Photo: Leon Bennett/Getty Images
How much longer will the Navy be left high and dry? It’s starting to feel like the boy who cried wolf has nothing on the billionaire who cried R9. Rihanna hasn’t dropped an album since 2016’s Anti. Instead, she’s given birth to two kids — plus a Fenty empire that sells us makeup, lingerie, skincare, and, most recently, hair products. Maybe fans and reporters are trying to emulate her entrepreneurial spirit, because they’ve been standing on business and consistently begging for updates on her allegedly upcoming ninth album. Is she finally ready to rih-visit her music career, or will the Navy be kept on deck forever? Below, a timeline of Rihanna’s said about R9 (and R10!), including her latest hint that she’s “starting over” with her next album and is finally “prepared” to head back into the studio.
December 2018: A fan asks Rihanna on Instagram when her album is dropping. “2019,” the singer replies.
May 2018: Rihanna is planning to make a reggae album, per a Vogue profile.
July 2018: Rolling Stone reports that Rihanna is actually working on two new albums — one reggae, one pop. An anonymous producer claims that Rih’s team already has 500 songs to choose from for the reggae album.
March 2019: Rihanna’s project manager, Jennifer Rosales, suggests on Instagram that her baby got the “first listen” of new Rihanna music.
May 2019: Rihanna says her reggae album doesn’t have a title yet. “So far it’s just been R9, thanks to the Navy,” she tells T Magazine. “I’m about to call it that probably, ‘cause they have haunted me with this ‘R9, R9, when is R9 coming out?’ How will I accept another name after that’s been burned into my skull?”
October 2019: Rihanna tells Vogue she’s been trying to get back in the studio, and promises she hasn’t forgotten about those albums. She explains that it was always her plan to make two records — one inspired by the music she grew up listening to in Barbados, and one that represented the “evolution of where I’m going next with music.”
December 2019: Rihanna posts an Instagram video of a dog jamming out to music with the caption, “me listening to R9 and refusing to release it.”
January 2020: Shaggy tells Britain’s Daily Star that he was approached for, but turned down the opportunity to be on Rihanna’s reggae album.
February 2020: When asked for an R9 update, Rihanna simply tells ET that it is “to be continued.” She draws three dots in the air and says she likes to “antagonize” her fans a little. “Well, they antagonize me, too!” she insists. “So, they get it right back.”
March 2020: British Vogue publishes a piece in which Rihanna teases that she is “very aggressively working on music.” “I can’t say when I’m going to drop … There are no rules,” she adds. “There’s no format. There’s just good music, and if I feel it, I’m putting it out.” (The Navy can only pray that she’s not just referring to her thirty-ish second feature on a PartyNextDoor track released that same month.)
October 2020: Rihanna tells the Associated Press that in addition to holding “tons of writing camps,” she has also been trying to figure out how to create visuals for new music. “That’s a challenge as well,” she says. “But I love challenges, so, you know, I’m gonna get it done.”
September 2021: Rihanna says we won’t be able to expect the sound of her next project. “Whatever you know of Rihanna is not gonna be what you hear,” she says on the red carpet of a Savage X Fenty Show. “I’m really experimenting. And music is like fashion, you should be able to play.”
October 2022: Rihanna releases her first single in six years, “Lift Me Up,” for the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack.
November 2022: Rihanna quashes the rumors/hopes that her upcoming headlining performance at the Super Bowl halftime show means R9 is on its way. “Super Bowl is one thing. New music is another thing. Do you hear that, fans?” she tsks. (Later that month, though, she does at least feed us with “Born Again,” another Wakanda Forever ballad.)
February 2023: Rihanna tells British Vogue that yes, it would be “ridiculous” if R9 doesn’t drop this year. She confirms that she has been consistently recording music, but explains, “Your taste changes, your vibe changes.” She also adds that she feels pressure to not put out an album until it feels better than Anti, though she acknowledges that’s a “toxic” mindset. Finally, she’s still thinking about visuals, noting that she needs “the right background music” to go with what she has in mind.
July 2023: Rihanna becomes the first female artist to have 10 songs with 1 billion streams on Spotify. She celebrates the achievement — and the fact that she did it “wit no new album” — on Instagram.
April 2024: Rihanna tells Extra her new music is gonna be “amazing.” “It has to be — that is the only reason it’s not out yet,” she says, adding that it has to represent her evolution after “the time I spent away.” She suggests to Entertainment Tonight that A$AP Rocky has also heard some potential options. “I already got stuff that I feel like I can make hits out of,” she says. “Me and Rocky are really trying to figure out who’s gonna use what, because it’s so good.”
June 6, 2024: Rihanna is spotted in New York wearing an “I’m Retired” shirt, inspiring dismay across the Navy.
June 11, 2024: Rihanna clarifies that she’s not retiring as a singer, and tells ET she has in fact been rih-discovering music. After working on the album for so long and putting “all that stuff” aside, she’s now ready to go back in the studio. She says that in a sense, she’s “starting over,” but notes that she isn’t necessarily giving up on the songs she already has. “I want to actually go back and listen to stuff with new ears, with my new perspective,” she explains, “and then see what applies and what I still am in love with.”
