Rihanna
Rihanna (Photo: Han Myung-Gu/WireImage)

That Rihanna reign just won’t let up. On Thursday, March 24, Bad Gal RiRi celebrated her album, ANTI, spending five consecutive years on the Billboard 200 chart. She’s the first Black woman to achieve such a feat. She posted a video to her Instagram of ANTI-era performances and photo shoots, captioning it “grateful to the most High for putting die hard supporters in my circle 🙏🏿 #Anti #WomensHistoryMonth 💪🏿  congrats to everyone that contributed to this era, thank you team.” But in the post’s comments, responding to fans, when Rihanna seemed to hint she was ready to release new music. “Celebrate by releasing a new song,” the fan wrote (the comment received 3,985 likes at the time of publishing this story). Ms. Fenty responded, writing “I think I should,” quickly following up with “just 1 tho.”

Fans have been begging, literally begging, Rihanna for new music so much it’s almost become a joke between ‘The Navy’ and the singer. Like when a red carpet reporter told her The Navy needed new music and Rihanna responded, “girl, who sent you?” Or the time a well-intentioned fan commented “Annoyed. We want the album, sis” on an Instagram post of Rihanna promoting her Fenty Beauty makeup. “Well this is bronzer,” Rihanna responded. 

When ANTI was released in 2016, the Grammy-nominated album was critically acclaimed, earning the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 album chart, garnering more than 15 billion streams and selling more than 11 million copies. Since then, Rihanna has gone on to release her award-winning makeup Fenty Beauty, launched (and now paused) her own luxury clothing line with LVMH — the first woman, Black or otherwise — to do so, and solidified Savage x Fenty as the new, cooler, and inclusive Victoria’s Secret. Most recently, her single “Kiss It Better” started making its way up the music charts thanks to music producer Jimir Reece Davis, AKA Amorphous, whose viral quarantine mashups resulted in “Sunshine,” a song with Fat Joe and DJ Khalid. The song features Rih’s “Kiss It Better” and Luther Vandross’ “Never Too Much.”