{"id":62561,"date":"2026-04-15T19:37:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T19:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/15\/rihanna-becomes-first-woman-to-pass-200-million-singles-certifications\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T19:37:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T19:37:01","slug":"rihanna-becomes-first-woman-to-pass-200-million-singles-certifications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/15\/rihanna-becomes-first-woman-to-pass-200-million-singles-certifications\/","title":{"rendered":"Rihanna Becomes First Woman to Pass 200 Million Singles Certifications"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tDespite <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-features\/rihanna-anti-10-year-anniversary-1235502582\/\">not releasing a new album<\/a> in the past decade, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/rihanna\/\" id=\"auto-tag_rihanna\" data-tag=\"rihanna\">Rihanna<\/a> just became the first woman in the history of the music industry to surpass 200 million RIAA singles certifications. And she\u2019s third on <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.riaa.com\/gold-platinum\/?tab_active=top_tallies&amp;ttt=TAS#search_section\">the all-time list,<\/a> topped only by Drake and Morgan Wallen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tHer total now stands at 200.5 million units. Drake holds the top spot with 277.5 million, and Wallen is below him at 215 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIn the pre-digital era, the RIAA \u2014 the trade organization which certifies gold, platinum, and diamond sales and streaming awards \u2014 simply tabulated the number of physical singles that were shipped to retailers. Once iTunes came online, it measured paid downloads of songs. And in the modern age, it counts 150 on-demand streams as the equivalent of a single purchase of a digital music file. That explains why the chart is topped by streaming-age superstars like Drake, Wallen, Rihanna, Kanye West, Beyonc\u00e9, and Luke Combs, while titans of past eras like Queen and Michael Jackson are far below.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut the chart-toppers are all active recording artists. Rihanna hasn\u2019t released an album or toured\u00a0since 2016, though she did play the Super Bowl halftime show in 2023, and performs at the occasional private event. She also recorded \u201cLift Me Up\u201d for the 2022 movie <em>Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,<\/em> and \u201cFriends of Mine\u201d for 2025\u2019s <em>Smurfs.<\/em> She managed to surpass the 200 million single certification mark simply on the durability of her catalog. Year after year, classics like \u201cUmbrella,\u201d \u201cOnly Girl (In the World),\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t Stop the Music,\u201d and \u201cWe Found Love\u201d rack up astronomical numbers. \u00a0<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ recirculation-modules trending-in-article lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Rihanna - We Found Love ft. Calvin Harris\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tg00YEETFzg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tRihanna has been slowly working on her ninth album for several years. She initially told fans it was going to be \u201creggae-inspired,\u201d but later backed away from that. \u201cThere\u2019s no genre now,\u201d <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.harpersbazaar.com\/culture\/art-books-music\/a63741955\/rihanna-motherhood-music-dior-campaign-interview-2025\/\">she told <em>Harper\u2019s Bazaar <\/em>in 2025.<\/a> \u201cThat\u2019s why I waited. Every time, I was just like, \u2018No, it\u2019s not me. It\u2019s not right. It\u2019s not matching my growth. It\u2019s not matching my evolution. I can\u2019t do this. I can\u2019t stand by this. I can\u2019t perform this for a year on tour.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tOnce the record finally comes out, it could put her in position to surpass Drake and Wallen and have more single certifications than any artist in history.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/rihanna-first-woman-200-million-riaa-singles-1235547777\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite not releasing a new album in the past decade, Rihanna just became the first woman in the history of the music industry to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":62562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}