Since she introduced her Fenty corporation in 2017 and became a multi-tasking businesswoman, the iconic singer of « Work » doesn’t seem to be interested in doing music anymore.
Her fans are quite often complaining about the absence of her new and (allegedly) last album which was vaguely announced by her on an Instagram comment in december 2018.
Her last moments as a singer and performer are back to her ANTI album and the ANTI world tour in 2016. Since then, we haven’t really seen her doing anything related to music. Well, it’s not as if she exposes herself a lot on social media, but most of the time when she posts something, it’s either relevant to her brands or a cause she’s advocating for but it’s never about music.
So has she been called a liar, because until this day she didn’t release or appear in any music project despite just one featuring on PARTYNEXTDOOR’s album in 2020 – a featuring for which she was blamed for « not singing enough » and « just whispering ».
The real questions are : is there even an album ? Why did she say 2019 ? And why isn’t she being vocal about the reasons behind this non-release ?
Truly, Rihanna has always been a versatile creative woman who wants to try new things: she began as a singer, she introduced herself to acting, and now she’s growing her four businesses in the fashion and cosmetic fields.
She currently runs Fenty Beauty, her very successful makeup company, SavageXFenty, her well-known inclusive lingerie brand since 2018, she also launched Fenty Skin in 2020, which is her new skincare line, and last but not least, her luxury clothing brand in copartnership with the famous french luxury group « LVMH ». Knowing how creative and how much of an entrepreneur she is, it’s not impossible to think that she has some more business projects to come. Seeing how invested she is, it’s quite logical that music is no longer in her top priorities. It has also been reported that she is working on a cook-book featuring her favorite Caribbean recipes from her hometown Barbados.
She may feel like she has a lot of pressure on her shoulders to drop music, and people seem to ignore how much she’s actually working to operate her brands as good as possible.
But when the pressure is too hard, she doesn’t hold back from trolling her fans in the comments from time-to-time, as if she doesn’t even care. So we can understand the frustration of her fanbase, but isn’t her own frustration worse ? No one can really imagine how stressful it is to be a bold powerful woman, and to manage multiple ventures at the same time
Rihanna has in fact worked non-stop for over a decade since the age of 17, and became the most successful female artist with a current 600 million dollar net worth. She released a total of 8 studio albums and more than 65 singles throughout her career. She gave so many iconic bangers that are still very popular, and we have to admit that she really did the most.
Even though we want more from her, her music is unquestionably timeless and still streamed up to this day, it’s like she doesn’t even need to drop music to be on the charts or in the people’s ears and hearts.
Maybe she’s turning the page now, and it’s time for her to focus on other things that she’s passionate about. In fact, she looks very happy, true to herself and fulfilled.
Some fans have gave up on the idea of getting this « R9 » album, as they like to call it. However, there’s some speculations about an eventual 2021 release.
Knowing how much it is expected, we can imagine that she’s low-key working on the album and taking the right amount of time to make it as perfect as she wants it to be.
