Rihanna has confirmed that she turned down the opportunity to headline February’s Super Bowl halftime show in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick.
Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Kaepernick has been out of job since 2016 after he started kneeling during the national anthem to raise awareness about police brutality against blacks and other racial injustices.
In an interview with Vogue, Rihanna admits she denied the NFL’s offer to stand in camaraderie with Kaepernick whose controversial national anthem boycott made waves in the news for days unending. Some may say her actions threw shade on Jay Z, her former mentor.
“I couldn’t dare do that. For what? Who gains from that? Not my people,” RiRi stated. “I just couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way.”
The Grammy award-winning artist has, meanwhile, made history as the first black woman to have six solo covers on American Vogue. She was initially tied with Shari Belafonte with five solo covers.
Beyoncé and Lupita Nyong’o follow closely with four solo covers each. The singer and fashion mogul tweeted Wednesday her November 2019 cover with Vogue with the caption:
“So proud to be on another cover of @voguemagazine wearing my own designs from @fenty !!! On stands October 16th!”
Her interview with Vogue also bothered around her much-anticipated 10th studio album release and her fashion brand Fenty
Fans have been pestering the 31-year-old singer for her reggae-inspired album release date. The wait is over as she confirmed to Vogue that the release date is looming without being specific.
She said, “it’s not gonna be typical of what you know as reggae. But you’re going to feel the elements in all of the tracks.” Rihanna added, “Reggae always feels right to me. It’s in my blood.”
One might think her new entrepreneurial duties with her fashion brand has her too occupied or even distracted with her music, but she confirmed with the magazine that quitting music is not in her playbook.
“Music is, like, speaking in code to the world, where they get it. It’s the weird language that connects me to them. … To cut that off is to cut my communication off. All of these other things flourish on top of that foundation.”
On the Vogue November cover, Rihanna wears Fenty Maison but she told Vogue she certainly isn’t the face of her brand although every bit of it is inspired by her.
“I’m not the face of my brand, but I am the muse, and my DNA has to run all the way through it,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to pull up my website and think, Rihanna would never wear that.”
Jahleel Weaver, Fenty Maison’s style director, told Vogue that as the brand is highly inspired by the Barbados beauty, it had to be as versatile as Rihanna’s style which is not one dimensional.
He recalled her saying “It’s kind of all over the place. But I get it ’cause I’m all over the place. Every woman isn’t Rihanna, but many women relate to her all-over-the-place-ness.
“She is fearless, but she is also a businesswoman. She’s a girlfriend. She’s a friend. She’s all of these things.”
