Rihanna just gave the Navy another reason to obsess over R9 — and this time, it involves a very large music vault.
The pop superstar sparked fresh excitement around her long-awaited ninth studio album during a Fenty Beauty TikTok Shop livestream after she was asked how much unreleased music she has stored away.
Rather than give a straight number, Rihanna compared her music collection to Fenty Beauty’s Gloss Bomb Vault.
“If there are 10 products in the Gloss Bomb Vault, then I have at least 17 vaults,” Rihanna said.
That answer immediately sent fans into calculator mode.
Seventeen vaults containing 10 items each would equal 170, leading to the viral interpretation that Rihanna could have the equivalent of 170 unreleased songs sitting somewhere in her musical archives.
But there’s an important catch: Rihanna did not actually say she has 170 unreleased songs.
Her “17 vaults” comparison was playful, and the number of songs in her R9 archive has not been officially confirmed. What the comment does make clear is that Rihanna says she has a substantial amount of unreleased music.
And that’s enough to reignite the years-long R9 conversation.
Rihanna’s last studio album, Anti, arrived in January 2016. Nearly a decade later, fans are still waiting for its follow-up while the singer has expanded her Fenty Beauty empire and started a family with A$AP Rocky.
She has continued to offer occasional glimpses into the project’s development. Rihanna previously said she had “cracked the code” on R9, suggesting she had finally found a creative direction she was satisfied with.
A$AP Rocky has also said Rihanna was back in the studio, adding another piece to the increasingly complicated R9 puzzle.
Still, Rihanna has not announced an official release date, tracklist or confirmed number of songs for the project.
So, no — the Navy cannot officially add “170 Rihanna songs” to its R9 countdown just yet.
But if Rihanna’s vault really is anywhere near as packed as her latest comparison suggests, the singer may have a lot more music waiting behind that curtain than anyone realized.
And after nearly a decade of waiting, even Rihanna joking about a vault full of songs is enough to get the Navy counting.
