Rihanna, ‘Black Panther,’ and the Panic of Anticipation

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The Navy must be losing their minds. Not the maritime wing of the US armed forces, but rather the internet collective of Rihanna stans, who found out this week that the singer is releasing her first song in six years on the soundtrack of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. That Navy is getting something they’ve been craving for a long time, even if it’s not her long-anticipated ninth album, the internet-dubbed #R9.

Funny thing, anticipation. (Or, for Rocky Horror Picture Show fans, antici—pation.) While Rihanna stans have been waiting for a new album since 2016’s ANTI, Marvel fans have been waiting for a sequel to Black Panther since it was released in early 2018. That wait got more prolonged and painful following the sudden death of Panther star Chadwick Boseman in 2020. On Wednesday, when news broke that Rihanna’s new song, “Lift Me Up,” out today, would be a tribute to Boseman, hope for the track reached new levels.

It’s a sin, it seems, to want something so much. Fears of jinxing loom large. Expecting greatness shows faith in artists, but great expectations are too easily dashed. A song meant to herald the return of one of the biggest pop stars of the 21st century and mourn the loss of one of its greatest actors is a massive feat. Then again, if anyone can do it, it’s Rihanna, especially when she’s on a song cowritten by Wakanda Forever director Ryan Coogler, Afrobeats star Tems, and Ludwig Göransson, the Swedish composer who won an Oscar for his Black Panther score.

It used to be that music dropped on Tuesdays, movies came out on Fridays, and TV shows launched in the fall. Some of that, particularly the movie release part, is still true, but with streaming and other digital media services, everything is now about the art of surprise. Ever since Netflix started dropping whole TV seasons at once and Beyoncé started dropping full albums, with visuals, seemingly out of the sky, fans have grown accustomed to never knowing when the next earth-shattering release will come.

And so, they scheme. While the surprise album may have started as a way for artists to drum up publicity in an era when physical release dates no longer mean much, they’ve also turned every fan into a mini-detective. The Navy clamors for any sign from Rihanna that new music is on the way. Beyoncé’s Beyhive will alert the internet the second she’s so much as changed her Instagram profile pic. Taylor Swift fans are also experts at licking a finger, sticking it in the air, and telling you which way the Swift wind is blowing. Meanwhile, the smartest artists feed their stans just enough hints to keep them interested. This is perhaps why so many seemed practically flummoxed when Swift just up and revealed track names for her new album Midnights on TikTok.

A few weeks ago I saw Carly Rae Jepsen play Radio City Music Hall. During her set, she reminded the crowd that her new album, The Loneliest Time, was coming out October 21, a date that “should be easy to remember because it’s the same day Taylor Swift is putting out her album,” she said, tossing her jacket on the ground in fake frustration. Jepsen’s release had gone the traditional route; she announced the album in early August, on Instagram, and spent weeks promoting it. Swift announced hers a few weeks later, on the MTV VMAs stage, and stole some of Jepsen’s thunder. But again, release dates aren’t everything—and Jepsen did launch a TikTok trend in spite of it.