Rihanna said she wants to release a new album “this year,” she told British Vogue in an interview published Wednesday, a long-awaited collection of music that would be her ninth studio album and her first since 2016’s Anti.
Rihanna did not put out new music between 2017 and last year, when she released two new songs for the movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. One of the songs, “Lift Me Up,” was nominated for Best Original Song for an Oscar. During that time frame, Rihanna launched her beauty line, Fenty Beauty, and her lingerie line, Savage X Fenty, which are both billion-dollar brands. In May, she welcomed her first child with rapper A$AP Rocky, and during her Super Bowl halftime performance on Sunday, she revealed she is pregnant with her second. Rihanna played coy leading up to the Super Bowl, as many fans expected her to announce new music or a tour in tandem with her halftime show. “Super Bowl is one thing. New music is another thing,” she said in October. She hasn’t lost the dedication of her fans during her hiatus: Rihanna’s halftime show averaged over 5 million more viewers than the Super Bowl game itself, and her performance was the second most-viewed halftime show, behind Katy Perry’s in 2015. Between Saturday and Monday, her music experienced a 390% increase in digital song sales overall and her digital album sales increased 301%.