Rihanna’s Reggae-Inspired ‘R9’ Album Still A Priority
Rihanna has assured her fans that the completion of her upcoming Reggae-inspired/infused R9 album, on which Koffee is rumored to be a songwriter, still remains high on her list of priorities, and says they should, most importantly, ‘expect the unexpected’.
According to the Bajan megastar, she has been spending time experimenting with different sounds, and as a consequence, her new music on what will be her ninth album, will sound far different from her previous projects.
Speaking shortly before the recording of her Savage X Fenty Show Volume 3 event which is scheduled to be broadcast on Friday on Amazon Prime Video, the Disturbia singer said that the contents of the new album will be unprecedented.
“You’re not going to expect what you hear. Just put that in your mind. Whatever you know of Rihanna is not going to be what you hear and I’m really experimenting. Music is like fashion. You should be able to play. I should be able to wear whatever I want. I treat music the same way. So I’m having fun and it’s going to be completely different,” she stated in a video shared by the Associated Press.
Rihanna’s last album, the critically-acclaimed ANTI was released five years ago and included songs such as Work, Love on the Brain and Needed.
Last year the nine-time Grammy winner had said she had started recording new music, and had been staging what she described as “tons of writing camps”, but to date, she has still not announced a release date yet for her new album.
In late 2019, Time Magazine noted that the songstress had made it clear that she would not be releasing the music until she feels she is ready.
Time noted that in another previous interview, the Rude Boy singer had confirmed that the album was underway, was “really fun,” but had also insisted that she would go at her own pace and would not be rushed.
“It really does suck that it can’t just come out, because I’m working on a really fun one right now,” she had said at the time, before adding: “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. It makes no sense to rush it, but I want it out. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m like, ‘Even if I don’t have the time to shoot videos, I’m going to put an album out”.
Time also, in attempting to decipher what Rihanna’s new album was about, noted that she had confirmed to Vogue magazine in October 2019 that the new album was going to be “Reggae-inspired or Reggae-infused,” and had noted that it was “not gonna be typical of what you know as reggae, but you’re going to feel the elements in all of the tracks.”
It noted that Rihanna, in elaborating on why she chose the Reggae route for her new album, Rihanna, she had explained that ‘that the genre was an important part of her becoming who she is”.
“Reggae always feels right to me,” she said. “It’s in my blood. It doesn’t matter how far or long removed I am from that culture, or my environment that I grew up in; it never leaves. It’s always the same high. Even though I’ve explored other genres of music, it was time to go back to something that I haven’t really homed in on completely for a body of work.”
In trying to pinpoint Rihanna’s possible collaborators, Time had noted that producer The-Dream, who is one of her longtime collaborators who helped make her mega-hit Umbrella, had confirmed that he was working on the new album, although he wasn’t sure when the music would be coming out.
Rapper Haiti Babii, it said whom Rihanna herself has endorsed, had also revealed in an interview with BET that in a FaceTime conversation with Rihanna in May 2019, she had said Koffee was among her cadre of writers.
“While this doesn’t necessarily mean that Koffee is writing for R9, it would be a fitting choice given that Rihanna’s new album is Reggae-inspired,” Time noted.