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ANTI is the eighth studio album by recording artist Rihanna, it was scheduled to be released through Roc Nation and Westbury Road.
Development
The span gap between Rihanna's last studio album, Unapologetic and Anti is the longest wait between records in her music career. On October 8, 2014, she posted a picture of herself in the studio, working on the album. American singer Ne-Yo, and also her frequent collaborator, in an interview with Capital Xtra on November 11, regarding Anti said, "The stuff I've heard is absolutely incredible. I can’t speak on what it sounds like because I’ll get in trouble. But I definitely feel like people are gonna enjoy it. Anybody that's a Rihanna fan is gonna stay a Rihanna fan, and anybody that's not might become a Rihanna fan … just gear up for it." On November 19, 2014, while on the red carpet for the premiere of director Andrew Jenks documentary, It's Not Over, Rihanna told Entertainment Tonight, that her album should come out "very soon". She further said, "I'm really excited about the music that we've been working on, so I can't wait for people to hear it."
Rihanna invited "hundreds" of her fans in Paris to participate in a promotional video shot on December 18, 2014. It was reported that the clip might be associated with the release of Anti. On January 21, 2015, American rapper Kanye West made a surprise appearance at the iHeartMedia Music Summit, where he spoke about his career, played a few upcoming songs, and concluded with a collaboration with Rihanna that "featured acoustic guitar and a big, soaring chorus and melody with a massive hook. He then slammed his laptop shut and walked offstage to a standing ovation". Earlier, on January 2, recording artist and producer Ty Dolla Sign gave an interview to Billboard magazine where it revealed that he, West, Rihanna and English musician Paul McCartney worked on a track together, which was yet to receive its final title.
On February 8, 2015, during his Grammy Awards red carpet interview, West explained how the collaboration came to fruition: "I'm executive producer of Rihanna's album, and I said I'd done a few songs with Paul McCartney and she couldn't get past this record. She had to have it on her album. … So now we at the Grammys doing it". West further compared Rihanna's vocals on the song to that of Scottish singer Annie Lennox: "I feel like she has this type of energy in her vocals. And she even brought it to another level of like soul and heart and artistry". During a press for Home, on March 16, Rihanna told MTV News that she recorded a lot of songs for the album, "that are really, really big songs. From the jump, they just blow up. And I wanted to kind of get back to—not that they weren't real music, but I just wanted to focus on things that felt real, that felt soulful, that felt forever." She also stated that she wanted to record songs that could be "timeless" and she could perform them in a span of 15 years, "Not any songs that were burnt out. I find that when I get on stage now, I don't want to perform a lot of my songs. They don’t feel like me." In an interview with V magazine, Rihanna described the album as both "soulful" and "aggressive" at the same time whether is in a musical, lyrical or vocal context.
Album Tracklist
The 13 songs recorded for the album released on Tidal:
- Consideration (feat. SZA) 2:41
- James Joint 1:12
- Kiss It Better 4:13
- Work (feat. Drake) 3:40
- Desperado 3:07
- Woo (feat. Travis Scott) 3:58
- Needed Me 3:12
- Yeah, I Said It 2:13
- Same Ol' Mistakes 6:37
- Never Ending 3:23
- Love On The Brain 3:44
- Higher 2:01
- Close To You 3:43
- Goodnight Gotham 1:28
- Pose 2:24
- Sex With Me 3:26