Album Anniversaries: Navigating Authenticity with Rihanna’s 'ANTI'
ANTI, Rihanna’s eighth studio album, presents a simmering and raw portrait of a woman finally breaking free from the radio-friendly box she’s been in her entire career.
In Album Anniversaries, writers honor their favorite aging albums and their subsequent legacies, revealing which projects have stood the test of time.
Written by Minnah Zaheer
Image courtesy of Westbury Road and Roc Nation, LLC
When Rihanna first entered the music scene, she was only 16 years old. Eight records and over a decade later, the Rihanna rain just won’t let up — since her debut, she has earned nine Grammys (with 33 nominations in total) and become one of the world’s best-selling recording artists of all time.
On ANTI, Rihanna’s first album since leaving Def Jam and signing with Roc Nation, the artist makes the bold jump away from the pop music that until this point defined her career. Instead, she finds her groove in a more laid-back, hip-hop/R&B sound. Gone are the days of sex work anthems like “Pour It Up” and lyrics about BDSM in songs like “S&M” and “Rude Boy.” Here instead is a collection of personal songs, some of which mask their vulnerability with pop/island beats and others that forego the facade and desperately deliver their message from the surface.
The album opens up with a collaboration with rising star SZA, the effortless “Consideration.” Even the first beats of the song sound muffled, immediately setting the tone of ANTI apart from the rest of Rihanna’s work. Rihanna’s bouncing and casual voice in the verses is evocative of her trademark singing style, but her harmonizing with SZA on the lyrics “I’ve got to do things my own way, darlin’ / You should just let me / Why you ain’t ever let me grow?” teases the vocal skills Rihanna has been holding back her whole career and is finally ready to put on full display.
“James Joint” and “Kiss It Better,” the latter of which was released as a single and became a hit despite not being anywhere close to the typical sound of 2016 pop music, both continue to convey a more reserved yet revealing feeling. “James Joint” clocks in at just over a minute and and features minimal instrumentation behind Rihanna’s lyrics about smoking weed and enjoying time with her current man. The lyrics “Man, f--k your pride / Just take it on back boy, take it on back, boy” on “Kiss It Better” punctuate the song’s ‘80s R&B mood, and the track fades out on Rihanna’s skillful adlibs.
Despite being a radio-friendly smash hit, “Work” still finds a way to be innovative — its tropical, reggae-inspired sound brought dancehall music back into the mainstream after a long drought (the last dancehall song to top the Billboard Hot 100 was “Temperature” by Sean Paul in 2005).
One of the album’s sleepier hits, “Desperado” takes a dark tone, both musically and lyrically. The song is constructed with a deep minor chord melody, and the chorus ends on the lyrics, “There ain’t nothing here for me / But I don’t wanna be alone.” The next track, “Woo,” features inventive voice modulation and punctuating backing vocals from Travis Scott. “Needed Me,” another song with minimalist and vulnerable production, became a radio hit as well. In a year when songs like the bright and kid-friendly “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” by Justin Timberlake and the inconsequential “My House” by Flo Rida were topping the charts, Rihanna found a way to sneak a mellow song about a failed relationship and regaining self-confidence into the pop mainstream.
Serving as a transition into the latter half of the record, “Yeah, I Said It” continues the relaxed mood of the record while teasing what’s to come — towards the end of the song, Rihanna briefly sings in her higher register and delivers blows with the punch of her voice. The next track is a six-minute cover of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Ol’ Mistakes” (titled on ANTI as just “Same Ol’ Mistakes”). Nine tracks in, Rihanna finally starts to break through the reserve she’s held until this point with higher and more effortful notes. The slow, acoustic track “Never Ending” puts the vulnerability that’s hinted at throughout the record on full display: “It's pulling me apart, this time / Everything is never ending.”
Perhaps the most unique and surprisingly successful track on the entire record is the ballad “Love on the Brain,” in which Rihanna displays a massive range of vocal talent, from delicate pleading in her higher register to rounded, gritty and masterful belting in the chorus: “And babe, I’m fist-fighting with fire / Just to get close to you / Can we burn something, babe?” Live performances of the song cemented it as one of her most raw and vulnerable tracks to date and proved to the world that Rihanna is more than just a pop musician — she’s got a voice that doesn’t quit.
To cap off the record, “Higher” and “Close to You” show off two extremes of what ANTI has proven to us at this point. Violins back Rihanna’s most impressive display of Rihanna’s vocal ability on any song she’s ever released — the raspy yet controlled performance sees the singer conveying a myriad of conflicting emotions not just in the lyrics (“I wanna go back to the old way / But I'm drunk instead, with a full ashtray / With a little bit too much to say”), but also in the desperation and anguish in her voice. A slow, somber piano ballad, “Close to You” is both another display of Rihanna’s more vulnerable side and proof of the emotional complexity she’s finally prepared to show the world she has.
A few experimental bonus tracks, the chaotic but still cohesive “Pose,” the on-brand “Sex With Me,” and “Goodnight Gotham,” the instrumental redux of Florence + the Machine’s “Only If for a Night,” close off the album’s deluxe edition.
Since ANTI’s release, Rihanna launched the record-breakingly popular Fenty Beauty makeup line and became an ambassador to Barbados, her home country. It’s been an agonizing four years waiting for her next record — and her promise to release new music in 2019 has amounted to nothing — but if her new music is as groundbreaking as ANTI, we can rest assured that the wait will be worth every second.