Rihanna will talk about her unreleased music, as long as she can measure it in beauty products. During a Fenty Beauty livestream on TikTok this week, a fan asked how many songs she has stashed away. The question got an eye-roll first, per Complex, which is fair after a decade of hearing it. Then she answered, using the brand's 10-piece Gloss Bomb Vault as the unit.
If there are 10 products in a vault, then I have at least 17 vaults.
Rihanna, Billboard
Do the math and that's at least 170 songs, which is how Billboard and HotNewHipHop added it up.
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Treat it as a wink, not a release plan. She didn't say how many of those songs are finished or meant to come out, Complex points out. She made the comment while picking up a box of products, and once the hosts and viewers finished cheering, she sounded a few sirens and didn't mention music again.
Even a hint like that lands, because the wait has been long. ANTI, her last album, came out in January 2016 and spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. In the decade since, she has built Fenty Beauty and Savage x Fenty and released only the occasional feature or soundtrack single, most recently “Friend of Mine” from the 2025 Smurfs movie. Fans call the long-awaited ninth album R9. Lately she makes more news in fashion: last month she turned up at Matières Fécales' show during Paris Fashion Week in the label's tinsel skirt suit.
There have been other clues. In an August interview with Jason Lee, her partner A$AP Rocky let it slip that she was recording. “Yo, she in the studio right now,” he said, then added, “Sorry, babe.” In July she was back onstage, performing “Run This Town” and “Bitch Better Have My Money” at Jay-Z's Extra Innings show at Yankee Stadium.
There's still no R9 date, title or single. What fans have now is a number, and it came from Rihanna herself.
ANTIRihannaListen on Apple Music
