It seems Rihanna is at “work, work, work, work, work, work” on her next album.
With fans incredibly hungry for another album from the Grammy winner, especially since it’s been a decade since she released her last studio project, 2016’s Anti, her longtime partner, A$AP Rocky, is offering a little status update.
During a recent interview on The Jason Lee Show, the rapper was asked by host Jason Lee, “Are you the reason why we don’t have an album?” He was referencing the long-running joke among fans that the delay in new music was due to her relationship with Rocky, their growing family (they share three children) and Rihanna’s many business ventures.
However, Rocky shut down those claims. “Nah,” he replied. “She in the studio right now. Yeah, I said it. Sorry, babe.”
He added, “Bro, she working. She cooking, no funny shit. Damn, I’mma get in trouble for this. Her fans are going to kill me.”
When Rihanna’s Anti dropped in 2016, it became a hit, spending two weeks atop the Billboard 200 chart. It also included her fan-favorite songs “Work,” “Needed Me,” “Love on the Brain” and “Desperado.”
Though she hasn’t released an official album since then, she has put out a few standalone singles tied to film soundtracks, including “Lift Me Up” and “Born Again” for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and “Friend of Mine” for Smurfs.
When Rihanna was previously asked for an update on her next album, dubbed R9, she told Entertainment Tonight in 2024 that while she’s “starting over,” she also doesn’t “want to neglect the songs that I have, so I actually want to go back and listen to stuff with new ears, with my new perspective and then see what applies and what I’m still in love with.”
That same year, she also told Interview magazine that her “brain is working backward right now” regarding her next musical endeavor. “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,” she added.
Elsewhere on The Jason Lee Show, Rocky was also asked if fans could expect a “double album of y’all both together on every song” in the future.
“Nope,” the rapper quickly replied. “I would hate Rocky and Rihanna if they both did that. That’s trash. Nobody wants to hear us together, bro.”
Rocky explained that he believes their separate sounds wouldn’t make sense together because “I make subversive weird ass indie rap,” adding that “the music that I make is for a niche demographic of people who actually get this shit.”
