Rihanna’s music comeback is edging closer after she lined up a music video shoot.
The ‘Work’ hitmaker has been teasing fans about the long-awaited release of her follow-up to 2016’s ‘Anti’ for some time, and now it has been reported that the Bajan superstar is scheduled to film a promo in Los Angeles this summer with director Raja Virdi.
A source told The Sun newspaper’s Bizarre column: “Rihanna has been secretly working on new music for a long time and her ninth album has finally come together.
“She has kept fans waiting for a long time — and the pandemic slowed things up even more.
“The project is still tightly under wraps but Rihanna will be filming a new music video in Los Angeles in July.
“Raja has been brought on board by Rihanna and her team, and he will be flying out to oversee everything.
“Rihanna met him during a project she did with Westminster University fashion students in January last year and she wanted him to be the brains behind the video.
“All the details about the shoot and the new music are being closely guarded — but she never disappoints.”
When asked what fans can expect from ‘R9’, she said last year: “I am very aggressively working on music.
“I like to look at it as a reggae-inspired or reggae-infused album.
“Reggae always feels right to me. It’s in my blood. It’s always the same high.”
Since ‘Anti’, Rihanna featured on N.E.R.D’s ‘Lemon’, DJ Khaled’s ‘Wild Thoughts’ and Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Loyalty’ in 2017, while she teamed up with PARTYNEXTDOOR on ‘Believe It’ in 2020.
The 33-year-old singer has also found success with her cosmetics empire Fenty Beauty, lingerie line Savage x Fenty, and her acting career, but she previously insisted that whatever she’s working on has to be something she truly believes in.
She said: “For me, it’s about achieving excellence. That’s why I will never put an album out for the sake of it or do a movie for the sake of it or a fashion collaboration for the sake of it. I have to believe in it.”