the performance. I have the feeling, though, that “American Oxygen” will sound fab in the studio edit because the production sounded more dynamic and glorious in the ad. The performance was just a miss for me. I’m really hoping Rihanna performed a sort of ‘special’ version of the song last night. The arrangement did feel different.
By the way, are you also wondering why is Rihanna singing a USA patriotic song when she’s from Barbados?