Rihanna teases new album: ‘Music is a playground, and I want to have fun with it’
The singer‘s follow-up to 2016's ‘Anti’ has been promised for years.
Rihanna has shared a new update on her long-awaited new album, saying that the new music will present “a show of growth”.
Nearly seven years after releasing her album Anti, Rihanna returned in October of 2022 with the release of ‘Lift Me Up,’ serving as a powerful tribute to late Chadwick Boseman. She then performed it at the 2023 Oscars.
Speaking to Extra at a Fenty Beauty Foundation event in Los Angeles on Friday (April 26), Rihanna was asked about progress on new music.
She said: “It’s gonna be amazing. It has to be — that is the only reason it’s not out yet. If I’m not feeling it and I’m not feeling like it represents the evolution, the time I spent away. There should be a show of growth, right?”
She continued: “I want to play, and I feel like music is a playground, and I want to have fun with it and show truly where I am at.”
Of any potential guests on the record, she said: “I’m not a big collaborator… It has to be very intentional, so I’ll know when I have the record.”
At the start of last year, Rihanna said that musically she was “feeling open”. Speaking at an Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show press conference ahead of her performance, she explained: “I’m feeling open to exploring, discovering, creating things that are new, things that are different, things that are off, weird, might never make sense to my fans. I just want to play, I want to have fun with music.”