It’s not R9, but it still counts for something! Rihanna is set to release her first song in nearly three years this week as part of the upcoming Smurfs movie soundtrack. The star will drop “Friend of Mine” on Friday, May 16.
A snippet of the song was featured in the new trailer that dropped on Wednesday. Based on what can be heard in the clip, “Friend of Mine” finds the musician singing over an Afrobeats-sounding dance track, “You’re looking like a friend of mine.” The new teaser opens with a shot of Rihanna dancing in the studio as she records the track.
Along with providing music for the film, Rihanna is also the voice of Smurfette. She stars alongside John Goodman, James Corden, Nick Offerman, Sandra Oh, and more in the film, set for a July 18 release date. The soundtrack, meanwhile, will also feature Tyla and the track “Higher Love” by DJ Khaled, Cardi B, and DESI TRILL, which dropped in February.
“Friend of Mine” will mark Rihanna’s first release since 2022’s “Lift Me Up” from the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack. She hasn’t dropped an album since 2016’s Anti.
While “Friend of Mine” is sure to holdover fans eagerly awaiting her ninth studio album for a bit, it’ll only be a matter of time before they’re clamoring for more. Rihanna last provided a real update on her potential next album in February, saying she was “feeling really optimistic” about the music she had been working on.
“This feels right. It feels like it digs right into where I need to be, and I want this. This body needs to come out, and I’m ready to go there. This is becoming my new freedom, because when I’m in the studio, I know that my time away from my kids is to blossom something that hasn’t been watered in eight years. I’ve been in the studio the whole eight years. But it didn’t hit me. I was searching for it,” she said.
She continued, “I went through phases of what I wanted to do. ‘This kind of album, not that album.’ I know it’s not going to be anything that anybody expects. And it’s not going to be commercial or radio digestible. It’s going to be where my artistry deserves to be right now. I feel like I’ve finally cracked it, girl!”
