Rihanna’s latest album is released in the midst of speculations and rumors.
There were speculations, false starts and rampant rumors for years, but finally Rihanna’s 8th studio album is available now. Titled ‘ANTI’, the album has been much awaited but Rihanna’s ardent fans and followers. ANTI is Rihanna’s first LP since Unapologetic which was released back in 2012. The new album is following the Drake – featuring single ‘Work’ which was only recently released.
It was already reported by Billboard that ANTI will be released before Friday January 29th. This is a month before the celebrity’s ANTI World Tour Kicks off in San Diego. The tour will also feature Travis Scott and The Weekend. The artwork for the album is designed by Roy Nachum.
ANTI was released by an accident when someone uploaded it by mistake to Tidal servers offering Rihanna’s fans to share the tracks as well as the complete versions of all the songs. Right now, the entire album is available on Tidal. This is seen as a consequence of the leak only a few hours ago.
The album will stream on Tidal for a whole week exclusively. A deluxe version of the same album will also be made available on 29 January. The Tidal service will also offer limited download opportunities with codes for subscribers as well as non-subscribers.
All of these will be available with Tidal’s trial version of 60 days. The codes are made available through a partnership with Samsung and Rihanna. Once all the codes are used up, Tidal will be offered for purchase with the help of Tidal’s download store.
For the past five years, fans were able to see watch Rihanna’s releases in the month of November. She would offer new LPs that were supported by great single. This continued to happen from 2009 to 2012. This consistency was broken in 2013. There was no release in 2014 either making way for curious rumors.
There were talks of a new album and occasional social media posts by Rihanna about a clip here and another there. However, there was no album.
The first potential single from ANTI was released in January 2015. In March, new music from Rihanna was also made available but it turned out that it wasn’t part of the album. In fact, it was part of an animated movie that featured Rihanna’s vocals.
Another single ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ was released last summer giving way to speculations that it will be featured in ANTI. But it didn’t become part of the album either.
In October 2015, the cover and title of the album were released. Further promotion was carried out through magazines and alternate reality games. The album finally came out in January 2016.
