For followers having a tough time coming to phrases with the truth that Rihanna has retired from making music, it’s time to tear that band-aid off.
RiRi has stored music on the again burner for a number of years now, and she or he’s solely returned to the stage when introduced with prime (and, at occasions, high-paying) alternatives that no main artist would wish to refuse. She headlined the Tremendous Bowl LVII Halftime Present final yr, the place she additionally revealed she was pregnant together with her and A$AP Rocky’s second little one. And earlier this month, the web devoured guerrilla footage of her first full live performance in eight years — in the course of the pre-wedding celebration for Anant Ambani, the son of Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, and Radhika Service provider in Jamnagar, India. Rihanna was reportedly paid anyplace from $6 to $9 million for her set, which included performances of her Billboard Sizzling 100 No. 1 hits “Work,” “Umbrella,” “We Discovered Love,” “Diamonds” and extra.
Shortly earlier than her Indian pre-wedding live performance, she had hinted at a collaboration with Rocky – but it surely was a couple of lip balm. And earlier this week, she starred on the duvet of Vogue China to rejoice the growth of Fenty Magnificence, considered one of Rihanna’s many enterprise ventures that’s remodeled the famous person with 9 Grammys right into a mogul with 9 zeroes in her web value. However followers are nonetheless holding out for her ninth studio album.
Reasonably than persevering with to hope for R9’s unsure arrival, it might be simpler to simply accept that the album may by no means materialize. And though she’s by no means formally introduced her retirement, her profession strikes over the previous few years have strongly prompt that no new music is on the horizon.
Rihanna hasn’t dropped a full-length mission since 2016’s ANTI, and it’s arguably her finest album – even Rihanna agrees. “In hindsight, it truly is my most sensible album,” she stated in her 2023 British Vogue cowl story. “It at all times felt like essentially the most cohesive album I’ve ever made.” It produced the nine-week Sizzling 100 No. 1 “Work,” that includes Drake, and two extra prime 10 hits with “Wanted Me” and “Love on the Mind.” “Work,” “Wanted Me” and fellow single “Kiss It Higher” all earned Grammy nominations, whereas ANTI was up for finest city modern album and finest recording bundle in 2017.
The LP debuted at No. 27 on the Billboard 200 following its shock launch on Tidal (with a little bit greater than a day left within the chart’s monitoring week); after it turned broadly out there to digital retailers and streaming companies, ANTI reached No. 1 in its second-charting week, marking her second chart-topping album after 2012’s Unapologetic. And at 412 weeks (and counting), ANTI is the fourth-longest-charting album on the Billboard 200 by a lady artist, after Adele’s 21, Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die and Taylor Swift’s 1989. The songs from ANTI collectively have 7.2 billion official on-demand U.S. streams, in keeping with Luminate. Rihanna actually doesn’t have to drop one other physique of labor, as a result of she’s already delivered a basic.
And whereas ANTI set the bar very excessive, that doesn’t imply Rihanna couldn’t outdo herself. Artists like SZA and Frank Ocean have confirmed they will observe up their universally acclaimed units with equally wonderful and even higher albums. However Rihanna has opened up in regards to the strain that comes with the prospect of dropping the extremely anticipated follow-up to ANTI.
“There’s this strain that I placed on myself. That if it’s not higher than that then it isn’t even value it,” she instructed British Vogue final yr, explaining how her perfectionism has gotten in the best way of her artistic course of. “I spotted that if I preserve ready till this feels proper and ideal and higher, perhaps it’s going to maintain taking endlessly and perhaps it’ll by no means come out and no, I’m not down for that.” RiRi additionally instructed the publication that it might be “ridiculous” if she didn’t drop the album in 2023. Now that we’re shortly approaching Q2 of 2024, it’s arduous to find out how Rihanna has since readjusted her timetable for R9.
She’s made feedback about R9 in earlier interviews which have indicated it isn’t fully a fable. In her 2018 Vogue cowl story, she stated she needed to make it a reggae album. When she lined the journal the next yr, she doubled down on her assertion. “I like to have a look at it as a reggae-impressed or reggae-infused album,” she instructed Vogue in 2019. However in any other case, Rihanna has not publicly disclosed any concrete particulars about or plan to launch the album we’ve all been ready for.
She instructed Leisure Tonight in February 2022 that her followers “would kill me in the event that they waited this lengthy for a lullaby.” And what did she do? She launched a lullaby seven months later with “Raise Me Up,” her first solo single in six years and the lead single from the Black Panther: Wakanda Eternally soundtrack. Whereas the tribute to late actor Chadwick Boseman wasn’t the type of music followers have been anticipating (and the type of music Rihanna joked she wouldn’t ship), it proved she nonetheless had the juice, commercially and artistically: “Raise Me Up” debuted at No. 2 on the Sizzling 100 and have become the best-starting radio single of Rihanna’s profession, debuting at No. 6 on Radio Songs. It additionally earned finest authentic music nominations on the eightieth annual Golden Globe Awards and ninety fifth annual Academy Awards and a finest music written for visible media nod on the 66th annual Grammy Awards.
However one hit soundtrack single – that stayed two weeks within the Sizzling 100 prime 10, which isn’t a outstanding feat for a Rihanna single – isn’t any indication of her hypothetical new album period. Most individuals appeared to neglect that she recorded two songs for the Black Panther: Wakanda Eternally soundtrack, with “Born Once more” closing out the mission. The music didn’t earn the identical spectacular chart stats or rave critiques as “Raise Me Up,” which spurred a number of “Rihanna Returns to Music” headlines. But her momentary reappearance, which has been adopted by different mini-resurfacings like her Tremendous Bowl and pre-wedding performances, hasn’t formally signaled the top of her eight-year musical hiatus.
And a big purpose why the “Don’t Cease the Music” hitmaker stopped placing out music is as a result of Rihanna has been preoccupied checking off all the pieces else from her bucket checklist. A number of years again, a snippet of her 2008 InStyle cowl interview resurfaced on X (previously referred to as Twitter) the place then-20-year-old singer listed what she needed to perform within the subsequent 10 years: “I wish to have already began my household and have some companies of my very own. A vogue line, a make-up line, and I nonetheless wish to be doing what I’m doing at a a lot larger capability – by the grace of God!” Rihanna, now 36, has completed all the pieces she’s got down to do: Within the eight years following ANTI, Rihanna welcomed two sons with Rocky; launched her $1 billion-worth Savage x Fenty lingerie model and historic Fenty vogue line with LVHM Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (which was placed on maintain in 2021); and opened her Fenty Magnificence and Fenty Pores and skin traces, with the success of the previous serving to her attain billionaire standing in 2022.
Whereas followers’ authentic entry level to Rihanna was her music, she has wielded her musical profession as an entry level to beginning different profitable companies. And followers can get annoyed if it looks like artists are neglecting the factor that made them fashionable within the first place, however what they may not understand and even respect is that artists produce other massive desires they wish to pursue – and music may’ve supplied an avenue for them to realize them. Saweetie, one other business-savvy artist who has noticeably taken her candy time to launch an album and lately defined the strain surrounding it, has additionally opened up about desirous to create a legacy for herself past music. Whether or not artists fully cease making music to pursue their different passions or drop singles right here and there earlier than disappearing once more, followers’ hopes for his or her musical careers don’t at all times align with the route artists take them in.
Possibly RiRi will pull a Kendrick and ship the information we’ve all been ready for when she sees discussions about her retirement. Or perhaps ANTI actually is her swan music. Both method, Rihanna’s profession trajectory has been nothing in need of distinctive – and for higher or for worse, one other album isn’t going to dramatically have an effect on it.