Rihanna lets fans know that the “Super Bowl is one thing, new music is another thing”

When it was announced that Barbados singer and Savage X Fenty founder Rihanna was headlining the Super Bowl Halftime Show, the online stratosphere exploded with theories that the wait for a follow-up to her 2016 album Anti was coming to an end. Well, the ever-elusive chanteuse isn’t completely ready to confirm or deny whether that new music is coming before the NFL season is over.

Among discussing her upcoming Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 4 (which has some odd choice guests on the runway), Rihanna spoke to The Associated Press about how her performance at the Super Bowl in 2023 is completely unrelated to her dropping new tracks anytime soon.

“Super Bowl is one thing, new music is another thing,” says the Fenty Beauty mogul. “Do you hear that, fans? Because I knew, the second I announced this, they’re gonna think my album is coming. I need to get to work. But I do have new music coming out. But we’ll see, we’ll see. Unrelated, but a special project.”

That “special project” seems to be something other than The Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack, which features Rihanna in the Chadwick Boseman dedicated song “Lift Me Up,” her first song as a leading artist in six years.

While some fans were just elated for even a taste of the pop star’s vocals, the rest of the Navy is still asking the age-old internet question: Where is R9? The last we heard of the mysterious album was in 2019, when Rihanna confirmed to T: The New York Times Style Magazine that her next album would be reggae focused.

Although Rihanna has mainly been a fun pop-up in tracks such as Kendrick Lamar’s “LOYALTY,” PartyNextDoor’s “BELIEVE IT,” and N.E.R.D.’s “Lemon” since her release of Anti, the musician has expanded in recent years to a whole sort of job titles. She went on to launch Fenty Beauty in 2017, created the size-inclusive lingerie line, Savage X Fenty, in 2018, and recently had a child with partner A$AP Rocky this past May—all of which has kept Rihanna quite busy for the past few years.