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The good news is, Rihanna says the long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s Anti is on the way. The bad news is, she says her new music might seem “weird.”
That’s what came out of the singer/entrepreneur’s pre-Super Bowl Halftime Show press conference where she talked about the performance, why she wanted to do it, and what her new music might sound like.
“Musically I’m feeling open,” Rihanna said. “I’m feeling open to exploring, discovering, creating things that are new, things that are different, things that are off, weird. Might not ever make sense to my fans… I want to have fun with music.”
That’s good news for fans who have been waiting impatiently as Rihanna, born Robyn Rihanna Fenty in Barbados, achieved Forbes-certified billionairess status with her cosmetics line Fenty Beauty as well as years of hitmaking, selling over 60 million albums and 215 million digital streams in the first ten years of her career.
A bish needed a minute, we’re sure she would tell you. But the Super Bowl Halftime show would seem to be the end of that break as the first time she’s stepped on a national stage, or any stage, in seven years.
So why now? Rihanna, who turns 35 on Feb. 20, says she was inspired by her 9-month-old son with longtime companion A$AP Rocky, whose name has yet to be publicly revealed. Little Baby X’s face was finally revealed via Rihanna’s first TikTok post several months after his birth last May.
“When I first got the call to do it again this year I was like, ‘Are you sure? I’m three months postpartum,” Rihanna said at the press conference. “Should I be making major decisions like this right now? I might regret this. When you become a mom there’s something that happens where you feel like you can take on the world and can do anything.”
She added, “The Super Bowl is one of the biggest stages in the world. As scary as it was, because I haven’t been on stage in seven years, there’s something exhilarating about the challenge of it all. It’s important for me to do this year. It’s important for my son to see that.”
Watch the full press conference below:
Here’s how Twitter reacted when Stephen A. Smith dissed the upcoming performance:
