Rihanna ‘Anti’ album to drop on Friday?

Speculation is rife that Rihanna will drop her Anti album this Friday, November 27.

There is no official confirmation, but the word is it that Anti will make its debut on Jay-Z’s TIDAL on that day, with a wider release on December 4.

The Barbados-born singer has been frantically finishing off her eighth album in recent weeks. She blew out the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in New York on November 10 at the last minute because she was in the studio.

Tracks on the album include singles Bitch Better Have My Money, American Oxygen, FourFiveSeconds and possibly James Joint, Higher and A Night.

A new mobile site ANTIdiaRy posted a seven-second video with a montage of clues in an empty warehouse. It was set up with Samsung, who signed her to a US$25 million sponsorship covering her album and her 2016 world tour. She will promote its Galaxy products, and provide exclusive content for its Milk Music radio service.

In a series of ads run during last Sunday’s American Music Awards, Rihanna is seen carrying a Samsung S6 phone.

She is also surrounded by braille-like characters. The braille theme extends to the album cover artwork. A photo of Rihanna as a child, with a crown covering her eyes, is covered by a Chloë Mitchell poem in braille. “The whole idea behind the braille is that people who have sight are sometimes the people who are blindest,” she explained at an October gallery event she hosted in Los Angeles.

US media reports suggested that ex-boyfriend Chris Brown pushed back the November 27 release of his Royals album to December to avoid a clash.

Rihanna’s last album Unapologetic (2012) sold 4 million worldwide. Of this, 1.2 million were in the US where it entered at #1 (her first album chart topper there) and won a Grammy. In Australia it reached #8 on the ARIA chart and went platinum.

The Anti World Tour, announced on Monday on Instagram, begins in North America in February with Travis Scott as opener. The Weeknd and Big Sean join her for the European run.

Her Diamonds World Tour included 87 shows (84 of which were sold out) and grossed US$137.9 million. It was the fifth highest grossing worldwide tour of 2013, according to Billboard. The tour took in seven arena dates in Australia, between September 24 and October 4 that year.