Rihanna has criticised artists who use excessive product placement in their music videos.

The singer, who launched her latest album Rated R with help from Nokia, admitted that the heavy use of product placement can ruin music videos.

She told NME: "I don’t like things to be so commercial. I hate product placement in my videos. Videos should just tell the story of the song.

"With product placement it becomes this big ad campaign. I just don't like that. Sometimes we have to, for whatever political reason, but it's never my first choice. "

The 22-year-old also revealed that when recording her previous album, Good Girl Gone Bad, her label was unaware of what she was recording in the studio.

She said: "After my first two albums I just said, ‘I’m ready to do it my way, completely.'

"So a few of us went into the studio, cut my hair, dyed it black. The label hadn’t seen anything, they didn’t know what was going on.

"The mystique I have kept has been because I don’t say a lot. There are a lot of rumors about me, every day it’s something new."

She explained: “I guess by not replying people never know what’s true and they never know what’s not true.

"So that kinda leaves them wondering - they see me, but they never know what’s in my mind."