Rihanna Talks ‘R9’ in New Interview: ‘I Feel Like I’ve Finally Cracked It’

Rihanna says she’s “feeling really optimistic” about her long-awaited album in a new interview, and that she “finally cracked it” amid the nine-year wait for the follow-up to Anti.

The singer graces the cover of the new issue of Harpers Bazaar, and sat down for an interview where she vaguely answered questions about her much-anticipated ninth album, dubbed R9 by fans.

When asked about R9, Rihanna said, “This feels right. It feels like it digs right into where I need to be, and I want this. This body needs to come out, and I’m ready to go there. This is becoming my new freedom, because when I’m in the studio, I know that my time away from my kids is to blossom something that hasn’t been watered in eight years. I’ve been in the studio the whole eight years. But it didn’t hit me. I was searching for it.” 

She continued, “I went through phases of what I wanted to do. ‘This kind of album, not that album.’ I know it’s not going to be anything that anybody expects. And it’s not going to be commercial or radio digestible. It’s going to be where my artistry deserves to be right now. I feel like I’ve finally cracked it, girl!”

Rumors about R9 date back to 2018 — just two years after Anti’s release — when Rihanna was reportedly working on a dancehall-inspired album, and in the Harpers interview, she downplayed that the LP was influenced by that, or any, genre. “Way off! There’s no genre now. That’s why I waited. Every time, I was just like, ‘No, it’s not me. It’s not right. It’s not matching my growth. It’s not matching my evolution. I can’t do this. I can’t stand by this. I can’t perform this for a year on tour,’” she said. 

“After a while, I looked at it, and I was like, this much time away from music needs to count for the next thing everyone hears. It has to count. It has to matter. I have to show them the worth in the wait. I cannot put up anything mediocre. After waiting eight years, you might as well just wait some more.”

RIhanna has released some new music in recent years, including her “Lift Me Up” contribution to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and whatever she has planned for her upcoming Smurfs movie soundtrack. However, she did not share any concrete details about R9. (The interview arrives amid rumors of Rihanna both headlining at Glastonbury and staging a London residency, suggesting some activity might be on the horizon.)

Rihanna did reflect on Anti, which she said she can listen to “from top to bottom with no shame.” “I used to always have shame. I actually don’t like listening to my music, but Anti—I can listen to the album,” Rihanna said. “It’s like it’s not me singing it, if I’m just listening to it. That’s the one album that I can have an out-of-body experience where it’s not like … You know when you hear your voice in a voicemail, and it’s like, ‘Ugh.’ ”