After Rihanna was signed by Jay-Z, she continued to work with Rogers and his production partner Carl Sturken, as well as other music producers such as Poke and Tone, D. "Supa Dups" Chin-quee, and Stargate.

After meeting for the first time, Rogers asked Rihanna to come to his hotel room, where she performed renditions of Destiny's Child's "Emotion" and Mariah Carey's "Hero".

The first to respond to the demo tape was Jay-Z, who had recently been appointed president and CEO of Def Jam Recordings.

[6][7] Looking back on the audition and meeting Jay-Z, Rihanna explained in an interview how she felt before walking into the room, saying: "That's when I really got nervous.....

"[6] During the audition, Rihanna performed Whitney Houston's cover of "For the Love of You", as well as "Pon de Replay" and "The Last Time", which were written and produced by Rogers and Sturken and would be included on her debut album, Music of the Sun.

[11] In an interview with Kidzworld, Rihanna learned how the pair helped her develop her song-writing abilities, talking about Rogers and Sturken, who had worked with recording artists including Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Kelly Clarkson.

[14] The lead single "Pon de Replay" was written by Rogers, Sturken and Vada Nobles, and was produced by the first two.

"Pon de Replay" is a simple dance-pop song with dancehall beats and reggae vocal cadence.

[16] A remix of the song, entitled "If It's Lovin' That You Want – Part 2", which features rap by Cory Gunz, was included as a bonus track on Rihanna's sophomore studio album, A Girl like Me (2006).

Music of the Sun also contains a remake of Jamaican singer Dawn Penn's "You Don't Love Me (No, No, No)", and features dancehall recording artist Vybz Kartel.

[21] Rihanna performed "Pon de Replay" complete with Barbados flags and colorful carnival attire at the MTV Video Music Awards pre-show in Miami, Florida on August 28, 2005.

Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times viewed that the album's combination of dancehall and pop resulted in "["Pon de Replay" being] one [of] the summer's biggest and most seductive club tracks", but felt that Rihanna sounded "stranded" without a beat to sing along to.

[3] Barry Walters of Rolling Stone found it lacking in replay value, ingenuity, and rhythm, with "generic vocal hiccups and frills" of US R&B inflecting upon her "Caribbean charm".

[30] Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine called the album a "glut of teen R&B chanteuses" and described the lead single "Pon de Replay" as "a dancehall-pop mixture that owes plenty of its sweat and shimmy to Beyoncé's "Baby Boy".

"[2] Robert Christgau of The Village Voice rated the album a "dud",[29] indicating "a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought.

"[32] In a positive review, Jason Birchmeier of AllMusic commented that the album presents Rihanna as "winsome rather than [a] wannabe," as well as how she set herself apart from other urban dance-pop artists such as Ashanti, Beyoncé, and Ciara.

Birchmeier further explained that "Music of the Sun descends into faceless slow jams after a while, overall consistency not being among its attributes, but thankfully it picks up the pace toward the end..... the result is one of the more engaging urban dance-pop albums of the year.

[4] In the United States, Music of the Sun sold 69,000 copies in its first week and debuted and peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200 in the chart issue dated September 17, 2005.

[34] After five months of release, the album was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on January 1, 2006, denoting shipments of over 500,000 copies.