To overcome the contemporary global pop star’s rite of passage, that is, to fill the few minutes of the Super Bowl break, there are artists who call many friends so as not to feel alone (Dr. Dre, 2022), move them incessantly (Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, 2020) or change their clothes so often that one forgets (Katy Perry, 2015). Rihanna, no. Rihanna chose to take it easy this Sunday at Glendale (Arizona) stadium, where the Kansas City Chiefs defeated Philadelphia (38-35) to win the NFL title.
Maybe it’s because, it turns out, she’s pregnant with her second child with rapper A$AP Rocky. His figure and this gesture of stroking his stomach at the beginning of the performance triggered an avalanche of comment and speculation, not exactly about his musical talent. When the world’s most visited mini-concert was over, the artist’s representative confirmed the suspicion.
Earlier, Rihanna had descended from the sky on a platform, clad in a red jumpsuit, adorned with an enviable poise and surrounded by dozens of dancers dressed to the nines who, yes, their shirts were sweating, scattered among other hydraulic devices that came down and she went up The star of the night gave the audience one of her feline looks and launched into an impassive homage to herself.
He sang a medley of his greatest hits without the help of his friends: Rude Boy, Wild Thoughts, Only Girl (In the World) or We Found Love fell, conveniently cut up before entering a coda that really sounded like proof. the Defiant: All of the Lights (sans Kanye West), Umbrella (sans Jay-Z), the song that made them famous nearly 20 years ago, and Diamonds.
During the 13-minute show, she strolled across the mobile stage like a model who had already shown everything. From time to time, the pulleys carried her back up into the sky to finally demonstrate that not only is she an artist with supernatural charisma and a voice capable of anything, but she is also completely free from giddiness.
He showed so much vigor and so much disinterest in living up to the expectations his performance had raised after seven years without a record release and five years without performing live that he ended up triumphing in the opposite direction. It was as if he had decided to risk everything. That letter said, “Hi, I’m Rihanna, if you don’t like what you see, that’s none of my problem.” And he liked it, boy did he like it. With every change of song, with every raised eyebrow, with every slight movement of the hips, the stadium went crazy.
While her fans waited for her, defoliating the daisies of her new album, an album she’s been recording too long and threatening to be titled R9, the singer has been exploring her facet as a businesswoman. To live up to that instinct, in the days leading up to the game he marketed a limited-edition T-shirt that read, “Rihanna’s concert interrupted by a soccer game, weird as it is.” So it wasn’t surprising that the only moment of her show where her gesture changed was to refresh her makeup with one of the cosmetic products she used to entertain her time away from music, a time when her Checking account did not stop increasing.
Nothing Rihanna did on the Super Bowl stage served to explain her change of heart when she agreed to participate in a show she’d turned down in the past due to America’s professional soccer league’s problematic handling of the issue of racism in the United States. Perhaps it helped that last year’s coveted break from playing a group of rappers led by Dr. Dre (who, yes, was calling all the pals he could), or maybe it had something to do with the first For Die time in history featuring the two title-contesting quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts, black players were
This week, Rihanna was asked why she changed her mind. He assured that “the right moment” had come. “If I leave my son at home [el primogénito, nacido el año pasado], let it be for something special. It was now or never for me,” he said. And in that, every mom (or dad) can be identified, which was seen on the Super Bowl stage: As the family grows, things get complicated, even if your name is Rihanna.
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