For those who want to keep track at home, it’s now been over seven years since Rihanna released a new album. Yes, ANTI came out all the way back in 2016! Though, the chart-topping singer has continued to make big moves despite this fact, launching successful businesses, starting a family with A$AP Rocky and in recent months, headlining the Super Bowl and earning an Oscar nomination. And, now she has just earned a huge music streaming record, too.
Spotify revealed on July 1 that Rihanna has become the first female artist in the music service’s history to have a whopping 10 songs that have reached one billion streams each. It goes to show that Rihanna’s older music is still as relevant as ever. She took to Instagram to celebrate the news, writing this in response:
Bad Gal billi …wit no new album…lemme talk my shit 😜🇧🇧
Per the service, it looks like her 2016 song with Calvin Harris “This Is What You Came For” is her most streamed song to date, with nearly 1.5 billion streams. Other heavy hitters among the billion list for the artist are “Work,” “Needed Me,” “Love The Way You Lie” with Eminem, “We Found Love,” “Umbrella,” “Love on the Brain,” “Diamonds,” and “Stay.” We expect that “FourFiveSeconds” with Paul McCartney and Kanye West is the song that just gave her the record considering the song looks like it recently hit 1 billion streams.
Rihanna has been consistently asked about when her next album is coming out over the years as she’s focused on other things, like her Fenty brands. Recently she celebrated five years of her lingerie brand Savage X Fenty with a pregnancy photo shoot in the line’s underwear. She’s currently expecting her second child with A$AP Rocky, which was iconically confirmed after her Super Bowl halftime show earlier this year.
Since Rihanna put out her first single “Pon de Replay” 18 years ago, the singer has put out eight albums, a feat some artists never do in their entire careers. Plus, her first seven were released across 7 consecutive years. With that in mind, it makes sense the singer might be content sitting on the music catalog she’s created thus far. Instead, she's focusing her energy on other things, such as being a business owner, partner (perhaps even a wife, given recent rumors) and new mother.
Rihanna released her first music in years for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in 2022 with “Lift Me Up” and “Born Again,” the former earning her an Oscar nomination. You can hear the song in Wakanda Forever now with a Disney+ subscription. There’s certainly been buzz around Rihanna finally releasing new music, with the singer previously alluding to being “excited” about the prospect of it earlier this year. While we wait, there’s a whole library of Rihanna songs that have yet to reach a billion, so I guess we best be getting to streaming…
