Then there’s “ Work,” on which she repeats the word work until it is no longer recognizable, a flourish one critic called “post-language.” While it evokes a technofuture, it’s actually a nod to her home culture in Barbados.
But I felt like I earned the right to do that now.” She recognizes the risks: “It might not be some automatic record that will be Top 40. The chorus has Rihanna singing, “I got to do things my own way, darling.” It’s “like a PSA,” she tells me. “I just gravitated toward the songs that were honest to where I’m at right now.” From the first song, “Consideration,” a trip-hop collaboration with SZA, the message is clear. As Delevingne says, “ Anti’s got its own genre, and that genre is her.” Had Rihanna gotten bored with the pop formula? “Very much,” the singer says. Turns out it takes a while to reinvent your sound. “I lasted a week.” The paparazzi got a picture of her going into the studio, “and my fans were like, ‘Oh, yes! We’s droppin’ a single.’ ” From that moment, she says, the Navy was expecting an album. “I wanted to have a year to just do whatever I want artistically, creatively,” she says. “I don’t work out as much as I’d like to,” she says, “but my trainer Jamie is a beast and she makes me pay for it.”Īfter her last tour, in 2013, for Unapologetic, Rihanna vowed to take a break from recording. but I have hope!” Exercise is also hard to find time for. “My schedule is so crazy right now.” It’s why, she says, she’s single: “It’s definitely going to be a challenge when I do decide to pursue a relationship. It’s after 9:00 p.m., the shoot is over, and we’re sitting cross-legged in red leather recliners in the home theater of the Beverly Hills house, sipping Pinot Grigio from Dixie cups. “I probably am going to have like four days of tour rehearsal in total, which is Freaking.