Rihanna has left fans divided after releasing new music for the first time in three years.
The nine-time Grammy winner recorded the song “Friend of Mine”, in which she sings a repeated main verse across a bassy afro house-inspired dance beat, for the soundtrack of the upcoming Smurfs film. The singer also voices the character Smurfette in the forthcoming movie, released in the UK on 18 July.
She sings: “Just met you tonight, but you feel like a friend of mine / Feel like a friend of mine, feel like a friend of mine / Like a friend of mine, feel like a friend of mine.”
Rihanna makes a brief appearance in the accompanying music video as she struts around a field of mushrooms while carrying an over-sized flower, before disappearing inside a magical hut.
The “Rude Boy” singer last released music in 2022 for the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack, and has appeared on singles alongside PARTYNEXTDOOR (in 2020) and N.E.R.D (in 2018) but has not released a new album since her acclaimed 2016 record Anti, which featured hits such as “Work” and “Kiss It Better”.
Fans have been eagerly awaiting a follow-up ever since, but she has spent much of the last seven years focused on her makeup and lifestyle lines under her Fenty brands: Fenty Beauty, Fenty Hair and Savage X Fenty.
The new release has left fans divided on social media and many have claimed it’s another sign that the singer won’t be releasing a new album for some time.
Some fans praised the song for its strong beat and catchiness, with one person writing on X/Twitter: “They put something in these kids songs to have them hooked cause the song [has] been stuck in my head for the last two hours.”
Another joked: “It’s been 84 years… Been waiting since the dinosaurs roamed. But honestly, a crumb is a crumb. I’ll take it. She still sounds like magic. Worth every second.”
However, others were more critical, as one fan wrote: “Just woke up and I played that new Rihanna song and um yikes…who approved that.” Another added: “I can't believe I waited for this.”
One commenter claimed that Navy – the name of the singer’s fanbase – “is never getting another Rihanna album. This is it for her. She don’t sound like she really in it. Maybe a Rihanna album was the friends we made along the way”.
The Smurfs movie, also starring John Goodman, James Corden and Octavia Spencer, follows the blue humanoid creatures living at Smurf Village as they band together to rescue Papa Smurf, who has been captured by an evil wizard.
When announcing the film back in 2023 at CinemaCon, Rihanna – who was pregnant with her second son, Riot Rose, at the time – told the audience of the recording process: “I get to show up in my PJs in my third trimester…I hope this gives me cool points with my kids one day.”
The singer, who shares sons RZA, three, and Riot Rose, one, with her partner A$AP Rocky, revealed earlier this month that they are expecting a third child.
There is still hope for another Rihanna album in the future, though – back in June 2024, the singer said she was “starting over” to work on her long-awaited ninth album.
“Music, for me, is a new discovery,” she told Entertainment Tonight at an event for her Fenty Hair range. “I’m rediscovering things. I have been working on the album for so long that I kinda just put all that stuff aside. Now I’m prepared to go back in the studio. Now, I’m prepared. So I’m going to start...”
Asked if that means she is “starting over” her work on the album, she agreed: “Yeah, starting over, but I don’t want to neglect the songs that I have. I want to actually go back and listen to stuff with new ears, with my new perspective, and then see what applies and what I still am in love with.”
