A$AP Rocky lets slip that Rihanna is back in the studio working on new album
Rapper A$AP Rocky told The Jason Lee Show podcast on 5 August that his partner Rihanna is currently recording in the studio, ten years after her last album Anti, but offered no timeline for release.
A slip on the podcast
On Wednesday, 5 August 2026, rapper A$AP Rocky appeared on The Jason Lee Show and let slip that his partner Rihanna is back in the recording studio. He told host Jason Lee that the 38-year-old Barbadian singer was actively working on new material, then caught himself and apologised on air, saying he expected to face consequences for the disclosure.
She in the studio right now. Yeah, I said it. Sorry, babe.
He added that she was "cooking" something and joked that her fans would "kill me" for the revelation. The rapper, whose real name is Rakim Myers, declined to provide further details about the project or to comment on whether he and Rihanna had married.
No joint album
A$AP Rocky ruled out the possibility of a collaborative album with Rihanna, saying their musical worlds were too far apart. He was blunt about the idea of pairing the two artists on a single record.
I would hate Rocky and Rihanna if they both did that. That's trash. Nobody wants to hear us together, bro.
He confirmed that the work in progress concerns only Rihanna's solo career. The couple share three children, born in 2022, 2023 and 2025.
A decade since Anti
Rihanna's last studio album, Anti, was released in January 2016. It remained on the Billboard 200 chart for ten years, becoming the first album by a Black female artist to reach that milestone. Since Anti, the singer has released only a handful of singles, including "Lift Me Up" for the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack in 2022 and "Friend of Mine" for the Smurfs film in 2025, in which she also voiced Smurfette. Fans have dubbed the long-awaited ninth album "R9."
- Rihanna releases Anti, her last studio album to date
- Rolling Stone reports Rihanna recording two albums at once, one pop and one reggae
- Rihanna headlines Super Bowl Halftime Show, performs no new music
- Rihanna tells Harper's Bazaar the new album will not be commercial or radio-friendly
- A$AP Rocky reveals on The Jason Lee Show that Rihanna is in the studio
Rihanna's own words
In a February 2025 interview with Harper's Bazaar, Rihanna addressed the decade-long wait and the pressure it created. She said the record would not be "commercial or radio digestible" and would not be "anything that anybody expects", telling the magazine she had "cracked the code on what I really want to do for my next body of work". She dismissed fan speculation that it would draw on reggae sounds to honour her Caribbean roots as completely off the mark.
I cannot put up anything mediocre. After waiting eight years, you might as well just wait some more.
Beyond music
During the years without an album, Rihanna built a business empire in beauty and fashion. She founded Fenty Beauty in 2017 and launched a lingerie line, contributing to an estimated net worth exceeding one billion dollars according to Forbes. She has sold more than 250 million records worldwide, notched 14 number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100, and won nine Grammy Awards. Despite headlining the Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2023, she performed no new material, telling an interviewer at the time that it would be "ridiculous" not to release music that year. Similar teases about an imminent album have circulated since at least 2018, when Rolling Stone reported that Rihanna was recording two albums at once, one pop and one reggae, a plan that never materialised. She told Vogue that year the record would be unveiled in 2019, but it never appeared.
