Pop superstar Rihanna has once again fueled fans' expectations for her long-awaited musical comeback by dropping an intriguing hint during a recent live stream. The artist made it clear that her creative vaults contain a massive amount of unreleased material, numbering in the hundreds of tracks.
Fenty Math and Mysterious Vaults
During a Fenty Beauty live stream on TikTok Shop, the singer was asked how many unreleased tracks she keeps. Instead of giving a specific number, Rihanna used a metaphor, comparing her music archives to the Gloss Bomb Vault cosmetic set, which includes ten products. She stated that she has at least seventeen such "vaults." Fans quickly did the math and concluded that this could equate to roughly 170 songs, instantly sparking intense discussions across fan communities.
Conflicting Data
On one hand, the fan-calculated figure of 170 tracks is actively being circulated in the media as the confirmed volume of the artist's unreleased material. On the other hand, Rihanna herself did not explicitly state that she has exactly 170 fully completed songs. She did not specify the creation stage of these recordings, when they were made, or whether she plans to use them for her highly anticipated ninth album, unofficially dubbed 'R9' by fans.
Years of Waiting for the Ninth Album
To recap, the singer's last studio album, titled 'Anti,' was released back in January 2016. More than a decade has passed since then, during which fans have eagerly awaited the continuation of her discography. In 2025, Rihanna confessed that she had been regularly working in the studio for eight years but struggled for a long time to find the sound matching her personal evolution. Later, she announced that she had finally 'cracked the code' for the project, and in February and August 2026, both the singer and her partner A$AP Rocky confirmed her ongoing studio sessions.
Release Prospects
Despite the colossal amount of accumulated material and periodic hints at studio work, an official release date, exact title, or tracklist for the ninth album has still not been announced. Mentioning seventeen 'vaults' merely indicates the singer's rich creative reserve rather than guaranteeing an immediate release of a new record. In recent years, the artist has delighted fans only with rare singles, such as 'Lift Me Up' in 2022 and 'Friend of Mine' in 2025, leaving the question of a full-length album open.
