Where's R9?
Rihanna Is Hoarding New Music & I Have Questions
The Fenty Beauty maven recently revealed how many unreleased songs she has in the vault.
Rihanna has been working on new music for the past 10 years. OK, yes, the singer has been busy growing her Fenty Beauty and Savage x Fenty empires (which made her a billionaire) and raising three children (which probably made her slightly less of one). But she’s been recording, and based on her latest comments, she might be keeping that music to herself on purpose.
During a recent TikTok Live promoting new Fenty Beauty products, one fan asked Rihanna to estimate how many unreleased songs she has in the vault, and she fittingly used her latest cosmetics to do the math. “If there are 10 products in a vault, then I have at least 17 vaults,” she said, counting each item in a boxed set.
Yes, that means “at least” 170 songs are sitting on a computer somewhere, waiting to be heard. At this point, RiRi is just hoarding new music, and she's been joking about it, specifically her ninth album, which fans have long nicknamed R9, since 2019. And no, those random singles for children's movies do not count.
That said, it’s not for lack of trying. Her long-awaited ninth studio album changed direction a few times during the recording process, she told Harper’s Bazaar in February 2025.
“Every time, I was just like, ‘No, it’s not me. It’s not matching my evolution. I can’t perform this for a year on tour,’” she recalled. “I was like, this much time away from music needs to count for the next thing everyone hears. It has to matter. I have to show them the worth in the wait. I cannot put up anything mediocre.”
Obviously, no artist should release music they don’t believe in, but Rihanna only makes hits. It’s hard to believe that even 10 of those 170 unreleased songs weren’t good enough to make an album. Thankfully, she seemed to be making her biggest strides yet toward R9 at the time.
“I think music is my freedom,” she told the outlet. “I just cracked the code on what I really want to do for my next body of work. I am actually feeling really good about this. I know I kept saying this over the years.”
Her boyfriend, A$AP Rocky, reassured fans in August that she was still working on new music, even though it seemed like he wasn’t supposed to say so. “Yo, she in the studio right now,” he said on The Jason Lee Show. “Yeah, I said it. Sorry, babe. Like, bro, she working. She cooking, no funny sh*t. Damn, I’mma get in trouble for this.” Thank you for your service, Rocky.
