Navy assemble! Rihanna has called the date for her musical comeback, set to feature on a Marvel movie soundtrack.
The singer, whose last album Anti was released in 2016, will finally drop a new song on Friday in the US (Saturday morning AEDT).
The song, Lift Me Up, will be released on the soundtrack of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which has a November release in Australia.
Lift Me Up, written by Nigerian singer-songwriter Tems, Oscar-winning composer Ludwig Göransson, Rihanna and Wakanda Forever director Ryan Coogler, is a tribute to the “extraordinary life and legacy” of late Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman, according to a Marvel release.
The song was recorded in five countries and was produced by Göransson.
Rihanna has not commented on the upcoming release, but the news has fuelled a barrage of celebratory posts from her fans, who call themselves the ‘Navy’.
Tweet from @egyptiysis
It is the first release in six years for Rihanna, who took a step back from her music career after releasing eight, immensely successful albums.
The singer has repeatedly teased her fans for constantly asking when her next album will be released, but told British Vogue she was “very aggressively working on music” in 2020.
But just because Rihanna hasn’t released an album lately, doesn’t mean she has been slacking off.
The 34-year-old has launched a variety of successful business ventures, become a billionaire, and had a baby.
Fenty Beauty
Rihanna, whose full name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty, launched Fenty Beauty online and in Sephora stores to much fanfare in 2017.
Marketed as ‘Beauty for All’, the brand’s first collection included multiple make-up products and tools, but it was the collection’s foundation – in a whopping 40 shades – that grabbed attention.
Given that the Western beauty industry has traditionally not catered for people of colour, Fenty Beauty’s move proved wildly successful, with the darker foundation shades quickly selling out.
“I wanted things that I love. Then I also wanted things that girls of all skin tones could fall in love with,” Rihanna said at the 2017 Fenty Beauty launch event.
“That was really important for me. In every product, I was like, ‘There needs to be something for a dark-skinned girl; there needs to be something for a really pale girl; there needs to be something in between’.”
The make-up line was chosen by Time magazine as one of the Best Inventions of 2017, alongside the Nike Pro Hijab, the iPhone X and the Tesla Model 3 electric car.
Rihanna launched vegan skincare Fenty Skin in 2020, and marketed it for men and women, with the help of rappers A$AP Rocky and Lil Nas X.
Savage X Fenty
By the time Rihanna launched her lingerie brand, Savage X Fenty, in 2018, a strong theme was emerging from all her endeavours – inclusivity.
Savage X Fenty used models of all shapes, including plus-sizes, and ethnicities to promote lingerie and sleepwear.
Tweet from @PrimeVideo
The brand’s annual performance-focused runways, choreographed each year by New Zealander Parris Goebel and often featuring stars such as Normani and Troye Sivan, have become huge events.
Savage X Fenty’s attention-grabbing shows, along with the brand’s focus on inclusivity, is largely thought to have prompted the downfall of the annual Victoria’s Secret runway show, that helped make the names of model superstars like Miranda Kerr and Kendall Jenner, and at which Rihanna had once performed.
The next Savage X Fenty show is set to stream on Amazon Prime in November.
Fenty
In 2019, Rihanna launched high fashion label Fenty with LVMH, the French luxury group behind major brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior and Sephora.
By this stage, Rihanna had honed her entrepreneurial skills with Savage X Fenty, and through collaborations with brands like River Island and Puma – the latter of which almost single-handedly brought ‘creeper’ sneakers back into fashion in 2015.
The launch of Fenty with LVMH made the singer the first Black female to head up a fashion house at the company, selling ready-to-wear clothes, shoes and accessories.
Despite a high-profile collection debut in Paris, and the immediate support of fellow celebrities, the brand hit pause two years later, with LVMH announcing in February 2021 that the organisation and Rihanna had jointly decided to “put on hold the ready-to-wear activity, based in Europe, pending better conditions”.
But the partnership between the powerful fashion organisation and Rihanna continues, and LVMH still holds a stake in the singer’s beauty and lingerie ventures.
Billionaire status, baby!
In 2021, Rihanna’s success in her entrepreneurial pursuits meant she had hit billionaire status.
Forbes estimated her net worth at $US1.7 billion ($2.3 billion), making her the richest female musician in the world.
Her immense wealth largely stems from her business endeavours, not her artistic ones, with an estimated $US1.4 billion ($2.16 billion) of her fortune said to come from her 50 per cent stake in Fenty Beauty.
The rest of her wealth comes from her share of Savage X Fenty and her income as a singer and actor, the magazine said.
After a series of professional wins, May 2022 marked a personal milestone for Rihanna, who reportedly gave birth to a boy – whose name is yet to be revealed – after announcing her pregnancy with boyfriend A$AP Rocky in a paparazzi-style photo shoot.
In September, the singer confirmed she will headline one of the most-watched stages in the world, the NFL Super Bowl half-time show, in 2023.
This marks the end of her boycott of the event, which she started in solidarity with football star Colin Kaepernick.
There is no word yet on when fans can expect more music after Lift Me Up, but Rihanna shows no sign of slowing down any time soon.
