The Only Music Rihanna’s Singing Lately Is Songs for Her Kids

R9 may never come out, but Rihanna won’t let her singing talents go to waste.

In an Interview magazine feature published on Tuesday, April 9, the publication’s editor-in-chief, Mel Ottenberg, asked Rihanna, 36, what songs she sings to RZA and Riot, the two boys she shares with ASAP Rocky.

“Oh, my gosh. There’s ‘Penguins Salute,’” the pop star said. “There’s ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’ Oh, my gosh. RZA gets really emotional about that.”

Rocky and Rihanna’s 23-month-old son is also “really into ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,’” she explained. “‘The Wheels on the Bus’ is a favorite from the beginning till now,” she added. “That’s just a classic. It’s never going out of style. And oh, the new ‘Incy-Wincy Spider,’ because he gets like, ‘Ahh,’ like he thinks I’m going to tickle him when I sing that one. And he has a book about that, so he can put two and two together.”

While Ottenberg didn’t ask what Riot, 8 months, is into, the stylist did ask Rihanna whether she still has “the vibe to do music again” as the Savage x Fenty mogul seems to be interested in doing anything else but release her ninth studio album. Her last full-length release was 2016’s Anti.

“I have a lot of visual ideas. It’s weird,” said Rihanna. “My brain is working backward right now. I usually have the music first, and the music leads me into all of these visual opportunities, and now I’m having all of these visuals, and I don’t have the songs for them yet, but maybe that’s the key, this time. Maybe the visual ideas are leading me to the songs that I need to make.”

When Ottenberg suggested that this would be a creative “rebirth” for her, Rihanna said she’s entertaining “random ideas, quirky ideas [and] things that have nothing to do with me at all.”

“I mean, I can’t tell you,” she added. “The opps is watching.”

In March, Rihanna performed her first full concert in eight years. She played the pre-wedding party for the son of billionaire business tycoon Mukesh Ambani, according to the Associated Press. Ambani, called “India’s Richest Man,” held a 1,200-person celebration in Jamnagar, India, to commemorate the marriage of his youngest son, Anat, and businesswoman Radhika Merchant.

Rihanna reportedly played hits like “Work” and “Bitch Better Have My Money” while getting paid $6 million for the performance.

Before that, Rihanna’s most significant musical appearance was in February 2023 at the Super Bowl LVII halftime show. The event began with Rihanna revealing her baby bump, her way of announcing she was pregnant with her and Rocky’s second child. They welcomed Riot in August 2023.