It’s starting to feel like Rihanna enjoys teasing her fans with the possibility of new music and her highly anticipated ninth studio album. This week, the Fenty founder tapped into her cheeky energy in a new Instagram post giving fans a glimpse into a night in her life, which, to many’s surprise, included a visit to the studio.
The mother of three begins the video at 9 PM with a meeting for her lingerie and loungewear brand Savage X Fenty, where she appears to be reviewing designs.
“I still have to go to the studio after this, and I have to make a Mardi Gras costume for my son after the studio,” Rihanna is heard saying in the meeting, which lasted until almost 2 a.m. “Longest day ever.”
And she fulfilled her promise. The next clip shows the “Anti” singer in the studio, writing, listening to beats, and dancing around. Though the clips did not offer any insights into what the new music sounds like, the image of Rihanna sitting in a studio was enough to give fans a glimmer of hope that “R9” will be released in this millennium.
Though Rihanna has appeared on a handful of tracks since the release of her 2016 album “ANTI,” the Rihanna Navy (her fanbase) has been hanging on to the many clues she’s dropped through the years about the album in hopes of one day predicting its release date.
“Me listening to R9 by myself and refusing to release it,” the star wrote in a 2019 Instagram post, trolling fans
Her trolling post came months after the star told Vogue she was “very aggressively working on music.” And since then, she has continuously teased the project in interviews. In 2024, while launching her Fenty haircare line, the Barbadian native joked: “This is probably the longest I’ve ever taken to create something… No, I lied, that’s R9.” A year later, she provided what felt like the biggest update in years about the album during an interview with Harper’s Bazaar.
“This is becoming my new freedom, because when I’m in the studio, I know that my time away from my kids is to blossom something that hasn’t been watered in eight years. I’ve been in the studio the whole eight years,” she shared. “But it didn’t hit me. I was searching for it. I went through phases of what I wanted to do. ‘This kind of album, not that album.’ I know it’s not going to be anything that anybody expects. And it’s not going to be commercial or radio digestible. It’s going to be where my artistry deserves to be right now.”
“This feels right. It feels like it digs right into where I need to be, and I want this. This body needs to come out, and I’m ready to go there.,” she added, explaining feeling “optomistic” about the project.
Now, only time will tell if we get R9 any time soon, but don’t be surprise if it’s in another five years.
