Rihanna may have her hands busy in fashion and her uber successful Fenty Beauty line, but now the singer is ready to get back to the music.
Riri is gracing the June issue of Vogue magazine and is opening up on turning 30, embracing her body, her relationship with Drake and her new album, which will be a full dance-hall/reggae project.
With her next record—her ninth—Rihanna is moving the needle on her creative output all over again: She plans to make a reggae album. Though it’s too soon to name a full list of collaborators, one early influence may be Supa Dups, the Jamaican-born record producer who has worked with such dancehall greats as Beenie Man, Sean Paul, and Elephant Man.
If Rihanna had to name her favorite reggae artist of all time, though, it would have to be Bob Marley.
“I’m gonna sound like a real tourist when I tell you my top Bob songs,” she says, pausing to scroll through a playlist on her iPhone before rattling off many of his most beloved hits: “Three Little Birds,” “No Woman, No Cry,” and “Redemption Song,” a Marley classic she has covered on tour. It may surprise you to learn that of all the tunes in the reggae icon’s catalog, “Buffalo Soldier” is the one that resonates with Rihanna on a deeply personal level. The song’s theme of upheaval and displacement is a familiar refrain for the singer, who was whisked away from Barbados to New York within months of being discovered by record producer Evan Rogers at the tender age of sixteen.
Get into more of the quotes and images from the spread below.
ON DRAKE
“We don’t have a friendship now, but we’re not enemies either. It is what it is.”
ON NEW RELATIONSHIP: “I used to feel guilty about taking personal time, but I also think I never met someone who was worth it before.”
ON TURNING 30:
OK, so now that I’m 30, are there things I’m supposed to do?”
“Should I be worried? Should I be freezing my eggs? What do you do at 30?!”
ON VACATION: “Even mentally, just to be away from my phone, to be in the moment, that has been key for my growth. Now, when I come to work, I’m all in. Because before you know it, the years will go by. I’m glad I’m taking the time. I’m happy.”
ON FENTY BEAUTY: “As a black woman, I could not live with myself if I didn’t do that. But what I didn’t anticipate was the way people would get emotional about finding their complexion on the shelf, that this would be a groundbreaking moment.”
ON WEIGHT: “You’ve just got to laugh at yourself, honestly. I mean, I know when I’m having a fat day and when I’ve lost weight. I accept all of the bodies. I’m not built like a Victoria’s Secret girl, and I still feel very beautiful and confident in my lingerie.”
ON BEING A ROLE MODEL: “That title was put on me when I was just finding my way, making mistakes in front of the world. I didn’t think it was fair. Now I understand the concept, but at that time I was the same age as the girls who were looking up to me. And that’s a really hard place to be in as a teenager.”
ON HER LINGERIE LINE: “Savage is really about taking complete ownership of how you feel and the choices you make. Basically making sure everybody knows the ball is in your court. As women, we’re looked at as the needy ones, the naggy ones, the ones who are going to be heartbroken in a relationship. Savage is just the reverse. And you know, guys don’t like getting the cards flipped on them—ever.”
ON HER COUSIN’S DEATH: “I really hugged my cousin the night before he died; I didn’t know why. Now each time I hug somebody lately, I hug them like it’s the last time. That may be my biggest life lesson, not to wait on anything, not even tomorrow. Tomorrow is too late in my opinion.”
View more snaps HERE.
