With Rihanna being announced as this year’s Super Bowl Halftime Show performer, fans are excited to have the star back in the spotlight. After the release of her last album ANTI in 2016, fans have been thirsting for new music, or at least a clue that new music is one the way (just a crumb of a song, please?) Considering that her halftime show will be her biggest performance since taking the stage with DJ Khaled at the 2018 Grammys, something big might be on the way.
What we know so far is that Rihanna planned on her ninth album being a reggae album titled R9. Although she originally stated that the album would be released in 2019, this has obviously not been the case.
The fact that Rihanna will be performing at the 2023 Super Bowl is also significant. In 2018, it was reported that she had turned down an offer to perform at the 2019 Halftime Show to stand with Colin Kapernick, who had been blacklisted by the NFL after kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality in America. “I couldn’t dare do that. For what?” Rihanna explained her decision to not perform in a 2019 Vogue interview. “Who gains from that? Not my people. I just couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way.”
Later in 2019, when asked by Entertainment Tonight if she would consider performing at any halftime show, she responded, “I still got an album to finish.” She continued, joking, “You gonna ask me about Super Bowl? My fans about to have my neck.” The change from 2019 to now is apparent, and the Super Bowl is as big of an event as any to remind the public of her presence in the music industry.
Fans are even speculating that a tour announcement could be on the way, since she appears in the “ticket alert” tab of a German ticket sales company, and Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw claimed that Rihanna’s tour would be announced the week of the Super Bowl. Variety VIP+ has also previously reported that sources claim the album could be dropped on Apple Music as soon as the halftime show is over, though there’s been no official confirmation of either of these claims yet.
The platform that the halftime show provides is powerful, and it’s been proven that performers at the Super Bowl experience boosts in music streams and sales. In an interview with ET Canada, Rihanna said, “It’s going to be a celebration of my catalog in the best way that we could… You’re trying to cram 17 years of work into 13 minutes, so it’s difficult, and some songs we had to lose because of that, but that’s OK.” With a setlist that will include throwbacks and bangers, maybe she’s paying homage to her past before looking to the future.
We know that, at least since 2019, an album has been in the works. On Feb. 13, Rihanna will be performing at one of the most-watched events of the year, and there’s no better time for her to announce a major project, whether that be an album or a tour. Rihanna Navy, don’t jump ship just yet, because 2023 might be our year.