For the first time in over seven years, Rihanna is helping to bring back New Music Friday. The 34-year-old winner of nine Grammy Awards released her new single “Lift Me Up” at midnight on Friday. It’s her first solo work since her 2016 album Anti.
“Lift me up/Hold me down/Keep me close/Safe and sound,” Rihanna sings in the chorus.
The song is a tribute to the late actor Chadwick Boseman. It is on the soundtrack of the movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. In August 2020, at age 43, the Black Panther hero died of colon cancer.
“After talking with Ryan and hearing his ideas for the film and the song, I wanted to write something that felt like a warm hug from all the people I’ve lost in my life. I thought about what it would be like to sing to them today and tell them I miss them so much. Tems, who wrote the song with Rihanna, Ludwig Goransson, and director Ryan Coogler, says, “Rihanna has been an inspiration to me, so it’s a great honor to hear her sing this song.”
Rihanna hinted about the song earlier in the week, and on Thursday, she posted a black-and-white photo with the song’s release date.
She went to the premiere of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever with her boyfriend A$AP Rocky in Los Angeles on Wednesday, just a few days before the song came out. It was the first time the couple had been on the red carpet since their first child, a boy, was born in May.
Fans of the woman who started Fenty Beauty have been waiting for “Lift Me Up” for a long time. Since Anti, her eighth studio album, they haven’t heard any new solo music from her. She did, however, sing on “Believe It” by PartyNextDoor in 2020 and “Lemon” by N.E.R.D. in 2017.
In May, the “Work” singer told Vogue that Anti is still her “best album to date” and that she is not trying to top it while she works on new songs.
I’m not doing anything at all like I had planned for my next project. “This method seems to work much better for me,” she said. “It’s real, it’ll be fun for me, and it relieves a lot of stress.”
Rihanna is set to sing at the Super Bowl Halftime Show early next year. It is not clear what else she has planned.
Rihanna is one of the most talented people of her generation. She comes from a humble background but has always done better than expected. A person who was born on the small island of Barbados and became one of the best painters in the world. Businessman and performer who made his own money. The Hollywood Reporter says that JAY-Z said in a statement that he had made a deal with the NFL to be in charge of the league’s musical entertainment.
Rihanna was seen leaving a music studio in New York City soon after the news came out.
