Rihanna, designer, businesswoman, singer and mother of two boys is gradually emerging back into the spotlight with an updated sneaker line from Puma, and talk of new music for 2024.
Rihanna stepping out in NYC, October 3, 2023.
The "Umbrella" singer and her partner A$AP Rocky threw a party at NeueHouse in Los Angeles on Dec. 18 to celebrate the unveiling of her re-imagined Fenty x Puma Creeper Phatty platform sneaker.
A$AP Rocky and Rihanna at the Met Gala, NYC, May 1, 2023.
As she relayed that her 17-month-old RZA is adjusting to being the big brother to 4-month-old Riot, there has been speculation in the entertainment industry as to a possible restart to her music career. Her 2006 breakthrough album A Girl Like Me placed her at the top of the music mountain. But it was the 2007 release of Girl Gone Bad and the single "Umbrella" that placed her firmly above the stratosphere of the dance-pop globe, with sales of over 8 million copies worldwide.
The nine-time Grammy Award winner has not released an album since 2016's Anti , nor has she stepped out for a full concert run since the accompanying tour that ended in November of that year. In the meantime, however, she's been plenty busy. She has guested on several musical collaborations (DJ Khalid's "Wild Thoughts," Kendrick Lamar's "Loyalty" and N.E.R.D.'s "Lemon," most notably), completed an album that has been on indefinite hold, was appointed by the government of Barbados to be an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (with special duties of promoting "education, tourism and investment for the island") in 2019, and launched fashion house Fenty with several beauty and fashion-related brands. Just about everything aside from a new album, in other words.
The Right Excellent Rihanna NH and Prince Charles in Bridgetown, Barbados to mark the transition of the Caribbean island to a republic, led by the new President Sandra Mason, November 30, 2021.
Which is certainly not to say that the singer hasn't been active on the music front. If anything, she's been proving how much she can do with relatively little. She set off record ratings numbers for her Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show in February, and her last released song, 2022's "Lift Me Up" from the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack, did earn both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. But will we see a 2024 return of Rihanna, the pop music superstar? While Entertainment Tonight splashed news in October that she had struck a tour deal with Live Nation for 2024-2025 and would drop new music, her answer from the Puma launch party did sound like an affirmative.
"We're always gonna go back on tour," she said. "I want to do a tour when there's new music. I feel like it's only fair that my fans get what they've been waiting on, which is new music, and after that, let's just blow everything up."
