Rihanna is done hearing you talk that talk.
After years of relentless questioning over when she'll be releasing her ninth studio album, the pop superstar responded to all the pesky chatter in an Apple Music teaser for her upcoming performance at the 2023 Super Bowl Halftime Show.
Released on Jan. 13, the 30-second clip shows Rihanna slowly sashaying down a lit runway as audio snippets of people lamenting about the long wait for new music plays in the background. "Dude, Rihanna, we've waited for you," one voice says, while another snipes, "RiRi, where have you been?!"
As the chorus of voices start to overlap each other, the room suddenly turns dark and Rihanna is seen standing in the spotlight. Clad in a black catsuit and large yellow fur coat, the 34-year-old raises her finger to her lips to shush the sound — as her 2016 track "Needed Me" kicks in.
Is this Rihanna's way of telling fans that the wait is over?
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Time will only tell as Rihanna prepares for her Super Bowl performance, which was first announced in September. At the time, the singer confirmed her involvement in the highly coveted gig by sharing a picture of her hand holding a football on Instagram.
However, Rihanna's new Super Bowl teaser isn't the first time she's responded to fans' pleas for a new album. In 2019, she jokingly posted a video of a dancing puppy alongside the caption: "Update: me listening to R9 by myself and refusing to release it."
When an Instagram user asked her for an update in 2020, she joked that she had "lost" a recording of the highly anticipated album.
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Earlier this year, Rihanna was able to whet fans' appetite for new music when she released "Lift Me Up" for "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever's" soundtrack. Written alongside Tems, Ludwig Göransson and Ryan Coogler, the ballad served as a tribute to Chadwick Boseman and marked the first single Rihanna had recorded as a lead artist in six years.
The song was nominated for Best Original Song at the 2023 Golden Globe Awards, but ultimately lost to "Naatu Naatu" from RRR.
Fans will have have to wait until Feb. 12 to see if Rihanna will be performing that — or any new music—at the Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show.
