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RIH WON'T STOP
Rihanna’s long-awaited new album finally set to be released as superstar is tipped to headline massive festival in 2025
Her whole comeback was initially scheduled for 2023
RIHANNA albums used to come around like clockwork every year.
But ever since 2016, there has been a RiRi-shaped hole in our lives - and on playlists up and down the country.
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So I can’t tell you how happy I am to report that after almost a decade, Rihanna’s ninth album is finally on the cusp of being released.
I can reveal the Diamonds singer is also in talks for a huge world tour throughout 2025, which has the potential to be one of the biggest comebacks of all time.
But the good news for Rihanna’s fans does not stop there, as I understand she is once again at the top of Glastonbury’s list to headline next summer’s event.
She had secretly been booked to perform at Worthy Farm in 2023, but dropped out after becoming pregnant with her second child Riot, with rapper A$AP Rocky.
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Instead, the Somerset festival was headlined by Arctic Monkeys, Guns n’ Roses and Sir Elton John that year.
Her whole comeback was initially scheduled for 2023, with the Super Bowl Halftime Show due to fire the starting gun on her return.
I can’t blame her for putting the brakes on to be with her young family.
Watch hilarious moment boy fails to recognise Rihanna and asks pop superstar to take his pic with Jack Grealish
But it sounds like she is now raring to go again with the follow-up to 2016’s Anti, which spawned the mega-hit Work.
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A well-placed music insider said: “It’s been a running joke how long Rihanna’s ninth album has taken to be released, but finally the wait is almost over.
“Over the years so many songs have been recorded with loads of different people, including Alesso and Diplo.
“She has gone from pop to reggae to hip-hop and everything in between. But because she wants it to sound fresh, and because of where Rihanna is at in her life, practically everything was scrapped.
“Some have been reworked but the majority was canned completely when she went back to the drawing board earlier this year.
“Rihanna has been back in the studio for a while now and things are finally coming together.
‘Busy behind scenes’
“Historically, she releases her albums in the last few months of the year, but the slow pace of vinyl production means the release date will likely be later than she would have liked.
“Either way, 2025 is set to be her year with a giant tour in the works with Live Nation and yes, Glastonbury is back on the table.”
To be fair to Rihanna, she has hardly been resting during her break from music.
Since she released Anti in January 2016 after a three-year gap between albums — which felt like a lifetime for a Rihanna fan at the time — she’s become a mum of two and a billionaire tycoon.
Her beauty brand Savage Fenty has now expanded into skincare and hair care as well as lingerie.
That has made her a fortune and shows no sign of slowing down, so I can’t blame her for focusing on that.
Teasing her return to the charts, Rihanna said earlier this year: “Music for me is a new discovery, I’m rediscovering things.
“I have been working on the album for so long that I just kind of put all that stuff aside.
“And now, I’m prepared to go back in the studio. Now I’m prepared, so I’m gonna start.
“I used to be in the studio, only the studio, for three months straight. Life now is fashion one day, lingerie the next, beauty the next, then music the next. It really does suck that it can’t just come out, because I’m working on a really fun one right now.
“I’m really happy with a lot of the material we have so far but I am not going to put it out until it’s complete.”
Much like Anti, which featured collaborations with Drake and SZA, there are expected to be some other stars alongside her on the album.
A second music source said: “Rihanna has been tapping up artists she really likes and has been very busy behind the scenes.
“It is no coincidence she was with Nigerian singer AYRA STARR in Barbados last week. She loves her vibe.
“They met earlier this year and have been talking about working together.
“There are a handful of artists she has been collaborating with this year to perfect the album.
“She knows the expectations are sky high but she wants to pull something out of the bag that is different from anything she has done before.”
Next year will also mark a mind-boggling 20 years since Rihanna released her debut album Music Of The Sun, so that adds an extra poignancy to her return, even if it does make me feel old.
Full-scale comeback
Over the years she has had a whopping 31 Top Ten singles, including nine No1s such as Take A Bow, What’s My Name? and We Found Love.
And no one could forget Umbrella, which was blamed for abysmal weather throughout the summer of 2007, when it spent ten weeks at the top.
Rihanna, who is one of the best-selling artists of all time, dipped her toe back into solo music at the end of 2022 — months before she had planned to launch her full-scale comeback — when she dropped the track Lift Me Up from the soundtrack of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
But clearly she has been quietly making her latest project since then, while juggling businesses and motherhood.
In April, she said her new music was “so good” and added: “I already got stuff that I feel like I can make hits out of.”
Following hysteria over gigs from Taylor Swift and Beyonce in the last few years, I’ve no doubt Rihanna tickets will sell like hot cakes.
She last toured in 2016 and has only played a handful of shows since then.
She said last year: “My last tour was a long time ago, I feel like it’s only fair that my fans get what they’ve been waiting on – which is new music. And after that, let’s just blow everything up.”
Rihanna, this time Please Don’t Stop The Music.