Rihanna marks the fifth anniversary of her classic album, ANTI.
The artist shared her gratitude to her loyal fans, who she calls #Navy, for the success of her album ANTI, which had its 5th anniversary today.
In a post on Instagram, the artist said, “thank you navy! #5yearsofANTI #ANTIversary,” along with a video to the soundtrack of “Work” and snippets from each single with current numbers for them. The video noted that ANTI peaked at No. 1 song on Billboard Hot 200 Albums in its first week, and it has more than 15 billion streams worldwide. The song ‘Work’, which emerged as the hit single, sold 32.5 million singles worldwide.
Her other songs also recorded impressive numbers with ‘Needed Me’ selling 17 million copies, ‘Kiss it Better’ 5.5 million, ‘Love on the Brain’ 15 million, ‘Sex with me’ 4.5 million, and ‘Desperado’ 3.5 million, all singles sold worldwide to Rihanna’s diverse fan base.
ANTI was Rihanna’s last album, and fans spared no opportunity to troll her for new music as they asked, “so you remember that you used to sing.”
In spite of not being on the music scene, Rihanna has still managed to accomplish quite a few feats with the ANTI album as it is among the most streamed in the United States. Of the 16 track album, ‘Work’ and ‘Needed Me’ has been streamed more than 2.4 Billion times. Rihanna is also among the most streamed female artists globally and is the first woman artist to surpass 2 billion streams on Apple Music. She was also the most-streamed artist on Spotify, only beaten out by Ariana Grande in 2020 for the coveted spot.
Meanwhile, the artist has been quiet on the scene since her last album, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t making moves as she launched several new fashion and beauty companies- Savagex Fenty, Fenty Beauty, which is currently valued around $3 billion, Fenty, and also Fenty Skin has a similar market value of $3 billion with annual sales in excess of $500 million.
Forbes has estimated that the talented artist of Caribbean descent is very near billionaire status. While fans are clamoring for new music, it seems that the four years Rihanna took to step out into the business world has been worth it, especially since sales reports show that her companies have record sales since the pandemic started.
All of this might be attributed to Rihanna’s personality but also to her brand’s broad focus on fashion for all sizes and shapes of women, not only skinny women like how some brands like Victoria Secret have operated in a niche. Her skin and makeup lines are also among the first luxury products created by and for black women and women of color- something that has been a major selling point for Rihanna, who is the main face of her businesses. Her business idea to tap into an unserved market has surely reaped the rewards.
On the music end, she has teased that she is working on a dancehall-inspired studio album that involves a range of voices in the genre, but she has not offered a date for when it is going to be dropped, although fans believe the album is overdue from 2020.
