Well, this came out of nowhere.
R&B superstar Rihanna on Wednesday released a single featuring leading rapper Hotline Bling Drake – the first song off her long-awaited and apparently delayed new album.
WOW! @Rihanna's new single #WORK is #1 on iTunes in SEVENTY countries! Download it now: https://t.co/GPU0DyHHSC pic.twitter.com/h9duGaNp2D
— RihannaDaily.com (@RihannaDaily) January 27, 2016
Entitled “Work,” the song is set to tropical house, the light-feeling electronic genre that has become increasingly popular in the past year.
The song returns to Rihanna’s familiar theme of feeling taken advantage of in a relationship, while Drake in his verse raps of his struggle finding intimacy.
Rihanna wrote on Twitter that the song was the first single off her upcoming album “Anti”, even though a year ago she released a collaboration with Paul McCartney and Kanye West that was widely seen as the initial track.
FIRST SINGLE #WORK ft. @Drake from #ANTI is here!! Listen up –> https://t.co/CYqrvPRahc pic.twitter.com/0WvHi4x3Ut
— Rihanna (@rihanna) January 27, 2016
The Barbados-born singer quickly became one of the 21st century’s top-selling artistes after releasing her debut album in 2005. But her prolific output stopped after a 7-year stretch, with Rihanna not putting out an album since 2012.
Rihanna has been hinting for months that “Anti” is on the verge of hitting the market but has not confirmed a date. Music industry magazine Billboard said late Tuesday (26th January) that “Anti” was expected to come out this week.
The full “Anti” tracklist is as follows:
- Consideration (feat. SZA)
- James Joint
- Kiss It Better
- Work (feat. Drake)
- Desperado
- Woo
- Needed Me
- Yeah, I Said It
- Same Ol’ Mistakes
- Never Ending
- Love On the Brain
- Higher
- Close to You
She inked a deal reported to be worth USD25 million with South Korean electronics giant Samsung which in November launched an interactive “Anti” website available only on its smartphones.
But to the surprise of fans, “Anti” did not come out quickly after the website launch, leading to speculation of disagreements behind the scenes or that Rihanna did not want to compete with Adele, whose album “25” broke first-week sales records in November.
listening to ANTI 🎈 pic.twitter.com/AgqlhU0GEz
— Rihanna (@rihanna) January 25, 2016
Rihanna has already announced a world tour to promote “Anti”, which will begin on 26th February in San Diego.
