Songfacts®:

• In this club banger, Rihanna teams with the Jamaican rapper Sean Paul, whose hits include "Gimme The Light" and "We Be Burnin'." He also features on Beyoncé's 2003 hit "Baby Boy."
  
  The song finds them having a flirt, with Rihanna feeling naughty and Sean more than willing to accomodate. She was just 18 at the time but her songs were starting to get a little more saucy, leading the way for libidinous hits like "S&M" and "What's My Name?" Sean Paul is 15 years older.
• "Break It Off" was the third US hit from Rihanna's second album, A Girl Like Me, following "SOS" and "Unfaithful." Her star shined a lot brighter when she released her next album, Good Girl Gone Bad, with the lead single "Umbrella."
• This was the first of many superstar collaborations for Rihanna, who went on team on hits with T.I. ("Live Your Life"), Eminem ("Love the Way You Lie"), Jeezy ("Hard") and many others.
• The song peaked at #9 in America and probably would have charted higher if a video was commissioned for it. Rihanna was stretched very thin at the time, which is probably why they didn't make one (coordinating with Sean Paul could have been an issue as well). She was releasing an album a year at this time and also doing lots of touring and promotion.