Fans have been craving a new album from Rihanna since 2016’s Anti, so much so that their obsession has become a running joke. Rihanna has been mostly tight-lipped about her upcoming ninth record, but now an honest-to-goodness snippet of it may have been revealed via a collaborator.
Skylar Grey played a song she and Diplo made for #R9 by Rihanna on Instagram:
“Rihanna was supposedly doing some kind of reggae album. I don’t know if she’s still making a reggae album or what.” pic.twitter.com/klI8X5Rghb
— Pop Crave (@PopCraveMusic) September 3, 2020
Skyler Grey took to Instagram to preview a reggae-influenced song that she and Diplo wrote for Rihanna. Grey, who co-wrote Eminem and Rihanna’s “Love The Way You Lie,” said, “I was working with Diplo on a song for Rihanna. Wrote this with a guy named Hymn. […] This was when Rihanna was supposedly doing some kind of reggae album. I don’t know if she’s still making a reggae album or what, but this is a song we did for it. I don’t have the whole song, I’m just going to play you a piece of it, and it probably won’t sound great because it’s an iPhone recording of the speakers.” She then played over a minute of the song, which indeed sounds like a combination of reggae and Rihanna’s brand of pop.
Rihanna has had fun joking about her fans’ desire for new music in recent years, like when she trolled an uncanny lookalike last month.
Source: https://uproxx.com/music/rihanna-new-song-album-tease-skylar-grey-diplo-reggae-r9/