Rihanna Gave An Update On R9, Her Highly Anticipated Album

Sound the alarms: Rihanna is finally giving us information about her highly-anticipated 9th studio album. After four years and multiple Fenty empire launches, Rih loosened her tight-lipped, troll-forward initiative regarding R9 and gave insight into its progress and her current artistic process. Although she still didn't give any clues about a release timeline (we aren't that lucky, people) we now pretty much know one thing for sure: this album is going to be fun as hell.

"I just want to have fun with music. Everything is so heavy. The world we live is a lot, it’s overwhelming every single day," she explained in an interview with The Associated Press. "And with music, I’m using that as my outlet. I just want to have fun with that."

Rihanna also detailed how she's veering away from genre-focused, hyper-structured records for her new music era. "Now it’s more, 'What do I feel personally, what do I want to put out, and as an artist, how do I want to play with my art? How do I want to interpret that, how do I want to reimagine it?'" She's previously stated that R9 will have reggae influences, so we'll have to see if that still stands true when the record eventually drops.

Since the pandemic has halted touring for the foreseeable future, Rihanna is taking the time figure out what sort of bonkers stops she'll pull out once she can get on the road. “I want to go on tour but I can’t, so I’m stuck with music that I love, and now I’m trying to figure out how I can even create visuals to that,” she said. “That’s a challenge as well. But I love challenges so, you know, I’m gonna get it done.”