Rihanna has provided an update on her long-awaited new album, saying she’s “already got stuff she could make hits out of”.
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Yesterday (April 17), the Bajan singer attended a launch party for her FENTY x PUMA Creeper Phatty Earth Tone shoe line in London. At the event, she spoke to Entertainment Tonight about her new collection, her fashion sense and motherhood.
After sharing that her sons RZA and Riot‘s favourite song is ‘Wheels On The Bus’, Rihanna revealed if her children would appear on any of her new music.
“I mean, it’s up to them,” the ‘Needed Me’ singer said. “I already got stuff I feel like I could make hits out of. Me and [partner, A$AP] Rocky are really trying to figure out who’s going to use what because it’s so good.”
Earlier this month, the pop juggernaut shared that she has “a lot of visual ideas” for her hotly-anticipated ninth album.
“It’s weird,” she said. “My brain is working backwards right now. I usually have the music first, and the music leads me into all of these visual opportunities, and now I’m having all of these visuals, and I don’t have the songs for them yet, but maybe that’s the key, this time. Maybe the visual ideas are leading me to the songs that I need to make.”
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When asked if she saw the project as somewhat of a “rebirth”, Rihanna responded: “Random ideas, quirky ideas, things that have nothing to do with me at all. I mean, I can’t tell you. The opps is watching.”
While talking with ET, she confirmed that she still “doesn’t have the songs just yet” to go with her visual ideas. Afterwards, Rihanna diverted the chat away from her upcoming music, saying: “I can’t tell you [anymore]. That’s like me snitching on my record.”
Rihanna’s last full-length album was her 2016 eighth album ‘Anti’. She has been teasing the follow-up – dubbed ‘R9’ – since 2018, originally promising fans in an Instagram comment that it would arrive the following year. In 2019, she further taunted fans by uploading a video of a dog dancing to House Of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ with the message “Update: me listening to R9 by myself and refusing to release it.”
In 2020, however, she dampened the hopes for the album when she told fans to stop asking her to release new material during the pandemic.
Last year, Rihanna signed a new deal with Live Nation and it was reported that the singer planned to release new music ahead of a potential world tour in the next few years.
In December, Rihanna added to the rumours by alluding that there may be new music and a world tour on the horizon. “Well, we’re always gonna go back on tour. [But] I feel I want to do a tour when there’s new music. We already know what that’s gonna be, with the songs that I’ve performed on my last tour. That was a long time ago,” she told Entertainment Tonight.
“I feel like it’s only fair that my fans get what they’ve been waiting on, which is new music. After that, let’s just like, blow everything up.”
More recently, A$AP Rocky confirmed in February that Rihanna was still “working on” her ninth album.
Rihanna’s last release was the 2022 song ‘Lift Me Up’, the sombre lead single to the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack and a tribute to late actor Chadwick Boseman.