Watch: Is Rihanna Really Releasing ‘R9’ Soon? Breaking Down the Rumors About Her New Music
Rihanna has been putting in the work, work, work in the studio.
The “We Found Love” singer—who hasn’t released a full-length album since 2016’s Anti—pulled back the curtain on how much unreleased music she’s recorded, divulging that she’s sitting on a minimum of 170 songs that her fans haven’t heard.
Rihanna made the reveal during an Oct. 6 TikTok Live stream for her Fenty Beauty brand.
“If there are 10 products in a vault,” she pondered in response to a fan, “then I have at least 17 vaults.”
Of course, simple math signals that the Grammy winner, 38, has at least hundred tunes that she has yet to share with the world.
Her reveal comes after husband A$AP Rocky confirmed that she’s been working on a forthcoming release, which fans have dubbed R9.
“She in the studio right now,” he revealed on The Jason Lee Show Aug. 5. “Yeah, I said it. Sorry, babe. Like, bro, she working. She cooking, no funny s–t.”
The 38-year-old added, “Damn, I’ma get in trouble for this.”
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While he may have regretted his admission, Rihanna herself said recently that she “cracked the code” on how she wants her next project to sound.
“This much time away from music needs to count for the next thing everyone hears,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in Feb. 2025 “It has to count. It has to matter. I have to show them the worth in the wait. I cannot put up anything mediocre.”
“It’s not going to be anything that anybody expects,” Rihanna added at the time. “And it’s not going to be commercial or radio digestible. It’s going to be where my artistry deserves to be right now.”
She had previously admitted that the quality of her most recent album Anti has resulted in her putting even more pressure on herself to deliver with her next collection of songs.
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“In hindsight, it really is my most brilliant album,” she shared with British Vogue in 2023. “I say that because in the moment, I didn’t realize it. But it always felt like the most cohesive album I’ve ever made.”
“There’s this pressure that I put on myself. That if it’s not better than that then it is not even worth it. It is toxic,” Rihanna continued. “It’s not the right way to look at music because music is an outlet and a space to create, and you can create whatever. It doesn’t have to even be on any scale. It just has to be something that feels good. It could just be a song that I like. It literally could be that simple.”
Keep reading for more about Rihanna…
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