We’ve been waiting all year for Rihanna’s 8th album. A couple of months ago, she confirmed that the album would be called Anti. Then, yesterday, she announced a world tour starting in February in North America. In June she’ll move over to Europe. The tour will conclude in August in Zurich. You know Rihanna. With Rihanna there’s always an aesthetic. Here’s a preview of what the Anti Tour will look like:
LOVE it.
But you can’t tour without new material, right? Which means that the album has to drop soon. Some are speculating it’s coming this Friday, Black Friday, first exclusively on Tidal for a week, and then wide on December 4th. If that’s true, it would give two weeks for Adele’s 25 to settle before Rihanna comes in in time for Christmas shopping. I don’t hate this strategy but for it to work, Rihanna has to give it a monster push if she wants to see some big numbers. The biggest number this year is and will be Adele. We’re still waiting on the final result but it might get close to 3 million. The second biggest number in first week sales of 2015 belongs to Justin Bieber’s Purpose, almost 550,000 copies sold. That’s very, very strong. And he hustled the sh-t out of it. So if Rihanna wants to approach that neighbourhood, and she’s definitely capable of it, she has to really giv’er. And, of course, most importantly, the material has to be there. Rumour has it, the reason the album kept getting delayed is because they were trying to find more solid radio tracks to follow up on Bitch Better Have My Money. If Anti is indeed coming out in a few days, we’ll need to hear one of those soon.
As for the tour…
The Weeknd and Big Sean will join her in Europe. Travis Scott will open for her in North America. As you know, she and Travis have been spending a lot of time together the last few months. They were just together this weekend in New York, photographed after leaving Jay Z’s 40/40 Club where they watched the Cotto Alvarez fight. Can they stay together through the next few months and during the tour? What happens if they can’t?
