Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | August 6, 2026
Guys, we promise you that new Rihanna music is totally on the way! A$AP Rocky said so!
On an episode of Jason Lee's podcast, the rapper and partner to Ms. Fenty was bluntly asked, "Are you the reason we don't have an album?" The pair have been together for six years and have three young kids named RZA, Rio, and Rocki. That's obviously not left her with much time to work on music. Rocky Sr. said, "She in the studio right now," and that "she cooking."
"Yeah I said it, sorry babe," he continued, adding that he would "get in trouble for this."
It's been a decade since Rihanna released a new album. We used to get them pretty frequently. Between 2005 and 2012, she dropped seven full length albums, plus a couple of remixes. But over the past decade following the release of Anti, which many consider to be her best work, Robyn has turned her focus towards building her empire. Fenty Beauty and its hair and skin offshoots have seen astonishing success, as has her lingerie brand Savage X Fenty. It's made her a billionaire (possibly, at least on paper) and helped to pave the way for a new era of celebrity side-hustles. But, aside from a couple of soundtrack songs, she's not been in the studio planning for album number nine. We get whispers every now and then that she's definitely working on it, but between running an empire and having three kids, it's clear she's been busy with other things.
In February last year, Rihanna told Harper's Bazaar that she felt "really optimistic" about a new album and that she "cannot put up anything mediocre. After waiting eight years, you might as well just wait some more." That's fair, although we also all heard that Smurfs movie song so, you know, maybe she's saving all the really good stuff for later.
"This much time away from music needs to count for the next thing everyone hears. It has to count," she said. The pressure is certainly high. Anti saw her delving into new and less mainstream-friendly territory. Rolling Stone listed it as number 230 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. She's now at a point in her celebrity where she could make literally anything she wanted, free of record label meddling or the demands of the current market. In 2015, she acquired the masters to all her recordings and launched her last album jointly through her own record label, Westbury Road. Of course the Rihanna Navy wants to hear what comes out of that. But I also think we won't get an album for a while. She's got other priorities and with all that creative privilege comes zero pressure to churn something out of she doesn't want to. Frankly, she may be too rich to even care.
Rihanna and A$AP are currently partying hard in Barbados for carnival season. Why bother with album work when you can be getting down like this?
