Rihanna’s ANTI Is Still Her Most Honest Work, 10 Years Later

There are albums that arrive that rating an period of an artist’s profession, but ANTI came in and redefined one. The music temper in 2016 was chaotic and club- or festival-centered, and, identical to that, Rihanna emerged with a sonic outcry that slowly and intentionally turned away from it. Known for her radio anthems, Rihanna moved away from Pop pageantry with ANTI. A girl sounding completely bored with being understood.

There have been already seven albums beneath Robyn Fenty’s belt by that point, and her identify was Pop forex. Now, Rihanna had entered a brand new section with out the strain of pleasing the machine that helped her develop. Her Def Jam contract was accomplished, and the business had run her dry. This time, she wasn’t making one thing merely to please the general public. She was constructing a world she might reside in. ANTI was intimate and unconventional. We noticed Rihanna’s refusal to provide Pop the simple hooks and neatly packaged personas it was used to extracting from her.

After years of an album-a-year tempo, Rihanna took a breath. There, she made one thing uncompromising.

ANTI‘s artistic course of stretched over a number of years and continents. She labored with acquainted names, together with producers like Jeff Bhasker, Boi-1da, Hit-Boy, Mustard, and No I.D. She additionally reunited with vocal producer Kuk Harrell, who’d helped polish her greatest hits. On ANTI, the polish wasn’t the purpose. Tracks like “Same Ol’ Mistakes,” a Tame Impala cowl that Rih recorded in Paris, leaned closely on psychedelia. There was a throbbing distortion on “Woo,” and “James Joint” was barely greater than a minute lengthy, however it lingers. The album moved on extra of a sense, not a method.

At its core, ANTI is self-rebellion. Rihanna deserted the hit-chasing that outlined a lot of her early success. There weren’t large, calculated membership bangers. She returned with ballads like “Love on the Brain,” pushed by Doo-Wop affect, and “Higher,” a observe that included intentional imperfections that made it human.

Moreover, “Consideration” doesn’t unfold like a standard opener. It would not look like it is making an attempt to welcome you in. Produced by Boi-1da and that includes SZA, the observe carries the strain of an artist declaring her autonomy. “I bought to do issues my very own manner,” Rihanna calls for.

“Needed Me” would be the closest factor ANTI has to a radio report, subsequent to the Drake-assisted “Work,” however even that feels unintentional. Mustard’s manufacturing is haunting, leaving Rihanna’s supply icy and distant. The observe went on to turn out to be Rihanna’s twenty eighth Top 10 single. Further, all through ANTI, her vocals tackle a brand new texture. “Didn’t they let you know that I used to be a savage?” continues to fortunately torment playlists at this time.

It was apparent that this wasn’t a standard Pop album. It was experimental R&B with an edge, reflecting the place Rihanna was mentally and professionally.

When ANTI dropped, it didn’t instantly get the flowers it deserved. Critics have been confused, and Pop radio didn’t know what to do with it. This wasn’t the shiny, cookie-cutter Rihanna they have been used to. There was no “We Found Love” or “Where Have You Been,” no EDM hooks designed for the summer season competition circuit. Instead, she gave them “James Joint” and “Desperado.”

Still, the numbers caught up. ANTI debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was licensed Platinum inside days. This was thanks in part to a Samsung deal that gave away one million copies without spending a dime. Soon, critics re-evaluated. What appeared jarring on the primary hear revealed layers in songs like “Needed Me” or within the intimacy of “Same Ol’ Mistakes.” There was an ache in “Love on the Brain.” The complicated undertaking was now a traditional. Today, the album has spent over 500 weeks on the Billboard 200, turning into one of many longest-charting albums by a Black feminine artist.

Meanwhile, “Work” with Drake additionally reached No. 1 and stayed there for 9 weeks. An anomaly on the report, its tropical vibe and hypnotic refrain felt nearly unintentional subsequent to the remainder of the album.

In retrospect, ANTI reshaped how followers and the business understood Rihanna. It freed her from the strain of the Pop machine and highlighted her artistry exterior the singles charts. It additionally modified the blueprint for what R&B and Pop albums by Black ladies might sound like within the 2010s. Artists like SZA, Summer Walker, Jorja Smith, and even Beyoncé’s Renaissance period owe one thing to the sonic dangers Rihanna took on ANTI.

Compared to albums like Good Girl Gone Bad or Loud, which chased hits and took over the charts, ANTI felt like a refusal. She didn’t need to play that sport anymore. Unlike Unapologetic, which nonetheless flirted with mainstream, ANTI nonetheless stands as her most cohesive, difficult, and full physique of labor. The proven fact that she (STILL) hasn’t launched one other album since solely intensifies its legacy. Truthfully, Rihanna hasn’t been silent as a result of ANTI stated greater than sufficient.

At the time, Rihanna was years faraway from the shiny blueprint of her early albums. Her earlier undertaking, Unapologetic, dropped in 2012 and featured hits like “Diamonds” and “Pour It Up.” That album was constructed within the aftermath of public scrutiny, heartbreak, and a unending public gaze that stored her identify in headlines. ANTI didn’t carry that very same weight as a result of it wasn’t as reactive.

Rihanna had simply cut up from Def Jam and moved under Roc Nation management, giving her extra artistic company. She was additionally publicly pivoting together with her trend model, which was starting to make waves. Endorsements have been in all places, and after years of being considered one of Pop’s most dissected stars, typically analyzed for every thing from her relationships to her physique, Rihanna was lastly working on her personal phrases.

She additionally wasn’t making an attempt to show something. By the time 2016 got here round, she’d already bought over 200 million information worldwide. There have been more No. 1 singles on her again than most artists rack up in a lifetime. Still, ANTI was about constructing one thing that didn’t require approval. For the primary time, she let the music come to her as an alternative of chasing what the business anticipated.

Then, following ANTI, Rihanna left the social gathering with the lights on and the audio system nonetheless buzzing. In the years because the album’s launch, her silence has turn out to be a part of its delusion of what is on the horizon. Every award present she skips on, each cryptic interview with obscure solutions, each Fenty launch that’s not a brand new tune feeds right into a cultural fixation of pelting Rih with the query, When is the subsequent album coming?

Last 12 months, she instructed Harper’s Bazaar that the path of her highly anticipated upcoming phantom album is impressed by ANTI. “I believe music is my freedom. I simply got here to that realization,” she stated, including that she “simply cracked the code on what I actually need to do for my subsequent physique of labor.”

Where most artists cycle by means of eras, Rihanna let ANTI breathe. While fans begged for new work, the album continued to reside on, charting quietly and popping up on “better of the last decade” lists. The longer she stayed away, the louder ANTI turned.

In a manner, Rihanna’s refusal to comply with ANTI with one other album solely deepened its impression and lore. It compelled individuals to return to it and sit with what it was making an attempt to say lengthy earlier than they have been prepared to listen to it. That’s the sort of weight that solely a assured artist, one in full management of her narrative, can pull off.